Gone

Prompt: Write about a place where two rivers meet.

Source: creative-writing-solutions.com

Response: Keenan lived in a little house near the river. He had been born there and knew no other home. Though it was rumored that the river had claimed both his mother and sister and left him alone, Keenan loved the gentle flow of the wide water.

He was seen as strange by those who lived in the village - those who whispered like lofty tree branches and told the stories that made children afraid of the river. Though he had attended school in the village when he was very young, Keenan stayed away from the village as much as possible. He preferred the company of the river.

Whenever Keenan felt alone, he walked down to the river. As he came close, the ground became soft. The mud reached out to him, spoke to him in gentle voices. As the mud became thick enough to entrap a person, a dock had been built out of weathered wood. Keenan had often thought of what it would be like to stay down in the mud, to lay in it, to sink into its arms and let it encircle him.

The reeds near the river were so tall, so sweeping, that Keenan could almost believe they created a barrier between the river and the world - that as he walked among the reeds he was entering another place, another destination. He would slip into his tiny boat and push away from the reeded bank. He would become a piece of the river - a speck of detritus in the mighty current.

The sun would shine of the water like birdsong and the reeds would rustle like breathing. Keenan would flow in his banks, on his charted course, between two shades of blue. And the river would chant its ancient mantras - its ancient lullabies.

And when the rivers met, Keenan felt a surge of exhilaration - a rushing of heart and blood through his entire being. Keenan would raise his arms to sky and the breeze would lift him into the azure ether and, for a moment, he would be gone.