The traveller’s hair was falling out. He noticed it day by day. Raking his hand back to clear the bangs from his brow, his fingers would come out with a few more tangled black strands that he would irritably ball up between his fingers and flick away. He was a young man, and it worried him. His concern was less about becoming bald, and more about the nature and passing of time. His journey was ongoing, day by day, and he seemed no closer to reaching his destination. The loss of his hair proved only to exasperate his impatience. He needed to keep going. He needed to find the river.

           His guide’s name was Aresto, an older man who scarcely spoke, sharing little of the traveller’s language. They had been several weeks together in that dry crackling forest, walking among boulders and bedrock and patches of pebbles and stone, while ragged, tangled, ashen-looking trees both ancient and newly sprung from the earth loomed over them. There was a hot dry shade that seemed to bake the air in the forest, and it was the smell of the hard mineral stone underfoot, at times covered in a dusty, flaky moss, that filled his nostrils with every forward-stepping breath.

            Presently, Aresto paused in his way to wait for the traveller to catch up.

            “You to rest?” Aresto said once the traveller had joined him.

            “No, I’m fine,” said the traveller. “There is daylight left.”

            “Tired.” Aresto said. “In the eyes.”

            “I’m fine,” said the traveller. “We’re wasting time.”

            “Waste time?” Aresto asked.

            “Yes,” the traveller said. “I have a goal. And when we reach it, everything will fall into place. Trust me, my friend, you will understand.”

            Aresto looked at the traveller for a moment longer in silence. Then he nodded and started on again through the forest.

~

That evening as the sun was falling from the forest, they came upon an old woman and her granddaughter collecting firewood. The old woman wore her long grey hair tied back with a strip of black leather. The granddaughter was perhaps not much younger than the traveller. They both wore reddish brown smocks and large high boots as was common among the peoples who lived in the forest. They carried the firewood they had gathered, stacked together in canvas slings over their shoulders that hung to their hips. The traveller noticed that the young woman seemed to have also collected several small blue wild-flowers. She had them tucked in the collar of her smock.

            Aresto spoke some passing pleasantries with them and removed his hat. Then the old woman, perhaps sensing the coming intention of the two men, offeree them the use of some of the firewood she had collected.

            Aresto and the traveller kindly refused, but the old woman insisted and began removing some of the tinder from her slings. The traveller grew silently impatient, looking to Aresto at first, and then decided it was easier to accept the old woman’s offer. In short order, the traveller had a small fire burning.

           The old woman admired the fire and she admired the traveller. Then she plopped down a seat around it and took off her boots and fanned her small toes in the flames. She produced a small flask from inside her smock and uncapped it and took a swig and smacked her lips, and then she offered it to Aresto, who readily accepted with his thanks. The old woman giggled.

           The traveller and the young woman sat rigidly, and both of them appeared to be tired, even as they snuck secret glances at one another across the fire.

           “He is not of here?” the old woman asked of Aresto.

           “No,” Aresto said. “From over mountains.”

           The old woman nodded. And then said something in her own language, which the traveller seemed to understand as meaning “handsome.”

           What she said next was spoken in the common words, and it was deliberate.

           “My granddaughter is not yet married.”

           The young woman shot a look at her grandmother, blushing brightly. Aresto looked at the traveller. The old woman was grinning. They share her little flask. The old woman offered the flask to the traveller, but he politely refused.

           The sun was fading higher into the canopy of the forest, sending the shadows of the forest spreading. Even as the young woman sat blushing, seemingly embarrassed by her grandmother’s comment, she seemed also to be glancing at the traveller with a new and challenging interest.

           “It’s getting late,” the traveller announced, turning to Aresto. “They are welcome to stay, but we should sleep so we can continue at first light.”

           “Our village is not far,” the old woman said.

           “That is good,” said the traveller.

           “There is warm food at our village,” said the old woman. “And there are real beds to sleep.”

