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Drifting steadily atop the cruising current, a tree branch sped past Maria�s transfixed gaze. Across the rushing river, above the green trees, clouds loomed forebodingly. Dark and haunting, they were the color of a bruise newly-inflicted. Maria�s breath shuddered from her lips as thunder quaked from the sky. The rapid, incessant throbbing of her heart shook her body. Colored as the clouds, her eyes were bold, and dark. From them flowed her own river, salty and hot, scorching her pale cheeks. Amidst the nearing storm, the sun hovered, as if too shy to shine through the darkness of wind and rain. Still, it was on the rise. Today, Maria determined was a day for beginnings, whether the sun shone bright or lurked behind some towering curtain. The river, swift, was surprisingly low after weeks of seemingly endless rains. She shifted her gaze from the approaching storms and flashes of lightning to that river and the debris streaming along with it. Sitting on the black, plastic bench, she reached into her purse for a cigarette. After she lit it, the fresh cold wind tossed her straight, black hair about her face. Chilled, Maria held her flimsy jacket tight about her. With her unwavering gaze, Maria appeared as an old woman, catatonic in an asylum. She sat motionless, allowing her body only the movement of hand and arm needed to control her cigarette. Her mind did the important moving. She thought of home, though it�d never truly been a home, her unforgiving father, and the cool mercilessness that was her mother�s eyes. What would they think when they lazily awoke that morning to find their daughter missing and no trace of the family car, she wondered. Maria hoped they�d be hurt, but knew only fury would mist their eyes. Simply put, she�d had enough. She felt pressure such as if the entire world had grasped her and was slowly attempting to flatten her. What could she do but run? Her parents openly despised her for not meeting their lofty standards. They�d been determined she be valedictorian, not just in the top 15% of her class. No, she had to be the best, attend the top university, not some Podunk community college downtown. Then, after failing to enchant her mother and father with her remarkable academics, she�d become ensconced by a brilliant writer. Though without intention, she�d fallen in love with him�no, with the idea of him. He�d written beautiful poems and stories �woven around her own mysterious beauty,� he�d told her. Sighing with remembrance, she focused her gaze, now more a caustic glare, back on the hovering clouds. She wouldn�t go back, not after their lack of acceptance and common courtesy to even attempt to console her. After three months of bliss with her Writer, she�d suddenly discovered herself in hell. She told him she was pregnant, and never saw him again. Though her soft heart broke, the thought of carrying a new life, knowing it would lover her as much as she love it, mended her heart into steel. Drops of cold rain fell lazily about the bench and upon her nose. Maybe I should go back to the car, she thought. Realizing she held her hand on the flat of her stomach, once round with life, she decided against it. Maria�s parents hadn�t known about her pregnancy at first; they were entangled amongst the rubble of their own affairs�no time to notice their failure of a daughter. When she miscarried and was hospitalized for a week, her situation yanked her parents attention to focus on her. As tears flowed steadily down Maria�s cheeks, they scolded their �feeble daughter� for not �getting rid of it sooner.� For Maria, that had been the final blow. She left the night she returned from the hospital. Damn them to hell, she�d thought. She�d driven �til she came upon this river, ripe with drifting tree limbs and twigs. The place exuded peace for a troubled soul, even as the sky brimmed with black, opening to allow a spill of wet violence. Soon the droplets plunking on her nose turned to rushes of rain. She snatched her purse and prepared to run for the car, but something stopped her�something like a light on the other side of the river, through the trees. It didn�t appear as though a road lay through there, yet she believed the lights illuminated from a car. If that light didn�t stop moving forward, it would certainly spill into the river. She stared at the lights as they neared the edge, destroying the mystery of the verdant foliage. As the car plunged into the brown water, Maria reached into her purse for her cell phone to call for help, realizing she hadn�t brought it. No one was near her, nor in sight. She screamed for help and decided the river wasn�t too wide for her to breach. After diving in, she swam through the muddy torrent with great vigor. Though it took every ounce of her strength, she reached the other side. Ignoring the pouring rain, she searched for the headlight shimmering through the water�s surface. Locating it, Maria madly dove back in. The water shielded her from the uncannily cold rain, but left her vulnerable to the swift undercurrent. Luckily, the car hadn�t sunk far from the bank. The passenger window was rolled down, and a small child, nine- or then-years-old, sat struggling with his mother�s seatbelt. Maria, noting the mother�s lifeless eyes peer out the front window, grabbed the boy and yanked him from the rapidly-filling car. Struggling to the surface, where they were once again bombarded with icy rain, she swam with the child to the slowly disappearing bank. Though the boy moved minimally, his breath came in shudders. As they clambered to the bank, they both rolled onto their backs, allowing the rain to wash away tears and muddy river water. Already, the sky was brightening. Sun streaks snuck in front of the clouds to stream over the river and the bank upon which Maria lay. The boy had clasped Maria�s hand in his grainy fingers while rain continued to fall in tiny plops that landed again on their noses and shuttered eyes. |
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