Old River, I've Come to Talk Again

We came up on the sandbar, and I motioned to my panicked friend the sandbar and driftwood – could it have been the root or rhizome? Not, of course, the rhizome referenced in Deleuze and Guattri's A Thousand Plateaus “Introduction: Rhizome” - but that has nothing to do with this... Funny how your brain operates when you're in Panic mode. Anyway... Her eyes became huge round saucers as she nodded frantically. Too frantically. The creepy man saw her movement and to where her eyes were fixed.

“I don't think so,” he said, drawing out a large hunting knife, rusty (or bloody) and as big as I'd ever seen a knife.

That's when my fight or flight response finally came to life – well, my fight response. I jumped to the sandbar and grabbed the driftwood. It was about two feet long and heavy. Adrenaline, however, made the weight seem less than it really was. My friends jumped out of their tubes and came to stand beside me and my makeshift weapon. The man jumped out of his boat and eased toward us.

“Looks like mine is bigger than yours,” I said, eliciting a gasp and a smirk from my friends. “Back off, buddy. You can't get near enough to use that thing, big as it is. So just hop back in your boat and leave.”

He growled then, as feral and animalistic as I'd ever heard from a human. Then... he lunged.

My friends both screamed and I – I say I, but it was more like I was watching my body from above as it moved itself- swung the branch with all my might. The branch made contact with the grungy head and the knife flew from the man's dirty hands and landed less than an inch from my feet.

The man fell to the ground and I saw blood soaking into the sand around him. I marveled at my strength, but somehow didn't believe in it.

“Oh, man.” My deer-in-the-headlights friend pointed to the driftwood and I saw something that initially I hadn't – there was a long nail sticking out of the wood, and it was still lodged in the redneck's head.

Clean-up was simple. It was like taking an adventure, together, but different from the ones we'd taken before.* Cover the bloody sand with clean, set the boat adrift downstream, and toss the driftwood into the deepest part of the river we could find. And, of course, the body. I rolled the body into the river and used another dead branch to push him as far down and out as I could.

There were big storms the following week; the river rose a almost four feet and the current ran fast and strong, washing everything away from its original resting place. I never heard anything about the missing man. Officials found the boat, unregistered, about 5 miles from that sandbar, where turtles liked to sunbathe, where dragonflies flew, where alligators rested.

The river is teeming with life.

Life... 

...and death.

*http://eveningswiththeunknown.blogspot.com/

The River Styx

 “No way, creeper! Put that camera down!” one of my friends yelled as she vainly tried to cover her body with her slim arms and tiny hands.

The man grinned again and said with a thick country accent, “Pretty girls for my collection.”

“Oh my God,” my other friend said, panic clear in her voice.

“Listen, buddy,” clearly, one of my friends had perfected being fearless. “We are not models on a photo shoot and you are damn sure not our photographer, so put the camera down and go away. NOW.”

The creepy man in the boat chuckled. “Tough talk from a girl in a bikini and an innertube. Where y'all gonna go?” He chuckled again, clicking away on his camera. “You're not going anywhere but home with me.”

He was right. We were alone on this stretch of river. The current was slow, barely pushing us along. We had no way to move faster, and what little paddling we could do with our hands, he could easily match or better. The banks were high, but even if we managed to get to them before the man in a motor-powered boat and climb up, there was nothing around but woods. No houses, no roads for miles. We could run through the woods to get away, but we were barefoot and the bumpkin in the boat was wearing what appeared to be hunting boots, thick and sturdy. It was no contest; he would definitely catch us in the woods.

I saw a sand bar coming up soon, and I could see that the sand only breached the surface on one side of the river, leaving plenty of room for a boat to zoom by on the other side. Damn. Even if we could get to our feet, what help would that be? What could we do besides give him better angle for his pictures?

Then I saw the driftwood washed up on the bank by the sandbar. What was I thinking? SMASH!* I figured that at best, a hit to the head would hurt enough to shock him so that we could get a head start in the woods, bare feet be damned. 

