Water Falls
A
Short Story by Stephen Geez
www.StephenGeez.com
Photo by Scott Watson
www.printroom.com/pro/swatsonphoto
Water falls.
Sun rises. Trees reach. Blooms lure. Birds call.
People connect.
An old woman drives muddy spoors, dual-tracked ruts wending through dense undergrowth. High-fiving branches scrape paint, her cute little coupe ill-suited for penetrating dark forest deep in the peninsula above that mighty bridge. Magician’s-box swords of sharp sunlight stab the gloom. Leaves turn and reach. An urgent rivulet slaps rocks. Water falls.
A log blocks her way. Brush fills gaps. Scattered trash looks embarrassed. No space to turn around, she kills the engine, then steps out and locks the doors, pretending it might somehow deter thieves here where nobody watches or listens. Even such pretenses of prudence and precaution ease need to worry, at least until bigger fears remind and distract.
Seventy-one, surely too old to hike alone, she carries her water bottle, plus fanny-packed snack, keys, and ID. No casual stroll, this way takes her where she needs to go.
Sporadic ruts narrow to barely discernible foot-trail. Stopping to rest on a large stone, she remembers. The dank rot of composting earth settles in her belly, worms rising in the gently turned soil of her grandparents’ garden, buried seeds sensing their time to reach for light. Pine pollen tickles her nose and teases her throat, that dense stand of regal evergreens climbing the hill behind their cabin, brown needles shagging the carpet of forest floor, cones in a rubbish fire popping like firecrackers and Indian corn.
And the water.
Dew-drops and leaf-drips and mud-trickles and stone-polishing streams—she can taste them all. The river calls, its skulking mist probing the shadows, reaching out, reminding. A single droplet from that first summer at Grammie and Grampie’s getaway has circled the world her whole life, but now it finds its way back, back to the river, back to the waterfall, back to what she knows.
She never expected to see this place again, but the phone rang and words stunned. She stopped eating. Two days passed. Empty inside, she searched inward for connection, then faced the truth and drove all night—pricey gas, cheap motel, stale bagel, warm shower, somber clothes, polite comments, a glance into that long polished box, tears falling even though nothing real about him still dwelled in the part they had dressed up and laid out. Expected to linger and pay ritual respects, she fled instead to the woods, begging him to save her, knowing he could no longer try.
Maybe she has a plan, but dares not wonder what it might be, the simplest way to avoid summoning those lurking fears.
A fat beetle trundles past her foot. Leaves rustle. Water drips.
She wonders if anybody else ever rested on this isolated rock, some lost soul pausing to watch and listen until lonesomeness grows unbearable, that illusion of being the only one left so real now that even crowds make it that much worse. A solemn procession of cars is wending its way toward the distant rise south of town, but she hurries deeper into the woods, pushing herself too hard.
Breaths labor. Heart pounds. Squirrels pause to watch and wait.
Will she ever find the river, ever find the falls? She tries to forget worries about diagnoses, money, incapacity, obligations, indifferent caretakers neglecting what remains of the man she married and sometimes even loved, who kept her even though their babies never lived, who accepted—without truly understanding—her long-distance friendship with that other man who always somehow remained the boy she met across the river that summer they both celebrated their tenths.
She pushes on, exhaustion helping her forget.
Perspiration beads and trickles. Water sings. Mists encircle.
And tea-colored river suddenly appears, right there, swift and cold, telling her she’s found her way back. Locks on 36-payment car doors don’t matter now because she will never leave this place.
She picks her way along the bank and finds where the cabin had stood until raging fires consumed it some four decades ago. The forest reclaimed its land, covering it with new growth, leaving scant telltale signs. There, a tumble of rocks betrays the old cistern. Across the water, pinkish stone slabs rise toward the ghost of long-missing swing-bridge, an unconfirming insinuation that three more cabins might once have lined the low ridge. She pictures the smallest, far right, where he’d come that summer with his uncle to celebrate, not just his first double-digit birthday, but the luck in a childhood nurtured by uncontested love. Never had he felt alone or worried nobody would care; and from that first meeting until his last breath, he’d given her the same assurance, especially when she could find it nowhere else, even when they forgot to talk.
Crickets summon. Birds argue. Temperature rises.
The river still looks familiar, except its red rocks and slabs of rose shale have been pushed around, the furniture rearranged. Distracted the time they first met, family quarrels and broken promises weighing hard, she slipped and plunged in, thrashing wildly, swept away. That brown-haired boy with the mischievous cowlick jumped after her, but instead of pulling her out, he simply held on and let the water take them, teaching her feet-forward, butt-down, hands-ready, eyes-wide. If you fight the pull, it’ll give you to the rocks; trust it, and it will carry you on.
