I’m not much of a one for writing short stories, but once in a while the world thrusts one at me and demands it be told. (I call these the Tales From Yr am Bythau, but that’s another post, not for today). The more recent of these demands was made of me two weeks ago when, walking by the river in a local country park, I heard in my mind a woman speaking with a low and lovely Irish lilt about the river, the sounds, sights and magical conjuring it brought forth. This dark-haired beauty was not, however, speaking to me. For some small but never-the-less important reason known only to the Universe and her minions, I knew without a whisper of doubt that she was talking to none other than The Greatest Guitar Player in the World.
My muse, it must be said, is male and so explains some of my writings. Mostly, I just shake my head and just keep thrashing the old keyboard.
What does this have to do with dead people who sing, you want to know? Well bear with me, all will become clear soon enough.
My female character collects river-worn fragments of glass, and is telling my protagonist all about the numerous qualities of such treasure (he is unimpressed, of course). Thick glass is old and blue glass is rare — probably a poison bottle at one time — a rare something to be found, just waiting to be discovered.
Well last week, for one reason or another, I didn’t get down to the river as I usually do on a Wednesday, but I did today. I walked again in the place where my story is set, and remembered that there is now an altogether different tale being told there — a tale from reality.
Last week, a woman was found drowned at ‘my’ bend in the river, washed up where my lovely Irish spryte collects her pretty glass. The woman was a suicide, apparently, and had decided to wash away her tears in my river’s flowing waters. I can’t, quite frankly, think of a more beautiful place to die, but lament that a setting such as that, one so very gorgeous, could not sway her away from her ghastly, sorrowful mission.
I wondered which eddy she drifted into, waiting to be found, as I wandered along the banks there. I scanned the shaded banks where the waters run slow, but deep and listened to the river’s song as it met with the shallows further on. The banks were utterly clear of glass today, unusual, because there has been quite a bit of rain over the last few days, enough to put the river level up and to bring in fresh spoils from upstream.
But wait.
I had arrived at a spot in which I highly suspected the river may have rested her tragic load, a small inlet where the water seemed to stop completely to lap out a rhythm on the pebbled beach. And there at my feet lay a piece of glass — a piece of rare, blue, glass.
Sometimes the river is quiet. Sometimes she sings. Today I like to believe that a new voice has joined with hers, and that the woman who added that voice and tears to those beautiful waters is at last at some kind of peace.
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