as if it were the only

Dr. Wordling's first advice was to visualize the end. "Keep calm," he said. "Tell yourself in no uncertain terms that everything will be alright. Visualize what actions you can take and do that. Visualize yourself sane and healthy and you will be sane and healthy."

In the office, with its warm red brick walls and electric blue couches, the psychiatrist's advice had made sense. But every time Kit turned on the television, the waterfalls came tearing down on every channel. Scrolling views of waterfalls replaced the Nine News at Ten, clear cold water coursing fast over rocks obscured the Bronco game, the thundering noise of Brazil's Iguazu Falls fell through even her phone calls to Richard, through her demands for news about Anna. Even CNN featured only waterfalls, many little falls converging and separating on a fog strewn bank.

Anna's voice began whispering to her that night. At first, Kit thought it was the waterfalls themselves, that the rythmic crashing of the water was trying to make up for its monopoly with sound, with recordings of water from under the water. Then she realized the sound rose and fall in rythyms that had nothing to do with the water flows. She pressed her palms into her eyes until they were sticky with sweat and listened.

She knew the voice. Anna's voice had always been just a pitch lower than Amy's, just a tad sweeter, more melancholy. She could hear it under the crash of water, under the smooth travels of water, the subtly changing shapes as water moved its own ways down to the rocks. But she could not hear the words. She slept now only by desperation, by letting herself believe the lie that the voice was the voice of the water only.

the water / falls / in torrents / as if it were the only / force that mattered / sweeping / everything / from its path

the word is / the sound / of water / dripping from/ ancient symbols / tiny particles / of merging / realities


Follow us all: Amy/Anna, Sophie/Yuki, Kit/Richard, minor characters or sift through water leavings and river journeys.