He kept her head above water again three months later when she called cross-country to cry about Daddy having gone, then for many summers afterward as they body-surfed the rapids, there in the river where she learned how to forget fear, if only for a time.
Friends take turns letting go of everything but one another, floating through those moments of trusting the other to watch for rocks.
Water never worries. Water collects, water flows, water falls.
She wants to slip in right now, to let the current carry her away, to prove that no one remains who can save her . . . but not here. This is not the place. She climbs over brush, then ducks branches, following the river, still fascinated by how fluid determination always finds its way. Water needs no one.
Her sixteenth year, winter stretched too long while anxiety loomed too large, and when she couldn’t fight it anymore, she resorted to hurting herself, only a few times, not too much to keep secret. The realness of that pain, the confirmation in a smear of blood, had proven more manageable than relentlessly dreading the unknown; but even that never seemed as true as riding the river, and the next morning always brought with it even greater anxiety, the secret terror of knowing she came that much closer this time, so close to going too far.
Only he discovered what she had done, and seeing the scars made him cry. It never occurred to her that he could be afraid of anything, but in his eyes she saw not fear for himself, not for the friend he loved, but for the realization that sharp rocks can hide deep inside, that maybe no amount of feet-forward butt-down hands-ready eyes-wide could save her, and that a time might come when even he might fail to hold her head above water. She took his innocence that day, but he proved then and for the fifty-odd years since that he would never let her ride the currents alone, even when a thousand miles kept them apart, even living separate lives in different worlds.
Now she stands before the river. Tears fall, blurring the vision even as they focus the memory. How different is a naive young teen embracing pain to fight fear, from an old woman chasing her fears in a bid to end the pain?
She moves along until she recognizes those stairstep pools descending toward the falls. A long-forgotten but still-familiar roar reverberates from the sunken glen below. The final upper pool is widest, flat and serene, unsuspecting of what fate awaits its waters. It reflects the wispy white clouds, their blue backdrop tinting the tannin-stained surface, its rocky bottom lost and irrelevant, dark danger masked by the misleading reassurance of light. Rose-colored shale piles along the shore, then channels the overspill through several low spots where glassy lips disappear into rising mist. Vivid green backdrop shimmers in the distance.
A dejected tangle of cut and broken branches points to where someone cleared a campsite. She pulls two from the pile and tosses them in, watching until the ripples smooth. They appear unmoving until she sights them against objects on the far shore. Some people spend their whole lives floating in deceptive stillness; others never look away from those distant rocks, constantly gauging their progress, their loss.
Branches float. Water pulls.
She picks her way down a stony foot-trail that skirts the drop, layers of mossy shale like a funhouse staircase, occasional loose slabs offering unexpected rides.
Stepping into the open, she beholds a wondrous scene, a spectacular waterfall, several deeper flows, liquid the hues of paint-brush rinse where sunlight penetrates its mystery. One giant pool agitates furiously under the impact, then quickly ripples out to blunt its rage. Splitting into several rivulets, it drops into smaller pools that eventually converge so the river may continue on, discombobulated by such distraction, resolute in its journey. Stacked ledge-rock sentries signal their vigilance, splashes of pink and white wildflowers punctuating their warning, a panorama vivid with lush greens aglow in the yellowing sunlight.
No other person can be seen or heard. This morning, the falls belong to her.
All her life she has been fascinated by waterfalls, writing poems and painting pictures to explore the hold they exert on mortals. For her, it’s the violence, the sudden drop, the notion that everybody rides the river and must inevitably succumb to its power, no one soul strong enough to worry the current every minute of life. It’s an admission that letting go leaves no choice but to hope for the best, and that even glassy pools deceive with the illusion of serenity that can suddenly spill into incalculable void. In movies, the hero is pulled headlong into the surge, no way to see what lies beyond, an image that eventually cuts to a confirming view from below, the revelation, an instant of knowing how it turns out. People will sit for hours and watch the falls, losing themselves in so much raw power that never ends, awed by the notion that more and more water keeps coming, helpless but to meet its fate.
And she sees one of the branches she threw in, easing toward the spill, then suddenly sacrificed to the maelstrom. It plunges into the depths and disappears. She holds her breath to give it time, but the branch is held under until she simply must gasp for air. She tries again and again, knowing she would die a thousand deaths until finally, its confidence dashed, the battered remnant of a once-vibrant life gently surfaces and begins a slow circuit drifting around the eddies.
