The Meeting of the River and the Morning Sun

Like a silver thread woven into the earth's green tapestry, the river meandered down the valley. It whispered secrets from the mountains to the sea and sang old songs to the stones. As if heaven itself had flowed into its waters, it embraced the bright and brilliant morning sun at dawn.

This river was memory for Mara.

It was the river by which she grew up in the little village of Iselra, where the hills were perpetually covered in mist and the air was always scented with pine and damp earth. She had learned to listen from the river—to the throb of her own heart, to the cries of faraway birds, to the silence of the earth before rain.

And she had met Kael for the first time beside this river, under the bending branches of a willow.

She used to believe the meeting had been a chance encounter. She suspected that rivers knew more than they revealed now, years later, with life behind them and life to come. Perhaps the knowledge that they were composed of the same current had drawn them together.

Then it was summer. Her dress hem was saturated from navigating a tiny curve in the water when she was seventeen years old, barefoot. A voice shocked her as she drew the outline of a heron on a flat stone.

"Do you always sketch in the river with your feet?"

When she looked up, she saw a boy her age, with sun-dark skin and a mischievous smile. His eyes were a clear gray, a combination of calm and stormlight, and his hair was wild and blown in the wind.

She had responded, her chin raised firmly, "I do when the river’s warmer than the air," "Who are you?"

"Kael," he said. "Just came yesterday in the village."

She remarked mockingly, "Then you do not know that here is my spot."

He chuckled. "I suppose I will have to share it then."

And they did. Both that summer and subsequent ones.

Their friendship came naturally to them. Time went by as if the river had curved to make room for them. They talked, built small cairns around the rocks, swam for hours, and made up stories about the people who might have gone through centuries ago.

Their casual friendship had developed into something deeper by the time Mara was nineteen, something their eyes recognized before their lips did.

However, life had its twists and turns, much like rivers.

Kael's family relocated once more. They were looking for a warmer climate because his mother had become ill. He had promised letters, kissed Mara's forehead under the willow, and departed with a heart full of things he had not yet had the guts to utter.

He continued to write for some time. However, the letters decreased in number before ceasing. They were simply being drawn into separate currents by life, Mara reminded herself.

Years went by. She moved to the city from Iselra, studied painting, and established routines. There were brilliant, short-lived loves, but none lasted. No matter where she resided, the motif of rivers found its way into her paintings. Always spiraling toward some invisible sea, blue and silver, gold and dark. Catching the sun at all times.

It was almost ten years before Mara returned to Iselra. She believed that the past should stay in the past, and her parents had sold the old house. However, Mara found herself lured back to the spot where time felt kinder and slower after her gallery closed and her three-year partner left her for someone who preferred "plans and timetables."

Near the river, she rented a little hut. The valley has just been touched by spring. The air was full of honeysuckle and promise, and the hills were a riot of fresh green. The river greeted her as if she were an old friend, unchanging and timeless.

She woke up before dawn on her second morning back. After making tea, she went outdoors again, barefoot and covered with a shawl. The grass had dew and was cold. In the early light, the river glistened.

And there was Kael, standing knee-deep in the water, his shoulders tilted familiarly, holding a fishing rod.

She gasped.

It felt similar to entering a long-forgotten dream. The rest of him was the same, including the serene intensity of his gaze and the curve of his grin, albeit his hair had become silver at the temples. Yes, older.

But definitely Kael.

He pivoted. For a minute, recognition and disbelief fought each other.

She gave a nod.

He made a quiet, astonished laugh. "I was starting to believe that the water was deceiving me."

"I might say the same thing."

They did not immediately embrace. The amount of water under the bridge was excessive. Rather, they conversed.

A few years prior, with the death of his mother, he had come back. He now works as a carpenter, restoring old farmhouses, and constructed a tiny house on the outskirts of the hamlet. He continued to visit the river every morning—his tranquility, his routine.

He answered without missing a beat, "I always assumed I would see you here again."

She said, "I did not expect to come back." "But I believe I had to."

It was easy for them to settle into old rhythms. They frequently met during the ensuing weeks, whether it was at the river, the town café, or when taking lengthy walks through pine trees. They discussed everything and nothing, including the individuals they had grown into, the years that had molded them, and the fragments they still carried.

As the sun set behind the hills one evening, he remarked, "I never stopped thinking about you."

She said, "I painted you into every river."

He grasped her hand. "Perhaps the time apart helped us grow into our true selves."

"Perhaps," she responded. "However, the river seems to have known all along."

It was neither a dramatic admission or a rainy-day kiss. Like the melody of the river itself, it was soft and silent. As though no time had gone, they leaned toward one another, forehead to forehead.

Mara started painting once more in the days that followed. Not only rivers, at least not rivers. She depicted the sky mirrored in water, the willow tree that remained where they first met, and the dawn light on Kael's shoulders. She depicted optimism.

Weeks after their finding, Kael gave her a little wooden box as a surprise one morning. A collection of old letters, unsent and yellowed by time, was found inside.

"I continued to write," he added. Even when they were not sent by me. I promised myself that when the time was right, I would give them to you.

Tears streamed down her cheeks as she read each one. Every word served as a stone in a bridge that had been constructed over time.

As the sun rose, golden and dazzling, warming the dew-soaked ground, they sat by the river.

Mara looked over at Kael. "Do you think fate exists?"

After giving it some thought, he nodded. "Some rivers, in my opinion, bend only to unite two souls."

They kissed then as the humans they were now—whole, softened, and scarred—instead of the youths they had been.

Time then gently folded upon itself as the river and the early sun met.

Mara came to the realization that not all stories have beginnings or ends.

They have to do with the return.