Flow Through Me
Chapter 1: Dead Limbs
The showers pulsed unrelenting each hour. The canopy protected her momentarily, heaving with each wave of torrential rain. Sofia brushed her glasses as she attempted to pull her hair out of her eyes. It wasn’t working. She couldn’t help but think of that roaring fireplace, with the stockings below the mantle, melting the Nerd’s Rope into a fine paste. The taste danced delicately on her mind. She snapped back, now was no time for nostalgic desire. She was supposed to arrive hours ago. “Mom and Dad probably called the cops” she thought, “at least I hope they did.” She had to find her son first.
“Joaquin!” she shouted, for how many times, she couldn’t count. Despite the rain, her throat was dry from yelling, her eyes narrowed, peering through darkness. Shadows, originally frightening, grew tiresome, more comfortable. She was more worried about the falling debris. Acorns at first, twigs followed, with branches crashing to the forest floor with increasing frequency. But in the last hour, she could hear dead trees falling into the river, crashing onto their loved ones with a vicious smack. Pushing through the fallen foliage, she discovered the river dense with fallen husks of trees.
In the opaqueness of the downpour and nightfall, an outline shuffled on the opposite riverbank against the charcoal spectrum. Too tall to be Joaquin, she noticed a raft of debris tied together. “Wait, is that a dog on the raft?” she wondered. The “dog” shifted, trying to stand, but the shadow man knocked him over with ease. Was he a figment of her imagination? She couldn’t say. It didn’t matter.
Diving headfirst, she breached the rivers lapping surface only to discover just how many tree limbs had fallen. She could practically crawl over to the other shore. She tried. The roots, tangled around her arms, branches scratching her thighs, she struggled to stay above water. As her head began to throb, she realized she must have struck her head on the rocks tumbling below the water. Bobbing up briefly, she could see the raft taking off. Her entirety desired nothing more but to catch it, yet she was stuck. Unattainable desire turned to rage, thrashing with the ferocity of a wounded animal. Her lungs filling with contents of the murky river as her tears added to the flow, the deluge of the current. Her heart, a reservoir of love and life, slowly evaporating, into the abyss.