The River

The River Jon Muzzall I couldn't fix it," she thinks to herself, shaking her head. "I tried so hard, but she's still bleeding all over the place. I thought I could do it, but I can't. No one can. Look at the blood—in the ait, on the trees, everywhere. Look how it clots everywhere but on the wound! Maybe ifI could have gotten the leaves from the trees we could have made a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. But there aren't any leaves. The span is too great, anyway. It's not my fault, is it? No one helped me. I'm not strong enough and I'm not fast enough. I'm just one person! It's fate, right? Nobody's fault. But I tried so hard. I got to work as soon as I saw what was happening, but as soon as I closed it in one place it opened up in another. Look at my hands! Oh, God! They're quick, but I just couldn't fix it. What more do they want from me? Why didn't anyone help me? Oh God—it's all my fault. It's too late. Now what will we do?" She sobs. Tears land mutely in her lap. She stops making the sewing motion. She tears her stocking cap from her head and sways. The boy pulled his cap down over his ears against the wind, the cold, and the gray. These things assaulted him everywhere. He tossed a coin into the air again and again as he walked along, hoping to come upon something that would bring him out of himself. He started on the north side of Grand Avenue and made his way south. Once he got onto campus, he walked past the Union, past Beaumont Tower, past the library. As he walked over the bridge behind the library, he stopped to look at the Red Cedar River and its tree-lined banks. He stopped tossing the coin and stared first at the river and then wildly into the air. Something finally got his attention. He dropped the coin from his left hand and made a motion with his right. It looked as ifhe were working a needle in and out. His knuckles clenched white, his face the color of untraveled snow. I've always got to be doing something—chewing the end of a pencil, whistling, jingling the keys in my pocket. One day last winter as I walked 59 60JON MUZZALL along clad in cap and glove I threw a quarter again and again into the air, concentrating on catching it. I was walking on campus, not going anywhere, just walking. As I walked over the bridge behind the library I stopped everything —I stopped walking, I stopped tossing, I stopped breathing. There were no birds. Ice covered the trees. I looked to my left and the world had burst open—a wound was exposed in the earth, long and narrow, and gray mist bled into the air. The shifting gray oozing from the breach intermingled with the gray ofthe clouds, growing heavier and darker as the seconds slipped by. I had to do what I could. I jumped down from the bridge (which was gray, too, everything was gray) with a giant needle and extra-strength thread. I was about to close the wound when the quarter I had been tossing as I walked fell from my hand. The tinkling sound it made as it hit the pavement ruined everything. "It's just a goddamn river, and a dirty river at that," Steven said as he stepped onto the bridge after Lisa, pulling his jacket tight around his body. "But look at it, Steven; use your imagination. Doesn't it look like it's bleeding?" Lisa had recently been wondering why she even bothered, and Steven's reaction didn't help. "No, Lisa, it doesn't. It's just a dirty river that's a little warmer than the air above it. Can we get the fuck out ofhere now? I'm cold." He held his collar closed over his neck. "Can't you get out ofyour little box for...