“The River”

I stand on a riverbank. Tall grass grows on the far shore, a line of spears in silhouette against the predawn gloom. The sky is dark with cloud, though the clouds are lanced with vivid streaks of orange and pink. The water is smeared with the same colours, slow moving, winding its way toward an ocean I have never seen and cannot name. I am looking toward the horizon, waiting for the first bright rays of sun.

It’s too early for birdsong, but I hear the whine of mosquitoes on the tranquil morning air. The sound makes my skin itch, and I slide my hand up my sleeve to scratch absent-mindedly at the remains of a recent bite. Grasshoppers hum in the deep grass on both sides of the river, and something is cooing softly in the distance. It’s a peaceful moment, one worth cherishing before the world awakens.

The sunrise is precious. I anticipate it with religious dedication. That first golden wink heralds a new day, full of possibility and proof that yesterday is done. I don’t even look over my shoulder to see which way I came. It is enough to know my past is there. I may revisit at any time, with the understanding that it cannot be changed. The future will also have its way, but not until this moment is over.

I wonder where I am.

The distant cooing thickens with the deepening dawn sky. Though the cloud remains a dark, dense gray, the pink within it becomes coral and the orange turns the colour of flame. It is ever this way, the intensifying colour as sunrise draws near. It doesn’t matter where or when I am; this is the moment when daydream meets daylight.

If you don’t know where you are, I have been told, look at your shoes. I drop my gaze and see my feet in sandals, my ankles thin and bare beneath the hem of trousers as shapeless as my shirt. The ground is muddy, and I have the odd sense that the fingers spanning the width of my soles have sunk a bit. I think I am in Asia ... but where?

As I lift my head, I note the first spark of sun is not golden but white, bright white, and the thickening coo is now the thrumming of rotors on a monstrous flying machine.

I am in Vietnam.

* * *

Music is a powerful stimulant for the imagination—but is everything we picture in our mind’s eye imagined? Or is it a fragment of a life so long past we don’t remember it? A composition called “First Light” by Michael DeMaria never fails to conjure the scene described above, though the helicopter did not appear until I delved further into my initial vision. Kinda sucks, really. The serenity originally inspired by the music (and doubtless intended by the composer) is probably ruined forever because I pressed myself for something beyond that precious moment when a glorious new day is born, and foreboding answered the call.