The River

When you read this item try to think whether what he saw was real or whether his life had created a vivid imagination.

The River

The river, like a human can be moody and violent. As it curves through the misty valley, taking all life with it. So unforgiving and yet so entrancing. Many men have died by walking straight into it. No reason. No last goodbyes. Nothing. Their bodies occasionally are found in Croton, seven miles down the river.
I spend many hours hiding down by the river, watching it. And I never feel the need to walk into it. It is so mysterious and captivating. Most of my life is spent hiding from my family down there. Ever since my brother was murdered on our family holiday to Florida we haven’t been a family at all. My mother and father are constantly having rows, sometimes just verbal and sometimes it gets violent. If I get caught in one of them I cannot escape bruises. I never get an apology. I did when they first started happening, it was just accidental then. I don’t know why they don’t just split. I don’t have any other family to run to either. We live in a tiny village seven miles from another village and twenty-two miles from any town.
I go to a small school at the bottom of the village. There are two classes, the older kids and the younger kids. I have no friends at school. There are the boys who take my lunch money and the girls who push me into the loo but they are definitely not friends. We went to the local hospital a little while ago, I only got beaten up once that day, as everyone was so busy. There was something that day that changed a few things in my life. We were made to wait in the patient’s waiting room for our ‘tour guide’ so to speak. Like I said, it was only a small village so it was only a small hospital. There was only one other person in the waiting room so we didn’t cause much trouble. It was a typical sort of waiting room. Horrible carpets, uncomfortable chairs and walls completely covered with leaflets about all the diseases and illnesses you could get. Scary really. I was sitting in one of the chairs and across the room I could see a leaflet that caught my eye. It was titled, “depressed, you could be.” I crossed the room and picked it up. Luckily everyone was too busy to get up and throw me on the floor so I made it across the room in one piece. The leaflet contained a sort of quiz where they asked you all these questions to find out how depressed you are.
I took it back to my seat and filled it in. I thought I did quite well but after looking at the results sheet I had done spectacularly appallingly. Thirteen out of fifteen! The higher the score the more depressed you were. I look back on it now sitting at home and I can’t believe I was surprised. I mean, my brother was shot, I get beaten up at home, my family hates me, I get beaten up at school and there is no reason for me to go on living. Hardly surprising is it.
It is midnight, it’s very dark and was very quiet. Mum awoke about half an hour ago and went downstairs closely followed by dad. They started rowing. I can hear them shouting but I can’t make out clear words but I have heard about five plates smash. I can tell this is a very bad row. I’m supposed to be asleep so I dare not go down for a glass of water. The voices are getting louder and louder with each smash of a plate.
“Jake! Jake!!” This is not good. I have been called into the argument. There’s no escape. If I wait up here I’ll get punched but if I go down I’ll get punched. I’ll wait up here and pretend I’m asleep. Close my eyes, heavy breathing, it sounds as though I’m asleep. Thunderous footsteps up the stairs followed by a second set of thunderous footsteps. I’ve surely had it now. I feel so scared and numb with fear. Keep asleep, I’m asleep, I’m asleep, I’m asleep!
“Jake! How dare you ignore your mother!” The first thump and I fell out of bed. The pain went down the whole of my right arm. I don’t cry, I don’t scream. The pain only seems worse if I do and I’ll only get hit again.
“Why did you ignore your mother?”
“I…I…I was asleep.”
“Rubbish!” The second punch this time hits me in my left leg. I already have a large bruise there so the pain in just indescribable. I’ve got to get out. I make a break for the door. My mum is standing there scorning at me without budging. I have no choice. I shove her and run. I heard her fall to the floor whilst swearing constantly at me. There’s nothing else to do but head for the door. I ran as fast as I could across the garden, into the wood towards the valley. I couldn’t run that fast as the pain from the top of my leg was working it’s way down but never growing weaker. They seem to constantly row but are always united against me. The river is so beautiful at night. The river glistens and reflects the moon. The shadows of the trees and ferns fall across the mud and rocks around the river. There’s a special rock underneath one of the great oaks by the river where I sit and hide. I’ve sat there for three days before now after one of the rows just hiding and watching the river. Mum and Dad used to miss me when I disappeared like this and would be all apologetic when I returned but they no longer even notice that I’m missing. I’ve learnt to sleep with my watch and a bottle of water in my pocket so that every time I go then I can keep track of time and stay alive.
It’s now one in the morning and I’m beginning to feel the cold. It’s late winter so it is not cold enough for snow but it can still make you very cold. The pain has been temporarily numbed by the cold. I was looking across the river when I saw the shape of a figure, a girl no older than me. What was someone like that doing out at this time of night? She was probably thinking the same about me if she could see me. She was looking in my direction with curiosity. I stood up and walked towards the edge of the river so the water was just lapping my freezing toes. She was not taken aback but she stood there and looked at me. She was all white and pale. I realized I could see straight through her. Was she a ghost? Was she a hallucination, my depression trying to create someone who didn’t treat me like everyone else? She smiled at me and at that moment I did not care who she was or what she was doing there. I felt the water lapping around my knees and suddenly realized that the river was rising and pulling me in. I turned and quickly climbed out of the river before I was drowned. I stood on the bank and looked back across the river but she was gone. I kept my eyes on the fixed point where she had stood and sat on my rock with my legs up to my knees now completely soaked. It was getting colder and mistier but I did not budge an inch. I was entranced by whatever it was I had seen across the river and was not going to take my eyes of that spot.
I awoke in the early hours; at least I thought it was early. It was completely silent apart from the lapping of the river in front of me. The bruises were beginning to show but they no longer hurt. I had been hit so many times my body is so much stronger and almost immune like to bruises. I was completely frozen from head to toe and was now violently shaking uncontrollably. I staggered back home not noticing that there was blood coming out of my knees where the water had reached. I took a glance at my watch, it was half eleven. I had missed school. I want in through the dog door as I didn’t have a key and mum and dad were at work. I’d like to point out that we no longer have a dog. He was run over by dad’s truck last year. I had a shower and changed my clothes. By which time all my memories of last night came flooding back but for some reason I cannot see why I was so entranced by this girl and why didn’t I notice the river rising around my feet? I didn’t even notice the blood on my knees.
I returned to the river every night and went through exactly the same routine and each time the river got higher before I noticed it and each time I bled wherever the river had reached. My life is getting worse and worse by the day. I no longer get fed, anything I want to eat I have to cook myself if I can find any of the food in the house. I have stopped going to school. Each time I do go to school I get bullied and don’t learn anything so what is the point? Anyway by the time I get back from the river it’s too late to go to school and I finally get some freedom in my own house without my parents. The river has become the centre of my life, each night I can’t help but go to the river. Sometimes I don’t even know I have left the house until I feel the water around my feet. It’s almost as if I have no control over my own body.
I can’t go on with my life. I just can’t. I feel terrible and ill. My family just doesn’t care about me, everyone needs a family. I can’t cope; I don’t even have a friend to talk to. My life is pointless. I’m going down to the river.
The river doesn’t seem so beautiful tonight, more eerie in fact. The usual mist is not even faintly there. There is no wind, nothing. Silence. I can see her across the river she is watching me. I can see her beckoning me to go to her. I don’t care what happens I am going to get to her. I take the first step into the water. It is so cold and yet so inviting. I must keep walking in to the river. It seems to be getting deeper and colder the further I go. I must make it. I will get there. She is still beckoning me and watching. Her eyes are glistening. The water is now up around my neck, freezing my entire body. I’m not that far, am I? I can’t breathe. The current is pulling me down, I must fight it. What am I doing? I can’t make it, I can’t breathe, I can’t get out!