Rivers

She had poetry in her eyes, stunning and conflagrant in so many manners. Resplendent daydreams spilled from her mouth, aesthetically winding in the air and shaping her lips into a radiant beam. Her name was Lisa. Her very being, made me feel more than slight disdain at myself. She was almost perfect. She was my best friend.

Now Lisa was a queer adolescent. When everyone was busy gossiping she would have already known the whole story, when everyone was wearing miniskirts, she had already passed that phase of her life and moved on to pretty short dresses with boots. She was the type of girl you would find wandering in the forest, acting as if nothing was wrong with the world. She was wrong! Everything was wrong with the world. She said, “Adam, let me tell you that on earth nature is the kindest.” From there, she went on and on about how still rivers run deep and the magic in every bird’s voice. She trusted nature. Now, I am lying here, next to the water where I last saw her, writing my woes because of her. Because of Lisa…

“Hey Adam! You’re going to Mount Kinahua right?” She asked me exactly two years, three months and 13 days ago. She was wearing her bright red boots that everyone hated, but made her toes feel nice and tingly. How could I have said no? Her beautiful smile had me breathless. I loved her then and I still love her now. Truth is my father drowned in a river at the same mountain we were going too.

We boarded the school bus and started our journey to the perilous Mount Kinahua. Lisa chattered the whole way while I just listened. I loved listening to her talk. Her voice sounded like Sunday morning chimes mixed with the suns bright grandeur and a touch of midnight’s loneliness. Four hours into the journey, we stopped to stretch our legs and to grab a bite to eat. Just like a movie, we abruptly stopped at a majestic waterfall. Her eagerness over-ruled my nonchalance at the ear splitting sound of the waterfalls’ water crashing unto the sharp-edged stones below it. Lisa was irritating. However, someone somewhere once said that irritation meant love.

Her free spirit led us to explore the forest around the waterfall and the river it originated. We remembered our hunger as we were spying on spawning frogs. Being the dominant teen that she was, she ordered me to get our food from the school bus. As usual, I reluctantly did.

“ Adam! Go get our food! Don’t worry, I’ll be okay. They’re just frogs in a river bedded with sand. Honestly, people would think that you’re my mother in disguise fretting over me like that!”

“But Lisa… I just don’t want you to get hurt. Why not we go together?”

“Are you afraid of walking in the forest in broad daylight alone, Adam? Just trust Nature, She’ll protect you.”

“I am not afraid! I worry about you, Lisa, you’re too carefree. Promise me you will stay right here. No climbing trees or chasing after any sort of animal. Alright?”

“Yes, yes. Just go get our food will you, silly Adam?”

Some things are too good to be true to last.

I, quite literally sprinted to the bus to get our food. As I was just about to leave the bus, it happened.

A loud shriek and then nothing.

I dropped the food and dashed towards the opening I left Lisa. She was not there! I panicked. Where was she? Could she have fallen off a tree? NO, she was nowhere to be seen on the ground. She could not have been dragged by the water, the river was too still. Still river? That was when it hit me! Lisa could have drowned. By that time the whole bus had gathered at the opening. Everyone was searching for Lisa. We searched for more than 2 hours.

Everyone was about to give up when I saw a little bit of yellow and pink in the water. It turned out to be one of Lisa’s hair beads. Images of her soft curly blonde hair and gentle but vibrant eyes came to my mind. Lisa was in the water somewhere. Myren was the first one to react, he traced the bead to some sort of yellow weed in the river but I knew better. That so-called yellow weed had pink highlights just like Lisa’s hair. We dug her up then realised that a few meters from us, the riverbed was a lot deeper and a part of it had collapsed. As I carried her lifeless body to the riverbank, the birds were singing a very melancholy tune.

Lisa had trusted nature, she had loved still rivers and she had adored the bird’s tune. Now, nature had eaten her up whole and the birds were singing, perhaps singing their morbid song.

She is dead. She is gone. Taken by the very thing she had trusted and loved most.

Now as I walk to the edge of the waterfall on this very clear summer day. I say I am not worthy of this world any longer. I say that nature was not worthy of your love, Lisa my dearest.

The sun is high.

Dearest Lisa,

Under every cut - throat sun, I will love you forever and only you, only the distant you will ever know my song, for the ebb and flow of what you know, is everything that I am. Without you, I do not want to live in this gruesome and untrustworthy world. May I see you in the after world, my Lisa, my angel, my only…