*http://drunkieblogger.blogspot.com/ 

Rolling Down the River

We set off down the steady flowing river, basking in the sunshine, threatening to splash each other with the cold water. We were all tied together in a triangular fashion with the floating cooler in the middle. A waterproof radio sat atop the cooler blasting fun summer music. When Norah Jones' “Come Away with Me”* came on, we all shouted “Boo!” and I changed the station to find a more upbeat song. We drifted down the river, sipping our beers and eventually our loud singing along with the radio turned into soft hums. The lazy flow of the river, the calming effects of the beer, and the sunshine therapy soon sucked away our bubbly energy and we became content to pass the rest of the trip idly.

Suddenly, the radio started to fade, causing a stir amongst our idleness. It popped and whined a bit, then suddenly... Silence. General gripes about having no more tunes rang out among the three of us, but we soon quieted our fussing and settled into light conversations about boys, school, work, and... mostly boys. After a while, though, we drifted back into silence. The sounds of the woods surrounding the river started to hit our ears, but something sounded... wrong.

A loud humming became evident, and we all glanced among ourselves, questioning looks on our faces. A boat. There was a boat somewhere on the river, and it was coming closer. This wasn't unusual; boats frequented the river just as much as tubes. But instead of slowing down just enough to pass politely, this boat was coming to a stop. The man in the boat was unfamiliar to all of us. He pulled the boat close to our tubes and stared at us, his eyes grazing up and down our sun-tanned bodies.

“What is this?” one of my friends asked. “Our own personal version of Heart of Darkness?”

“You didn't even read that,” my other friend replied.

“Guys...” I said, watching as the man in the boat smiled – showing crooked yellow teeth – and pulled out a camera and started taking pictures of us.

* http://seminoles723.blogspot.com/

Lazy River, Mighty River

The river is beautiful. She's an awesome work of God that flows through His handmade ground.  She's endlessly searching for an outlet, a way to release some of the pressure causing her to foam and churn.+

The river is rather small, not too wide.  She's no Mississippi, not even like the St. Johns.  I can throw a football across the river.  I've no arm like Eli*, but I have an arm and I know how to use it.  

Use it throw a football across the river, to throw a fishing line out by her banks, 

to throw a life into her depths - lost, gone forever...

I read something once, a blog that had a simple line that read thus: 

"A place of home yet also a place of fear.*"

That's what my river is like.  I feel so calm, so happy, so much at home whenever I'm around her.

But there are times when she turns a Janus head and you see a different facade, one that is anything but welcoming, anything but peaceful, a face that fills you with fear.

It was a bright, humid day – the blue sky raining sunshine down upon us mere mortals.  My friends and I decided to float down the river; grab our swimsuits, grab some tubes, fill a cooler full of beer, and head down to the landing.

We put in at Johnny Boy's, covered in sun tan lotion and laughing loudly as the first few sips of Bud Light started to hit us. It was going to be a perfect girls' day out, just the three of us... Or so we thought.

*http://cuonoeng4815.blogspot.com 
+http://anessenceintimesconfusion.blogspot.com/ 

Just Around the Riverbend

Tree roots left hanging in midair where soil used to hold them close, reaching, straining for the water that is rushing past, unheeding. 
Caves, sometimes hidden by the fluctuating depths, calling to you invitingly. 
"Come," they whisper.  "Explore."
  Alligators, snakes, turtles, fish: darting back and forth, playing tag with their teeth. 
Birds singing, warming up that happy feeling inside your bones.  
 Spiders crawling on the water, daring you to move closer. 
Dragonflies and horseflies flitting about, landing on your legs, staring at you, questions in their bulging eyes.  
 The river is teeming with life.

Life… and death; the equal yet opposite reaction.

There used to be a bridge across part of the river.  You can see the remnants of it still.  You can also find a gold Volkswagen on the bed, just downriver; the current has managed to move it a few yards, but it's obvious from whence it came.  

Fed by hundreds of springs spanning the length of it, the river is cool year round. It's beautiful, this river.  Especially my part of it.  MY part of it... as if I could actually own a piece of such a natural formation.  But I do feel as if it's a part of me, and I a part of it.  It... her.  The river feels like more of a feminine being.  I'm not sure why...  She's a loving river.  She'll coddle you and float you and let you have your way with her.  

But she can also be... unforgiving.