Despair

I can see the rocks at the bottom, the water’s so clear. I wish it was murky. That there was mystery.

“A little girl died here last year. Round this time. Sad story. ‘Bout five, six years old.” The woman beside me drags from an e-cigarette. “It just, whoosh”—her hand dipped below her waist— “took her under. Smashed her little skull into the bedrock. I wasn’t here, but they told me it was really gruesome. Sorry. You not from here?” Her smoke clouds my view of the river.

“No,” I answer. It’s just us at the park today. Chill November damp. The river flows by the two of us, deceptively calm, its destination miles away.

I don’t mind the stranger’s smoke. But her voice… “Visiting?” I shake my head. “It’s a good place for it. But people from here know not to let their kids swim in that current. It was awful, really irresponsible of the mother, in my opinion.”

“Yeah,” I agree. “And the father?”

“Oh, yeah, and him. But he wasn’t there that day. And like, especially as a mother, how can you be so negligent? She’s the one who should be watching him.”

Yes, I know. And I don’t know. How could something like that happen so fast? A second slips into a moment, a promise to stay away from the water is believed. And a mother is without her child, and without a world to catch her. The world turns its rotation against her, hates her. Not as much as she hates herself, no doubt.

“You have kids?” the woman asks, holding out the vape pen to me. I think it’s weed. Her smoke smells like pine trees.

“Only one, and no thank you.”

“Right, I forget about the pandemic, honestly. Forget to bring a damn mask wherever I go, but here we don’t need one. It’s nice to be out in nature, isn’t it? Reconnect. Water moving, I love that sound. I love the smell of the air here.”

“I used to. I fell asleep to it once.” Sweet water on cobblestone.

The last time. “I wish I hadn’t.”

Serenity to panic in a single heart beat, one calm, the next erratic, matching my screams. And all I was thinking was, No No No No No No No No. I remember how they all watched me run into the water, families and couples sat on the bank. No one ran after me. No one helped.

“That little girl that died, do you know her name?” I ask.

“Can’t remember, actually. Or the mom’s. But she redeemed herself in my eyes. I didn’t mention,but she falls asleep right? Wakes up, it’s too quiet and her daughter’s gone. She runs out into the water, screaming, but the river took her, too. Like I said, a real sad story.”

“Mama!” across the water, we both hear the cry. The woman drops her vape.

Then that scream. No child should have to scream like that. And how the hell didn’t I wake? I didn’t hear her that day, but I hear her now. Mama, Mama. Trusting I’ll save her in time, dry the water from our lungs. Everyday I follow, find my only child pinned beneath the water. Her lips already turned blue. How long did I do I sleep?

“What the hell was that?”

That god-awful scream and “Mama!” begging me to come. I will, I’m coming, baby.

“Her name is Hannah.”

I died with my daughter, hollowed out by the current, trying to keep our heads above water. Clutching her warmth to me, drowning.

A decision of decent into white rapid hell, I die everday.