           Aresto looked to the traveller, perhaps imploringly.

           “I’m sure your village is very nice,” said the traveller. “But we will rest here tonight. We have a long way ahead of us still.”

           “Do you?” the young woman said, speaking then for the first time.

           The traveller looked at her in the face across the fire. “Yes,” he said, and then, “I am afraid so.”

           They were all of them silent. The fire crackled.

           After a moment, the traveller stood and went to his pack and began unfurling his bed roll. The woman woman watched him, and her granddaughter watched the flames of the fire. Then the old woman sipped once more from her flask, tucked it away under her smock, and stood. Her granddaughter stood also.

           Aresto spoke to them, saying thank you and goobye, and then the two women hitched their slings of firewood over their shoulders and departed into the forest.

           Aresto watched the traveller as they laid out their beddings, but neither of them spoke again that night.

~

For the next several days they journeyed at a brisk unbreaking pace, and the traveller seemed forever hurried. They came out of the forest and followed what may have been an ancient canyon and the sun was savage above them. They were both of them glad to be wearing hats. They spoke only as was necessary for the purpose of the journey. Whether either were thinking of the old woman and her granddaughter and the image of a real bed was known only to their silences.

           They slept in the canyon, and it was cold and the stars were bright and clear in the full dark. One night, Aresto lay on his back and sang a song in the language of his home that the traveller was ignorant to understand, but he enjoyed the melody of the old man’s voice. And for a moment he was gripped with lament, perhaps even regret, at the endless pursuit of his journey and the hope of the river, and he fell asleep soured with a bitter confusion. The next day they went on.

           “This is sacred place,” Aresto said.

           He had stopped and raised his arm to point to the heights of the far canyon wall. The traveller followed the gaze of his gesture. There were three unusual holes, almost perfectly circular, formed in the high rock. They were aligned in a subtle ascension.

           “The moon,” Aresto said. “Soon it passes full. Sacred to see.”

           The traveller nodded, imagining what that must look like to witness.

           “We stay,” Aresto said. “Almost full now. Good for you. For soul.”

           The traveller nearly laughed at this. He shook his head. “No,” he said. “We don’t have time to wait for the moon to pass through some holes in the rock. We have a plan.”

           “Sacred to see,” Aresto said.

           “Yes, I’m sure it is. Let’s keep going.”

~

            From the canyon their way led back into the dry rock-bed entanglements of the forests. The traveller began to doubt Aresto’s sincerity in knowing the true location of the river. For how could it possibly be taking this long? He began to doubt even himself as some trusting fool. He felt he had been walking his whole life, and he was no way nearer to reaching his goal.

           He wondered if Aresto was perhaps incognizant, a simpleton who merely liked to wander about the forest in the company of whoever happened to be present. It seemed with each passing day that the old man had little intention of getting anywhere, and the traveller’s frustration grew. But he kept his misgivings to himself for the time being. He told himself to have faith in the old man, his quiet unassuming guide, and he reminded himself that the river had to be close now.

           All he had to do was keep going and he would reach it, and then the way was clear. He would know what to do after that. He would be in place. At last. He would be able to stop rushing and hoping and praying. He would finally be where he needed to be, as he was supposed to be, and he would be content and fulfilled of this endless seeking. He simply wished he could get there sooner.

~

           After a day and night through the forests, Aresto brought attention to the lightness of their packs and their diminishing supply of food. They had paused at the bottom of a slight hill beside a cascade of flat stones that appeared an ancient set of stairs.

            “Little food,” Aresto said.

            The traveller removed his hat and raked his hair from his forehead. Loose strands tangled his fingers, and he shook them away irritably.

            “We to hunt,” Aresto said, and gestured to the surrounding forests.

            “Hunt?”

            “Yes. Hunt.”

            “No. We’re not hunters. We don’t have time. Let’s keep going.”

            “You should hunt,” Aresto said. “Learn. I teach you.”

