Ayu's Short Stories

Fear of Water

“Come on!” the boy encouraged.

He wobbled along the river, hopping from stone to stone with arms stretched out, just as a soaring eagle, finding balance in each step. He giggled and chuckled as though there was nothing more fun than hopping from stone to stone. Whatever he did, he always managed to bring life and excitement to the simplest of things. And, watching the child, Jonah did believe it so. Yet, this time he would not dare follow him. He watched the streaming river in apprehension, backing away when splashed. He wondered why he followed a child into the dark woods, why he brought him to a streaming cliff, far from any clues of humanity. If he had been an adult, Jonah would have been certain he had blindly followed towards his murder site.

“Come on!” the child insisted.

But, upon failing to obtain the desired response from the grown-up, he halted upon the current stone. He pinched his lips and stared; he observed him deeply and carefully. Whenever the child looked at him with such intensity, Jonah felt more than observed. He felt as though his soul were being peered into, as though his thoughts were being read, and his deepest secrets uncovered. He could never match the gaze and was forced to turn away, feeling hopeless and inferior in every way.

“Did you know,” the boy resumed his play as if nothing were, “that not all cats are scared of water?" he said quite out of the blue.

Jonah could not figure why he would suddenly talk about cats, but still he started and gaped. At that moment, he truly did feel like the boy had, in fact, peered into his soul, read his thoughts, and uncovered his secrets. With no direct mentioning of it, he knew the boy had discovered his greatest fear. He felt embarrassed and weak, having such a foolish fear.

“Actually,” he continued, “some rather enjoy bathing and swimming just like humans. It’s just a matter of habit. What animal doesn’t enjoy a bit of fun?” His air of knowledgeable confidence pricked Jonah’s nerves – or rather, his pride.

“Isn’t it more of a matter of survival instincts?” he asked, though he meant it as an assertion of superiority.

“Survival, my butt.” The response came quickly, and the arrow of Jonah’s challenge turned back around, striking him instead. “What animal doesn’t enjoy a bit of fun?” The words came out as simply as facts, but still Jonah’s head turned in refusal to accept such childish naïveté.

“Some just need a bit of a push to feel the urge. Then they can forget all about their fears and enjoy the swim.”

He swung weightlessly over a stone, hopping onto the next. He bent forward, feigning loss of equilibrium. Jonah started and held his breath as he reached out with his arm. The boy grinned at his reaction.

“Don’t be so scared of everything.” he teased. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

“You could fall.”

“And what if I do?”

As if in queue, a large splash took over the place where the boy had been just standing and, upon the booming sound, his body was nowhere to be seen. Covered in moss as it was, the child’s long toes failed to curl and grip onto its slippery surface. Like an echo, the sight and sound of the splash replayed in Jonah’s mind, and the fresh tickle of the droplets that had landed on his arms and legs lingered. Trembling breath, waving arms, and heart pounding – Jonah was at a loss. He shouted after the missing child, yet he could not hear his own voice. He felt it scratch his throat and he thought he felt it c***k, though its sound was muffled by the echo that haunted his ears.

When his legs unfroze and he managed to lift his leaden feet from the ground, they sprinted towards the edge of the lake, coming to a sudden halt at the sight of his own reflection upon the flowing stream. Although it wasn’t deep, the bottom was dark and opaque with loose dirt and wild growth. Time stopped. Jonah felt himself being pulled in and drowning within the depths of a blackhole and his breath raced his heartbeat that he was now sure he could hear.

“Jonah!” a panted yell sounded from further ahead. It was followed by swallowed gasps that broke into splashes as the boy’s head momentarily drowned down the stream.

Jonah saw that the current dropped into a white bed of foam that raced in full strength against innumerous massive boulders and he ran along it, trying to spot the boy. Occasionally, a messy mop of blond curls rose above the surface accompanied by the panicked splashing of arms. Jonah ran after them, nearly catching up. He held a long branch, stretching it at the boy and shouting “Grab on!”, hoping he would not have to dive in after the child. He saw the faint grey-blue eyes staring at him with a new gleam of what seemed like terror and a helplessness he had never expected from the ever-confident child. The tiny fingers grabbed hold of the stick’s end. That was when Jonah realized how brittle the branch was, for it hardly outgrew the child’s slim fingers. The current proved much too strong and the branch much too thin and brittle, so it soon broke and the boy was pulled further away from the edge at an increasing speed and with louder wails. Jonah cursed at the river fringe as the child’s cries for help were carried out of reach.

There was no other choice.

Jonah lifted the trembling legs, soaking his leaden feet and, looking down, images echoed before his eyes – images of a distant past, a past that even his deepest consciousness tried to hide. His breath trembled and his vision darkened. His fists clenched, as did his chest. Taking a large gulp, he closed his eyes for a brief moment as he inhaled a deep, shuddering breath. Once he expelled this air, all of his fears were being shoved into a corner of his mind, wailing and screeching as loud as they could to get his attention. But he pushed them back, and he pushed against the current, fighting with both mind and body.

