Eddylines

whitewater

Something felt different as he snapped the skirt over the cockpit.

He possessed a new sense of focus, of clarity, of engaging existence without having to reach through the uncertain fog of anxiety. Even the colors of the sky and the leaves seemed deeper, beckoning to him to leave the shade and enter the light of the sun.

Maybe Marek was right, he thought. It was all just a matter of self-confidence.

Whatever it was, he felt renewed.

They set out in silence, slipping off the bank and into the water with the quiet assurance that there was nothing more to be said. Daszé splashed his face to rinse away the lingering salt sting of his tears, and they shared a grin as the water's pace began to quicken beneath a towering, steep scree that rose as fast as the rapid fell. Yet there was no fear, just a new realization and a certainty.

It was never the same river twice, yet for the first time in the three years he'd lived on Earth, he had a steadfast place where he would always belong.

He leaned forward and began to paddle.

Their boats leapt onward, steady on the line, up and over the standing wave in the center of the descent and down into the rock garden by the beach. There was no stopping them now, their minds attuned to the ebb and flow of the current as they rocketed between the great boulders and into Pinball.  A magic drove their lines, following an artfully speedy route through the riffles and waves as their limbs were driven by the call and response of their paddles in the water.

Their brains had forgotten to think for themselves, their actions informed by the greater, wiser authority of the river urging them to stay with the flow as they tapped into its endless energy. There was only the euphoric sensation of skating along on a billowing, twisting highway of glass and foam, and a distant, quiet remembrance hearkened back to the first moment he had touched this world.

He would never forget that hot August day.

One by one, they had all tumbled out of the ancient hole in the hillside into the soft loam, overwhelmed by the familiar scents and strange blue sky of a planet few of his species had ever known. He had belonged to the Earth in that moment, experiencing a wholeness that had proved to be all too fleeting as the constant reminders of his origins crushed it down to nothing. He was still only half-human, an extraterrestrial, an uninvited Other, and always would be.

Yet this ribbon of powerful, unpredictable water had made him whole all over again, and it felt permanent this time.

Feature after feature flickered by as tiny curlers of white glittered in the sunlight, breaking and vanishing all around them as they surged along with the current and only stopped to indulge the occasional wave. His first surf had given him a new addiction to the sensation of travelling without moving, and he captured it wherever he could until the promise of new exploration pulled him free.

When they finally caught up to the welcome smiles of his new tribe, he leaned back in the boat, closed his eyes, and let out a long, satisfied sigh.