She swam here many times with him, then sat in sunshine and gazed upon all that violence while sun dried their shorts and warmed their goose-bumped skin. They never ventured any farther downstream, content to know this river surely flows on, that it passes under a highway several miles below, then continues its journey chasing successive horizons. Their last summer together, with no way to see what lies beyond, they explored their physical passions until surge took them unbidden; but the plunge that seized their breaths proved friendship can plummet, too, leaving them vulnerable in ways youth is so often too young to understand. Thereafter, they chose to limit their love to the stretch that felt safe, to float with confidence and portage the unknown, to linger where innocence still pooled, always alert to the undertow.
People drown under waterfalls.
They cannot be saved. Those who dive after them meet the same fate.
That boy, the one who used to warn her about the rocks, died an old man in his easy chair, starting a letter, they say, to his lifelong friend, his unwritten words forever lost. The grief is more than she can bear, the uncertainty in looming challenges too great to face alone. Now the indifferent power of these falls will claim the life of a lonesome and scared old woman, her own unconsidered memories forever lost.
She lays her water bottle and fanny pack on the rocks, then rubs her eyes, determined to be strong even when she goes under. Dying in the depths allows water to absorb one’s tears, even as it scrubs the blurring stain of loss.
She steps in, then wades deeper. Bitter cold seizes her breath, wrapping her in liquid embrace. Then it bears down, squeezing the woman whose loves have all gone, the woman whose husband is reduced to little more than a broken limb drifting eddies with no memory or recognition, the woman told her diagnosis might be overcome but the regimen of treatments would be hard, sharp challenges inevitably exacting a harsh price.
And nobody remains to hold her head.
Suddenly the bottom falls away.
That boy had looked into her heart sixty-one years ago, then proved over a lifetime that no other could see what even she never dared show. How could he leave her now, when she needs him most, lost to the water she had always known would take her?
She dips below surface. Icy cold shivers her violently, slashing pain making her decision more real.
Undertow pulls her in. The old man reminds her how that boy used to worry she might swim too close, the way he always stayed near, ready to reach out, even when a thousand miles and different worlds kept them apart.
She bobs to the surface, surprised to find air, scared another breath will breathe new life into flourishing regrets. This is not over yet.
Spray blinds her.
The power pulls her back under.
All she can see in the tannin-colored swirl is his face, the way he looked that day when he finally understood she truly tried to hurt herself, the way it made him cry, the way he started fearing what might happen to her, the realization that now he would always have to worry.
She tries to gasp, but chokes in the water. She kicks and thrashes and fights in a final bid, this time, to save him, now realizing what he wanted to say in that unfinished letter, what he’s been saying all these years.
What he’s saying even now.
Rocks bark her legs. Waves slap her face. She reaches for him, but knows this time she must hold her own head above water.
She kicks with every bit of love she can summon. More than her own, it is the love from another that buoys her.
Her arm tangles in a branch. It tugs her, so she follows it into the current. She catches an outflow and spills from the brink into calmer water along the side, the gentle nudge of eddy urging her clear.
Her husband needs her, and though he’s forgotten who she is, he descended into darkness believing she would always keep his head up. He would have done that for her. Promises can only be honored by those left to keep them.
She tries to swim, but is too exhausted, so she gives in and floats, letting the water take her.
Sun rises high. Swords of bright light stab trees. Iridescent damselflies flit.
He wanted to remind her one last time, but she had to come back here to be sure.
The water eases her toward the downstream flow.
He wanted to say he cannot hold her forever. He knew the time had come, no choice but to let go. Trust the water. Feet-forward, butt-down, hands-ready.
Eyes-wide, it’s a glorious ride.
She climbs onto rocks and wipes her face, then beholds the spectacular scene, the way it reminds, the way it remembers.
She rests awhile, mourning her friend as legions have long struggled to cope, then picks her way over to the side and retrieves her water bottle, her fanny pack. Shielding her eyes from glare, she looks again toward the outflow, and notices those two broken tree branches now pulled into the lower river, coasting between rocks, under trees, toward more falls and the highway that takes so many home.
It breaks her heart, the admission that one journey has ended; but it is that lifetime of friendship, every minute cherished, that helped bring her this far. The water can never claim these tears. Shed for him, they will always belong to her.
She hurries closer to watch the branches disappear around a bend, the way they never hesitate to accept their fate. Maybe they, too, are curious to see where it flows, what still waits ahead.
Her car is the other way, but if she can get to the highway, surely there will be a ride. People are always willing to help. People connect. People remember. People know.
People make new promises.
She turns back for one more look at the falls, and she knows she will never return to this place. Water never climbs.
She closes her eyes and bids her friend farewell, then vows never to squander the gift he left her.
Rocks shine. Trees reach. Blooms lure. Birds call.
She finds the trail and pushes on, following the river.
Water falls.
Survivors go on.
* * *
© The Fresh Ink Group, LLC, 2007
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