Beneath that deceptively calm surface, the river keeps score. It records every crossing, every fall, every scream swallowed by the current. Aquatic snakes glide through this memory like living scars, etching invisible paths between roots and stones. They are not villains in some campfire story, but survivors of a world that doesn’t care if you believe in it or not. Their silence is not malice—it is efficiency, honed by time.
We wade in thinking we own the day, the shoreline, the moment. But the river belongs to them and everything else that learned to move without being seen. Our fear of what lurks below is really fear of not being in control, of knowing this place doesn’t need us. When you step out, dripping and relieved, the surface smooths over, erasing you. The river remembers—but it never reassures.
