Cycles

The way of things

Paw never got sore ’bout it no more. Just accepted it as part o’ life. When we reached the edge of the bluff and saw that big ole mess below, you’d expect a cuss word or two, ’specially this bein’ the fifth flood in less as many years. But he just whistled an’ shook his head.

Over a decade ago now, when I was just a lil’ one, we lived in a small house down on the riverbank. One spring, in the middle o’ the night, them waters came for us, unexpected-like. Paw barely got me an’ sis out alive. Mama didn’t make it. Some folk still rebuild down there, stubborn as ever, but time an’ again, they get washed out an’ hafta clean up the mess or start anew elsewheres.

Anyhoo, the stink o’ wet dirt was real strong in the air. Could smell a bit o’ rot as well. There was dead things down there in the mud an’ silt. Lotsa fine fish that’d be welcome in our nets was lyin’ in the mud with flies buzzin’ ’round ’em.

“Paw,” I says. “Why’s it gotta be like this, anyway? They say on the news this’s ’nother one o’ them ‘hundred year’ floods. But it ain’t been a hundred years since the last one, or the one before!”

“Don’t pay that any mind,” he says, shakin’ his head again. “The droughts, them rains, these floods. Just cyclical, that’s all.”

“Well, if that’s true, when’s the cycle gonna end?”

“Only God knows that, boy. Not them people on the news.” I could tell he didn’t wanna talk none more ’bout it, so I stopped with my questions.

He beckoned me ta follow him down to the bank, so I did. Slow goin’, on account o’ the mud an’ debris an’ such. That brown river, still flowin’ a few inches ’bove the bank, rumbled and roared, carryin’ trees, sticks an’ other bits o’ wood from far upstream. I even saw the puffed-up body of a pig float on by in the white an’ yeller foam of them rapids.

Paw stopped here an’ there to twist his walkin’ stick through the mud, measurin’ the depth o’ the silt that covered the road, which had mostly been spared, by some miracle. But the fishin’ boats were gone, and all that was left o’ the docks were them posts.

“It ain’t right,” I says over the sounds of the river. “Havin’ ta rebuild new docks so frequent. An’ I don’t see our boat nowhere this time.”

Paw just shrugged. “We’ll build a new one.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “Look, boy. We’s fisherfolk. This’s what we do. We keep goin’. Gotta bring food ta table, an’ food ta market. Ain’t no flood’s gonna stop us.” An’ then he kept on walkin’ along the bank, shakin’ his head at the things we was seein’. I had ta wonder how long we could keep goin’ like this, determined or no.

After we got back home an’ were eatin’ some lunch with Liz, my sis, I remind Paw that my friend Leon and his family was movin’ away the next day, an’ asked if I could go pay my respects.

He looks at me an’ nods, then he says, “Go on an’ say goodbye to yer friend.” I got up ta wash my plate and he goes, “We don’t need them rich folk anyway. They just take what they want an’ go. Always the same.”

Fisherfolk like me weren’t s’posed ta mix with them types, but me an’ Leon were like brothers. His paw tried ta keep us apart, but Leon wouldn’t have it, an’ he won out in the end. But now he was leavin’, and though it hurt me plenty, I was beginnin’ ta understand why they was goin’ away.

Later on that evenin’, we’re in Leon’s rec room, as they calls it. We’d been havin’ fun, playin’ some card games an’ rememberin’ ole times, but he got all serious-like all’va sudden. He looked me straight in the eyes an’ he says, “This world. It’s dying, you know.”

I didn’t know what ta say to that, so I just go, “Whaddaya mean, dyin’?”

“We’ve ruined it. The situation is even more dire than they say in the media.” He always had an odd way of puttin’ things. Then he goes, “And there’s no going back. It’s only going to get worse.”

“Paw says it’ll get better eventually. That why yer leavin’? It’s really not?”

“It’s really not.”

“Well … What’s gonna happen to me an’ Paw an’ Liz?”

Leon sighed loudly, lookin’ real gloomy. “I asked my father if you all could come with us. Even just you. But he refused.”

“How come?”

“He just said, ‘It’s not the way of things,’ and refused to answer my questions.”

I could feel the heat on my cheeks. “Oh,” I says.

“Yeah.”

“How long’s we got, you reckon?”

“There’s no telling, really. Our generation might get on well enough, even the next. But … since no one’s going to stop doing what they’re doing, find another way to do things, well …”

“We’s gonna starve, ain’t we?”

Leon nodded real slow. I could see tears startin’ ta well up in his eyes. “And then war,” he whispered. We sat there quiet-like for a spell as I tried to wrap my head ’round what Leon was sayin’.

“Why’s it gotta be like this, anyway?” I asks him.