He raced as fast as his legs could handle the water’s push. But the river floor was covered with rocks and pebbles, slippery with the moss and other wild vegetation that grew over them during so many years of being left untouched. Much like the boy’s Jonah’s foot landed on one of these treacherous lumps and, upon the time it took for him to gasp, Jonah was buried in water. He fell face first, and by a mere hand’s distance his head did not land on a boulder that was sure to knock him out. Barely realizing any of this and taking no note of his screaming anxieties, he quickly lifted his head and swam as he had not done in so long. His conscious mind had not yet grasped what he was doing. At this moment, the urgency of saving his companion was the only thing that occupied his loudest thoughts.

Jonah looked up, from river edge to edge as he huffed and gulped large amounts of dirt-filled water as he searched for the blond mop that had long drowned out of sight. Finally spotting it near a rock, jetting along the current, Jonah’s breath stopped. The child’s small body was about to drop into the foamy cloud that rushed against pointed boulders. He rushed, challenging the speed in which the boy was being carried and somehow managed to grab hold onto his hand. Yet, the current pulled and the rush beneath them seemed so strong that, for a moment, Jonah was sure he too would be dragged into eminent death hand-in-hand with the only soul he ever tried to save.

As luck would have it, however, they were soon towed towards a firm boulder that seemed planted on the ground, unmoving. With his free arm, Jonah grabbed hold of it, feeling a jet of immense power forming a wall against his arms, back, and neck. It exhausted him and it seemed potent enough to break his bones. At any moment he would surely be carried off along the rush, but something far more precious than his own life was clenched within his hand. He clutched at the choking boy’s arm as if he were clasping his very life within his fingers. He could not let go.

            Despite being soaked in head, limbs, and all, Jonah felt himself transpire with the strenuous effort. The hot sweat trickled down his temples, merging with the cold drips of the jet’s constant splashes that blinded him and further hampered the struggle. The jet’s rush struck his back in growing punch-like blows that made him cough and slaps that brought winces to his face. The pain momentarily weakened his grasp. Jonah’s arm slipped further down the boulder and the boy’s slender fingers threatened to slip out of reach, but he managed to clench on tight. The grey-blue eyes glanced behind Jonah before looking at him once more, shooting a final beam. He released the mutual grasp and signaled at the wider fingers to let go. Jonah’s eyes grew and his brows met.

            “No!” he yelled.

            Jonah desperately tried to hold onto the slipping fingers.

            “No! No!” The desperation grew with each yell.

            He grunted and reached down further towards the boy, glancing over at his other arm, ensuring their safety on the boulder. That was when he noticed the approaching rush of white foam that was about to strike them. Was that what the boy had seen before he let go? Jonah’s heart stopped. The surge struck him with the immense power of last night’s rain pour, and his fingers were not strong enough to hold on, neither to the child nor to the boulder – the only thing keeping them safe.

            Straight down they went, shooting through the flood and dropping beneath the cascade, into the depths of pointed stones. Boulders larger than men, destructive and merciless to all and any who dared fall into their deep expanse – or at least that is how Jonah saw them.

            “Wheee! Let’s do that again!”

            Jonah, whose eyes had been shut tight since the small gush had broken weak grip upon the stone and the boy, finally opened them slowly. He blinked a couple of times and brushed a tired arm over his face until he could take in the sights around. The boy was happily swimming around the riverbed, kicking with his legs as he crossed his arms behind his head, and whistling delightfully at the foliage above. Jonah thought he were acting as if nothing happened – nothing at all. He acted as if the terror he had seen in those grey-blue pearls were but a dream. And that was when he realized it.

Upon doing a backflip, just like an otter pleasing a crowd, the boy straightened upwards and a wide grin spread across cheek to cheek. Jonah thought – quite correctly – that the boy might have fallen on purpose to show him ‘the worst that could happen’. Mad as he was for being taught such an unpleasant lesson, he laughed and grinned along with the child before he splashed him. The boy gave a mock splash and returned the playful gesture. There, like two children of the same age, the two boys played, splashing and chasing and grabbing. There was no passing of time, and only when they were both gasping for air did they sit upon the margin wiggling their toes. At that moment, Jonah’s smile was as wide as the boy’s and, though his cheeks hurt for he was not used to such glee, he could not seem to dilute it.

“It doesn’t seem that scary now, does it?” the child teased his friend.

Jonah, who now recognized the child as a friend despite him not wanting to admit it, only splashed him in return. They laughed, but he sure did realize it. He looked up at the terrifying cliff which was, in fact, not much taller than a leg’s stretch. He spied over the soft brush of rolling water and observed the round stones below the stream. None of it looked half as frightening as they seemed just moments ago. In fact, if he looked quite closely now, and if he beheld the few glistening spots of sun that managed to shine through the leaves above  and that swayed upon the refreshing pool, he actually thought the whole of it to be quite beautiful.