River Man #4 – Dreams

 

 

 

The riverman took me around his garden. He pointed out the different trees he had planted. Oak, beech, conker.

“Give it ten years there’ll be some shade here!”. He told me.

“Like paradise”. I said.

He then pulled up the rounded rooftop of his vegetable patch. One tiny asparagus head was peeping from the soil.

“Go on, take it”.

It was the sweetest thing.

I asked the riverman if he had ever dreamed of creating a place like this.

“Never”. He said. “It’s just how it turned out”.

He then told me he’d never really dreamed of anything; just said no to everything he didn’t like.

“I knew I didn’t want to get mortgage”.

He didn’t want the government to hold him by his bollocks. That was what he concluded with. And maybe that is just what you end up with if you say fuck off to the rest of the world - something beautiful.

“and does it ever get lonely here?” I asked.

“Sometimes” He said. “but I never found the right person”.

He saw it all the time he told me. How people fall in love and then slowly they’re asked to change,

“they love for who you are and then they become bored of that person. It was never for me”.  The riverman said. “and what about you?”.

The Riverman looked at me with his steely eyes.

“…what are you going to do with your life? You’ve got to choose something”.

I shrugged. We’d talked about this before and the Riverman hadn’t understood why I’d spent so much of my time studying. It doesn’t teach you anything about life, he tells me.

I eventually answered with something vague, that I felt a dream was emerging on the horizon.

The riverman laughed and then put the kettle on the stove.

“Well then, you better get walking towards it!”.

I looked west; the sun was setting.

I knew then that it was the last tea I would ever drink with the riverman.