Chapter Text
Upon the surface of the water’s face- mirrored in blacks, blues, and greens- are the reflected mountains towering and housing the forest around me.
With a languid sweeping motion of my hand; I draw patterns that ripple and echo from my point of contact to beacon out as far as their waves may travel.
A jet color of shadow catches my eye.
Once again- I have to wait with baited breath to wonder what creature could be so formed as to cast such a shape.
My legs and torso are completely submerged in the chilled water. The sky is bright above with light and yet muted into the ambient green of the forest’s occluding nature.
Some wayward beams cast themselves from the canopy onto the forested floor. Other’s strike the glass-like water and illuminate just deep enough to bring into view what may lie deeper below.
Fronds of jade kelp, rocks that have been weathered into polished, spherical shapes, and- the massive tail of something dangerous.
Something that roots myself in place as I dare not to move nor to even think a stray thought of any kind.
Surely, I will die here; a thought I feel coursing through my body- causing it to shake involuntarily and disturb the delicate tension in the river water.
The creatures of the mountains and forests have sought to it that it be my time to join them in the otherworld.
Always as a boy I remember being chided as not to go out into the bamboo thickets when the sun was nearing it’s return to the horizon. And- to prevent this- my mother had made sure that I would find myself busy with other matters; such as chores of chopping wood with my father- or cooking the noon meal with her.
As I grew- ideas of what were real and what I believed to be real- would shift and transform.
I feel the pressure of shifting water against my submerged calf. A biting sensation of unease feels on the brink of collapsing myself into the depths below.
Is it fear that I feel? What monster could exist to drag me under so that I may drown in the very liquid that I needed; and that all other living creatures desired?
The gentle breeze of the summer’s day rocks the surface of the river; shimmering the scattered layers and revealing a face that was not my own reflection.
Eyes that are not my own. They watch me with a careful, dream-like continence.
I cannot help the gasp that passes from my lips.
A creature of green skin and completely foreign features. Only in it’s inherent facial structure do I find any sense of ‘humanity’.
I shudder as the likeness of a child-hood fantasy comes nothing close to the vividity of reality just a hair’s breadth below the surface of the water.
And more- the realization of what I may once have thought to be a figment of imagination- now shaped into truth; kills a part of me that I don’t believe I’ll ever mourn.
For all those years ago; now as a man rediscovering- that the memories I believed I had tailored this monster in a fit of youthful illusion- are once again in reach.
My hands tremble slightly across the planes of the river’s surface.
It had been so long ago; when I was just a boy.
In a fit of childish rebellion; I had left home. Romping throughout the growing rice fields; a butterfly- multicolored and iridescent- had attracted me to follow it across the dirt paths.
Liking it’s gentle presence; I had followed it’s carefree arcs and spirals into the overgrown forest that blanketed the mountains that shielded my child-hood home.
It had begun as something of an adventure; exploring the nature of what lie undiscovered to my youthful mind.
An hour or so had passed; the memory vividly shifting with the sensation of the mounting unease I had felt when discovering so that I had lost my path back to safety.
The forest had no roads; no rice paddies, no cooked food waiting at home to be eaten at lunch with my family.
Instead- it held a darkness that had crept closer to equilibrium with the shadows cut by the mountain’s peak. In the ignorance of my youth- it became clear that the mountains held a stoic silence that carried into the night a vastly different energy from that during the midday.
So- I had cried; much as I felt like now in my current age.
Finding my way to this very river as I had stumbled up and down hill and slope alike. This very same river having greeted me to drink from it in my weary state.
The deep obscurity of night had fallen and in my exhausted state I recall having fallen asleep against the trunk of an old tree. It had lulled me along with it’s river companion; the sound of it’s leaves a melody to the beat of the river’s edge gently lapping at the rocky shore.
My cheeks had been wet with tears; not a thought in my mind except for the wish to return to my family.
And yet- I had awoken to a dream.
A creature of green skin with eyes that were not my own.
It was late; the moonlight shining down from a break in the roof of leaves.
It’s form was as dark as the deepest shadow as it’s body was slid out of the river and crunched and scraped against the pebbles of the shore.
It had neared me with some motion of hatred and anger.
