Alluvion

[Patricus I]

What became of the boys, he wondered. No bodies were deposited in the aftermath, though he had the sense that a multitude of invisible ones surrounded him. The swarm and recession of the river was disturbingly sudden. Though clearly the river bubbled on normally now, oblivious to its own ferocious awakening. Maybe the memories it carried were already downstream, far from conscious recollection. He shook off the fallacy of personification with a dismissive grumble despite the tightness that continued to grip his heart. He contemplated prayer out of sheer uncertainty of what to do next, but instead, a voice called out to him.

He turned careful not to slip in the mud. His feet were already muddied by it, an irritating splatter of what was previously pristine, white Asics.

He pondered whether the spectral figure before him was the ghost of the drowned boys. Rational thought took over momentarily, despite the strange acceptance of what was surely a dream from which he was not quite ready to wake. Not a boy, but the figure of a girl whom likewise climbed from the same flood out of which spat Philip.

“Hello,” he said in return. He curiously studied her. Who would speak next? In the awkward silence that followed, he rubbed his hands on his chest. The zipper was cold against the skin beneath. The cloth otherwise stuck with wet suction. ”Do you happen to have a towel?” he asked. Rhetoric mingled with dry humor as obviously neither possessed anything of the sort.