By the Riverside

The dawn bled sure and true into the paling sky that lay above the boy leaning over the calm river. Rains had not yet begun to come in earnest and thus the water of the river was lazy in the dewy morning air.

He did not know that I was watching him from my position just behind an old willow that curtained the bank of the river. He never saw me. But I saw him. And I loved him. I have loved him ever since I first laid eyes on him. 

The boy does not do anything during his visits, simply stares into the water. I must admit that I have never truly understood his infatuation with the river’s depths. Somedays, when I choose to lie on the river’s edge, my hair skimming the surface of the water, I can see his face. His eyes. Soft yet tense. Completely open to what he sees in the river but closed off to the beautiful reality of the world. The love that pours from his eyes as gazes into the river is palpable, touchable. No, not love precisely, more obsession. But he sees, nonetheless. 

I would give anything, anything, to have him look at me that way.

His eyes never leave the water though.

I have given up hope. He will never see me. But that does not matter. Because I see him and, in this life, that will be enough.

I have often thought of what I would say to him if his eyes ever sought mine. As the suns glow begins to turn the curls of his hair golden, I see him in my mind’s eye, lifting his gaze to mine from across the river. His beautiful eyes would lock on mine and he would see me, truly see me. 

The first time he came by the river was the only time that has ever looked at me. But that was enough for me to fall for him.

It was not until I saw him for the first time that I understood why it is called “eye contact”. 

Before that moment, the phrase had confused me. The tactility of the word ‘contact’ was what I found puzzling. How could a person’s eyes touch you, one look caress your skin, one glance give meaning and weight to someone who is just a distant being. 

But then I saw him and he saw me and I understood.

For me, it was as if his soul reached out for mine from behind his hazel eyes, reached out into the universe until mine met his and became irrecoverably tangled and it was as if I had been walking through the world blind and in the sliver of a moment all the colours of the universe were suddenly mine to grasp. 

Eye. Contact. 

But alas, that did not happen to him. Nothing changed in his world when he saw me. Nothing changed. Not until he looked into the water.

I was nothing to him. I am nothing to him. But in my deepest of dreams, I see him notice me and hear me and love me and that is enough.

We talk for hours in my dreamscapes, and when I speak, I speak from my own heart, the words mine and mine only.

We talk about everything and anything. I do not care what is said, as long as he is with me, his eyes looking into mine the same way that he is looking into the water in reality. The words we say are as varied as the dawn; from the rich red of, “I love you”, to the deep blues of our musings of life and existence, to the bright yellows of his laughter painting the air around us. In my dreams, words and glances are free. We are free. Free from rivers and silence and time. It is not real, but it is enough.

As long as I can still dream, when I wake, I am content to simply gaze at the beautiful boy who is leaning over the calm water. 

There was a time when I was so angry, so angry that the fates had placed this boy so close to me yet make him unwilling to ever meet my eye. I wanted to yell, to scream, to lament that the one person that I truly loved had eyes for another. But the words never came. And he never spoke, not a word, not until he left the riverside, so I never spoke either. Never called out his name, never begged him to return, never even said goodbye until he was gone. The words would not come and all I could do was watch him walk away. And then I was alone.

Over time, my anger faded from white-hot fury to cool acceptance; acceptance that he would never see me and there was nothing I could ever do about it. But as long as I could see him, that would be enough.

Sometimes I wonder whether it is worse when he is in front of me and yet so far away or when he is gone and I am alone. I suppose it does not matter. I suppose, either way, I am alone. For even when he is here, with nothing but a few steps between us, I am still alone. He is not alone though. He has his river and for him, that is enough.

He will come again tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that. As long as the river runs he will return, I know that to be true. And that gives me hope, for when he leaves this place today, for he will go once the sun has fully risen, he will return tomorrow. And that will be enough. As long as he returns to gaze into the watery depths, I will be forever content to watch him, know him, love him, even as he forgets me. 

The rays of the sun have painted his silhouette in red and gold and, with the risen sun as his timekeeper, he rises from the riverbank.

“Goodbye, my love. Farewell,” Narcissus says to his beloved reflection as he retreats into the forests embrace.

“Farewell,” I, Echo, repeat.