I had been frozen in place; for how could I have moved away from something of such significance? Even if the eyes that burned with deep-set ire filled me with terror; even if clawed hands that dug into the shoreline could have harmed me deeply.
It’s face; I wished I hadn’t looked away then.
For it was as unique as anything I had ever seen.
I watch the dappled light across the features beneath the rippling waves. It has not moved- nor changed. Except- those eye are now holding in them a vastly different emotion from what I had glimpsed before.
No longer is it hatred; but something entirely opposite.
I wish to speak to this creature; to ask it what it’s name is.
And yet- it is already lowering itself into the murky opaqueness of the river water; out of view.
My heart skips a beat; loud enough in my ears. My palm is flat across the line that separates air from water.
I do no expect a response.
Nor did I receive one as a boy.
Calling out; asking what it was- how it was- that something like this creature could exist in the reality I belonged to.
Instead- the unknown being had left me there at the tree’s base. It had splashed unceremoniously back into the water’s ink-like depths after sliding away from my pitched pleas for help.
I had waited all night at the water’s edge. Tracing circles in the reflection of the moon above. Warping and distorting the image until I had surrendered myself to sleep; curled up with my hand half-submerged.
Awoken by the flapping and flailing of something next to my ear.
Startled; the sleep was blinked from my tired eyes as I had found the source of the noise.
Two fish; struggling for air just out of the reach of the water.
Knowing then- that I should suffer a similar fate to them if I so decided to try to inhabit their water-world.
I had not some idea of how they had appeared- but I did come to find a notion behind their intent.
And more so- it was an unknown amount of time that had passed spent out in the mountains with this creature.
A momentary blip in my mind’s eye now that time had hastened from my life as that of a child- to that of realized man.
I had followed it from my place on dry land; to it’s own home in the water. The gentle motion of the river’s motion rocked me back and forth where summer’s warm rays of light energized it enough to stir minutely.
Like my parents had taught me; I swept the liquid around my body to keep me afloat. I was contented to play and splash in the shallows like this forever.
It seemed that fate was not meant for me.
For large, taloned hands had dragged me under- sweeping me down from my safe paddling at the surface to where the very frigidity of the water bit at my extremities like clamps
The darkness had scared the breath from my lungs; the lack of air- the energy being swept from my body like the very idea that I lay outside of it’s principles caused the river to do with me with it wished.
At that moment- the sun had been so very far away. I believed that it screamed at me to rise and greet it; so - with all that my body promised- I did.
Gracious, life-giving air; it filled my lungs and invigorated me sufficiently to drag myself back to the safety of land coughing and sputtering.
The darkness around the edges of my vision called to me in their blissful simplicity. Despite all of this; I could not help but look back to the river’s bend from where I had come.
Those eyes watched from the surface; unmoving and untouching.
With one hand; it had guided me with a beckoning motion that felt eerily sentient.
Without question- I had returned to the water; then. And when the clarity of my place had focused in my heart- I had found it in myself to retrace my steps out of the water and return home along the dirt paths and parcels of farmland.
My family had greeted me- soaking and tired- with open arms.
The face of a palm presses against my own from below. It’s sensation is barely registered at first as I leave my reminiscing behind for reality.
It’s cold; flesh of a completely different texture to my own.
I can see my own surprised reaction rippling on the glassy features of the river water. Had I really grown that much since that day? Was the aged face staring back at me really my own?
The subtle approach of the creature’s face from below happens so gradually that I only realize it has returned to where I had first caught sight of it as it’s nose breaches.
I swallow unintentionally. Features that are undoubtedly masculine and sharp. It unnerves me in a way that I hadn’t experienced as boy.
Standing so deep into the water- it rises above my own head to look down at me.
Feeling the swishing of it’s powerful tail at my feet- it bobs up and down almost imperceptibly as it silently assesses my presence.
I’m not sure who breaks the contact of our touching palms first.
I don’t mourn the loss- because I’m too busy reeling at an entire facet of disillusion leaving my line of reasoning. Knowledge that my child-hood fantasies had in fact- been reality; despite all the contrary statements of my well-meaning family.
It’s eyes narrow as if it’s read my mind. I wonder if it too believed that our chance encounter had also been an illusion.
Deep in those eyes; I think that I may as though have been dragged under once again.