The River Calls For Us All

Orla went down to the river and wore dirt like her best church dress before the Protestants swapped Sunday psalms for desperate pleas. It was the soot that washes to shore on bad days that did her in. We call them bad days cause the carbon hangs low on the line like a too-full teacup with the leaves left in. Which was why no one saw Orla wave and flap her arms, and no one saw her kick against the tide of sludge which tugged at her ponytail braid and undid the ribbons on her best white dress. It wasn’t until several days later when her face like a blanched apple bobbed to the surface and her stiff knees knocked into Old Jim’s schooner. It was a good day. The sky was clear when we brought Orla to the Churchhouse, boxed in the sycamore that we cleared to make room for the culling of more carbon. The ground was sprouting something restless, and the worms came out to say hello as she went down. We all watched her go. But what a foolish thing to go swimming on a bad day. What a foolish thing to go swimming at all.