The River Between Names
Morning spread across the valley, touching leaf, stone, and horizon with amber light. A fisherman rose from his mat, leaving behind warmth for the promise of motion. His craft waited – wooden, narrow, etched with the memory of countless crossings.
He pushed from shore, sending ripples to chase their own reflections. Mist curled low, ghostlike, whispering of hidden creatures and forgotten songs. A heron lifted, silver wings brushing silence into air. Beneath, scales flashed; hunger stirred. The fisherman's wrist turned the oar, steady, practiced, reverent.
On the opposite bank, a child watched. Bare feet pressed cool earth, toes sinking into dew-soaked blades. Curiosity tugged stronger than caution. She had never seen anyone come from the other side. Stories said spirits traveled that current, bearing messages for dreamers. Her grandmother once claimed she'd spoken with one--when thunder split the sky, and a lantern refused to die.
The boat drifted closer. Eyes met: one seasoned by salt, one unclouded by age. Between them, the river murmured its perpetual truth – nothing stays, nothing still. The fisherman lifted his hand, not in greeting, not in warning, but acknowledgment. The gesture hung, fragile, luminous.
"Where does it end?" the child called.
"Where beginning forgets itself," came the answer.
Wind arrived, shaking branches, carrying scents of rain and smoke. A deer startled from shadow. Overhead, clouds gathered, stitched with light. The fisherman reached the middle, where water deepened into green darkness. There, he paused. Perhaps remembering. Perhaps deciding.
Behind him, mountains glowed; before him, plains opened like a held breath. He lowered the oar, let current claim direction. Every journey, he knew, was a translation of longing – each movement across element a confession to something unseen.
The child watched until distance turned shape into shimmer. She remained until thunder spoke again, and drops began their soft percussion. She ran home, heart echoing the pulse she could not name. Her grandmother looked up from her weaving, thread slipping through wrinkled fingers.
"You saw him, didn't you?"
"I did."
"And?"
"He said it ends where beginning forgets itself."
The old woman smiled faintly, eyes wet not from weather. "Then you've met truth before knowing its cost."
Later, night covered the valley. Frogs sang; stars blinked like patient witnesses. The boatman rested beneath a canopy of nothing but sound – the soft rush of endlessness. Somewhere, the girl dreamed of crossing, her small palms grasping invisible handles, her breath matching the rhythm of unseen tides.
By dawn, footprints marked both shores. None identical, all dissolving with the rising sun.
Between water and sky, movement remained—without anchor, without claim—only presence continuing, carrying every forgotten name toward the mouth of something vast, wordless, and whole.
via ChatGPT