Salted River

We live on the salted river. ‘Mimaeno’ the ancestors call it - ‘the woman who wept’. It stretches out along the horizon as far as I can see, flowing all the way from the land to the skies. The sun rises at its head and slumbers at its tail, following its movement with the same devotion as my people. I think it must wrap around the whole world, the way a snake strangles its prey.

The river born from death only breeds death: the water is undrinkable and the fish who swim there are toxic. Yet we are the descendants of the river God who splintered into a million fragments under the weight of his own cruelty, so this poison became our life-source.

Many years ago the river God fell in love with a mortal woman who collected water from his domain every day. He offered her sweet words of love and tempted her with divinity but she refused him. She had a lover who she would not betray. Humiliated, the river God stole her away in secret, in the middle of the night, feeding her his immortal blood to forever trap her by his side.

To fully cast off the shackles of mortality she slept for one hundred years, trapped in a realm of nightmares as her humanity battled the blood of a God, and her village, her family, and the man she loved all turned to dust. Yet unbeknownst to the river God, she carried the seed of her lover inside her, a child both mortal and divine, who grew slowly in her stomach until the day she awoke.

The woman had barely taken her first breaths as an immortal when her waters broke and her labor began. Alone, she struggled for many hours to bring the last remnants of her lover into the world, but the moment she held her child in her arms, the river God returned. Furious that his would-be wife had borne another’s child, he wrenched it from her arms and threw it into the river. Without hesitation, the woman dove after her child but was only able to watch as the river God crushed the child to death and scattered their bones beyond the hope of discovery. 

The woman was devastated and in her agony, wept for one thousand days and nights, raising the river out of its banks and salting the land around it. A great famine followed the flood and many families who couldn't bear the hardship jumped into the deep and violent river to end their suffering. For one hundred years the river’s banks were soaked in blood. Finally, her wretched tears had fallen for so long that her immortal obsession overpowered the river’s spirit and it recognised her as its new master, offering her one small bone of her child’s body and shattering the very soul of the God who tormented her. But the woman continued to weep, searching desperately for the rest of her lost child.

Every year the river breaks its banks and floods the land, bringing death, destruction, and famine. In order to atone for our ancestor’s sin and placate the grieving Goddess, we owe her one thousand years of repentance by remaining by the salted water, living off its morsels, and offering our bodies in sacrifice. Once our debt is repaid, the Goddess will be freed from immortality and the barren lands will flourish. Or so the elders promise. As a child, cold and starved in the depths of winter, I had the wicked thought that the Goddess had long abandoned our people. Her final act of vengeance. I knew I would be drowned if I ever dared speak those thoughts, yet the Goddess did not strike me down. Her power was not omnipotent.

When the sun rises highest in the sky, we meet on the river’s banks for prayer. Young children clutch their parent’s legs to prevent being swept away by its vicious current. Chief asks for forgiveness from the Goddess, then one by one we submerge our heads into the waters. I let the salty water sting my eyes as I search the murky depths of the river. Unfortunately, the rapid undertow stirs up the silt sitting on the streambed, making it impossible for me to see. The older men and women had lined their arms and legs with shallow cuts before prayer, their willingness to suffer indicating the sincerity of their worship. Pale red-brown tendrils rise from the limbs around me as if the contamination of their souls was being washed away by the Goddess. I didn’t know where the evil went after leaving our bodies, it seemed to sink to the bottom of the river and fester, clinging to the Goddess herself. 

Sin. 

I dug my fingernails into the palm of my hand, until my wickedness floated away, blessed pure by the hands of the Goddess.

Kerhene will come soon. We fast from sun up until sundown for three days and offer flesh in sacrifice to the Goddess, to repent for the original sin. Every year my mother carves the symbol of Mimaeno into the same position on my arm to signify both my repentance and devotion. In a few more years the marks will scar permanently and I will become an adult. The wound hurts but I am not allowed to cry until the river ceremony. Our tears belong to the Goddess. When day turns to dusk and insects fill the air my people scream and cry as we cross the river, performing a death ceremony to commemorate the Goddess's loss. The especially devoted cut their hair short in offering, the same way an adult offers their braid to their lover. Once the main procession has crossed, children between five and ten must swim the river alone to prove their worthiness. If they are lost their lives are unmourned as their deaths signify their inutility to the Goddess. The river is wide and its rapids hidden and deadly.

My brother was lost.

My mother cried for the river but I saved my tears. I waited until the moon rose high in the sky and climbed the tallest tree I could find, hiding as far away from the Goddess as I could. The river below reflected no stars as if every light in the sky was sucked into its darkness. Such a cold, violent death. How could she swallow him whole? I knew our tears belonged to the Goddess, but that night I cried only for Alem. There was nothing more he owed the river.

Out of breath, I rose to the surface gasping. Others remained submerged, lost in prayer. I watched as one by one they surfaced, death-touched and rejuvenated all at once. This will be our last prayer in these waters, next sunrise we’ll travel downstream towards the wider sections of the river, ready for Kerhene. I like our migration for the summer months, the longer days and false docility of the river means I am permitted private prayer in the evening. When the air is warm and the night is quiet, I leave the camp to plunge my head into the cool water. Near the banks, the water is slow, worlds away from the deadly currents in the river’s center. I can see clearly through the lonely waters.

I know that the Goddess is still searching for the bones of her lost child. But on moonlit nights, when my head is buried in the river’s embrace, gazing at the bones piled high in its waters, I have to wonder: how many more bones does the river need?