Free to Write

The word was out that she had tried it before but chickened out or was thwarted by the powers that be. Still, she had kept on trying it over and over, getting constantly in trouble with the river patrol.

Inside the bubble she was living, she probably felt the meeting of the waters should also meet her. It didn’t matter if it was an old-fashioned side-wheeler or a raft or a canoe that she rode or paddled to the sound and roar of water, as she always managed to jump where the rivers met, but there was always someone who stood guard, who understood pain and picked her up.

Yet, in this last instance, her time had run its course, and the deep waters let her sink down into their cool, clinging blackness, jostling her for disrupting their peace and then letting her rise to the surface, full like a balloon. The rivers, unbending in their decision, urged the land to take back what belonged to it in the first place, and cast her by a harbor where night shadows crept over the ground.