            The traveller smacked his hat between his hands, wanting then to hit something harder. “Listen, Aresto, I don’t have time to stop and learn how to hunt or to lie on my back and watch the moon pass over my head. We have to keep going.”

            “But no food,” Aresto said. “Good to hunt. Good to learn now.”

            “We’re not going to hunt,” the traveller said, almost shouting. “We can ration out the food we have left. We’ll eat once a day from now on until we reach the river. And when we get there, everything will be fine. You don’t have to worry. Do you understand? We have to be close now. Are we close?”

            “Close?”

            “Yes. To the river. I hired you to bring me to the river.”

            “The river. Yes.”

            “Good. Yes. The river. How far is it now?”

            Aresto looked confused. “The river…” He looked around. Then he said, “Here.”

            “What?”

            “The river here. All here.”

            The traveller shook his head. “What do you mean?”

            “This — river,” Aresto said, pointing to the land around them. “All river. We are river. You are river. We follow. Whole time.”

           The traveller turned from Aresto and looked then at the way and path they had been following through the forest. It was all at once as if he saw it for the first time. While he had been aware all along that the ground on which they walked was dry and pebbled, he had failed to notice the ridged banks that flanked their course. From where the old and new trees were rooted up and over, growing out into the forest. He saw the banks now clearly.

           It was a riverbed. Long since run dry of water.

           “We’ve been…” but his words dried as well.

           Aresto watched him with a puzzled yet patient expression.

           “This cannot be the river,” the traveller said. “Not the one I hired you to find.”

           “Yes,” Aresto said. “Very old river. Forgotten.”

           There had been people who had said the river did not exist. That it couldn’t be found. But the traveller had refused to listen to them.

           “It cannot be…” he muttered. He felt almost dizzy. He spotted for a place to sit down, taking a few steps, and planted his hand on the cascade of stones nearby. He almost tumbled. He sat and laid his hat on his knee.

           Then for a while he was very quiet and very still.

           They had been walking in the river all this time. The very river he sought.

           The thought was like a bell tolling in his head. An absurd yet almost perfect irreconcilable reality. Someone somewhere was surely laughing.

           It was simple enough. It was obvious to a fault. It hardly mattered. And yet he was caught in the web of Aresto’s words.

           All river. We are river. You are river.

           At that moment, the traveller wanted to cry out in a rage. The sudden futility of all his efforts was maddening. He wanted to weep. To scream and stomp his feet like some petulant child. How could this be the river? How could he have failed to see it? How could he have been so blind all this time?

           He was infuriated, as if he might simply explode with anger. His thoughts were quick to blame his guide, and yet he felt his gaze looking past the old man, turning back around, to look upon himself.

           At last, with clenched fists, he opened his mouth to fume and cry and curse ¾ but instead he threw up his hands and gave out a strange and unexpected sigh of relief.

           Aresto looked up at the sound, but said nothing. He had been walking about the area below the cascade of stones, as if looking for his own place to sit, and he returned to this search.

           The traveller sighed again and watched the old man.

           He had never noticed before that Aresto carried a small limp in his left leg, as if the leg was shorter than the other or else he harboured some long forgotten but well contended wound. And all this time they had been walking together. It struck the traveller with a pang of shame at the same measure that he felt a new and veritable admiration for the old man.

           “Aresto,” he called.

           The old guide was caught in some curiosity about the ground, but he looked up. “Yes?” he said.

           “I think we should camp here tonight,” the traveller said.

           “Yes,” Aresto said. “A good place.” And then he returned to his curiosity and knelt upon the ground.

           “What is it?” asked the traveller.

           He stood and went to Aresto and looked down over his shoulder. Aresto was moving some of the stones on the ground apart, revealing the earth below. The soil was dark with a slight shimmer in the light.

           And they both saw it.

           The traveller knelt down beside him. He placed his hand on the damp earth. Neither of them spoke, but in their own ways, they knew what they had found.

The End