Where Once Was Water

The ground was cracked mud. It baked in the sun drawing out the last bit of water until any softness was gone. The man stood staring at the mud with intent focus trying to understand why it did not look the way it should. He had no memory of it looking any other way, but there was a wrongness to it that he could not understand. He had been staring at the cracked mud for hours or days or weeks. He did not know nor did he care. The only thought in his head was to understand why he knew that something was wrong.

“They changed the river’s course. To be forgotten is to forget.” A voice said, a woman. The man looked up slowly and found the woman staring at the cracked mud with him. 

She looked up at him, her eyes melancholy. Her hair was long, cascading down her back and rippling in the sun. A cloth of great length surrounded her. It gathered like a cloud made of floating swaths of green and gray fabric that changed color in the light. The sight of her filled the man with something that made him smile. When he could not put a name to the feeling he frowned and the woman searched for something in his face that she didn’t find. The woman seemed knowable, but he could not remember seeing her before.

“I can show you where they moved it.” She spoke quietly and held out her hand to him. He nodded and took it. Her hand fit well in his and it soothed the burning dryness of his skin. His clothes dragged along behind him, a train collecting dirt and leaves that left stains. The woman’s clothes and hair drifted behind her as she guided the man through the trees to where the river once divided. 

He looked to the water. He watched it ripple and creatures break the surface. It was life and it filled a part of him that he found was empty, but it was not enough. It was not right. The rocks were not the same and its banks did not bend the way they should. This water was not his. This water was hers. It glinted in the sun like her hair, shining bright at the crest of a wave. He reached for her hair and brushed his hand through the strands, silk on his fingertips. She smiled at his touch.

“You remembered.” 

The man frowned. He ran his hand through her hair again reveling in its cooling softness as if it would give him answers.

 “No, I...This is yours.” His voice was dry and raspy. He pointed to the river looking at it with a longing that he could not satisfy.

The woman’s eyes began to shine with tears, but her smile did not fade. The man brushed the woman’s cheeks. He felt a need deep inside him to make the glistening in her eyes go away.

“Why are you sad?” 

The woman hesitated, searching his face again before resolving herself to something. “I remember things that you do not.”

She placed her hand on his cheek and he leaned into her cool touch. It was familiar and comforting, but his eyes strayed to the land where once was water. The woman watched the man. His shoulders drooped and his heavy clothes, torn and stained, fell to earth unnaturally. He was not even half of what he was meant to be.

She looked at his eyes that could not see her as they once did, but she saw a longing in them that sparked hope inside her. The woman went up on her toes and kissed the man’s forehead sending a trickle of water over his skin.

“Time will give you what man has taken. Gods endure longer than men.”

He looked at her searching to find answers, lost in a sea of questions. He could not see the answers that she could give. The woman guided the man back to the place he once stood. He did not notice as she left. The world changed around him, but he stayed, trying to remember and understand. Houses were built. Roads were traveled. Lives were created and lived and ended, but still he stood unaware of time.

The woman would visit giving him cool gentle touches that were never remembered when she was gone. She guided him to her river. His smile would be soft and his eyes longing as he looked at her and the water, but his gaze would always strayed to the land that was once water. She would kiss him on the forehead, trickling water over his skin and guide him back to his land where he watched and waited.

The houses slowly grew empty as people left them. The foundations broke down and crumbled at the weight of nature, man replaced with trees and animals. Life that is wild and natural.

The man smiled when the woman returned again. He ran to her, gathering her in his arms, and as he spun her around his clothes lifted, floating just above the ground. He kissed her, his soft cool lips meeting hers. The sound of water rushed through her ears as she clung to him. 

He set her on the ground and wrapped his hands over her cheeks. “I understand now what was missing.”

A smile took over the woman’s face as the man took her hand and guided her. He crouched on the ground, watching a small trickle of water pushing through the earth. A small river only just reborn, but promising greatness. He pulled her down beside him dipping her fingers into the cool water. 

His eyes found more delight in the water in front of him than the woman beside him, but still he kept his hand in hers. He was not yet all that he was meant to be, but the woman could wait. He met her eyes and there was a fierceness in them that told her she would not have to wait long.

His lips curled into a familiar smile. “Gods endure longer than men.”