There is a child sitting at an abandoned riverbank. Moss consumes in this low place where the sun barely peaks in, if it dares to shine at all. At first glance, one assumes the child is alone and becomes incredibly concerned. By the second and third look one knows this child is surrounded by the living and the spirits of those who once lived. The child's barely moving shirt reveals a thick, secret holding breeze and galloping fauna concerned with getting on with life shared they were not alone. Their face is a smooth and pure mahogany unsaturated by life, almost as cool as the flowing in the wind. Rabbits scurried across an opening, where wasps make nests and lizards lay eggs, as the child chuckled real big after falling over.
Like closed eye-lids for half-sleep slumber, this place called gully presented itself as not only a dream but an unending nightmare, in between the living and dead. There are sounds of waves and somber bird songs, dead shrubbery, bones and other things of trash make their way to the gully, and it accepts them all. Around its mouth, where the waves relax, there are mountains of unfolded and soiled white linen shirts, baskets filled with molded bread, and scattered broken glass ornament the gravel, all in hope to save some lives. Shadows lurk between peaks of sun; they bother none who bother them, unless it’s time. Rusting metals scatter round as people discard in gully, a place of living things, ghosting presence and piercing guilt, as it has been for all this time. The sun could’ve been at its highest point when a young person, of rich and fading color, appeared in this place near the mouth, hungry to ride the waves, but no one, ever, was concerned with the sun in such a dark and dreary place. They left one place spot to chase another and ended up here; running, dancing, and jumping rocks.
Catfish touched low hanging clouds when the child threw three lines of rocks: ripple (jump) ripple (jump) ripple (jump). After seeing a dozen or so catfish jump high (and chuckle) the child moved, repeating Yellow. Yellow. Yellow. Cheeks filled with molasses had to pause two times before letting another cadence travel up and out. When the sound of crumbling branches took away their attention they noticed a teenage-looking boy hovering on a rock opposite their play. It seemed more like a standing shadow, observing the happenings of a young child undetered by anyone beside themself. Yellow. Yellow. Yellow. Is this this child’s name? Homeless? Abandoned? Mistreated? Forgotten, perhaps. Though everything points opposite. Yellow Yellow Yellow didn’t have those things — the shrinking caused by mistreatment and abuse — in their eyes. How did you get here? Partially cared for with a drooling, coiled afro and faded blue oversized shirt, no pants and a smiling red bow.
Yellow is pressed upon nothing but themself, pleased to dance in their own company never mind the hallowing owls and mating mice. Wonder oozed from every crevice on their body. Imagination ran wild in their mind like untamed wheat. Only children can feel as free as a comet unconcerned what burns in their flare. Wrathful river water produced not one whimper from Yellow who watched it move along their running gaze. Without supervision immediately near, they moved through moss and tripped on vine, fell three times and stayed down once. Standing a step from the tempestuous water, a smile ran to pull them along accompanying their loud laugh. Birds swifted through space whistling somber songs in response to vanishing light and the fox running round trying to eat their eggs. Chirping birds translate dancing thoughts in Yellow, who only said Yellow (three times each), twisted and made it digestible language. Sounds bounced across this carved out space on the Mississippi where a child ran wild and crickets played blues. Centuries old trees took root in this low place where each generation produced new children looking to conquer the swing from oak branches into the seething water. Still unmoved by the mating wild things and jumping catfish, Yellow looked into the storming water and believed it so beautiful they desired to touch the bottom; to grab the gravel and rub their hands in sand.
Untreated river water rose so high it hungered to encapsulate the child. If waves won their way Yellow would trace their love down the Mississippi River, carving out remembrances of love gone by. Memories of shirtlessness in open fields where children gathered for wild game near back houses, long-to-heal plum bruises stamped from chasing geese, and melt-on-tongue sugar cubes to cool from heat-rising play until, soon come, memories and the body which held them married the largeness of new water. Rather than run away or demand assistance the child hollers, arms spread open, for waves to come sooner, move faster, take them into its embrace. Swallowtail butterflies cannot mobilize strength for flight nor can woodpeckers consume needed air to bang their beak. Yellow is undeterred. Yearning to replace their blood with contaminated slimy green water, Yellow prepared to swallow it all: through mouth and nostril.
A clearing made possible the view of two people sitting on a red bench, looking down at galloping rabbits and strangled butterflies. At once one is perplexed by their indifference and lack of oversight, their timidity and recklessness. There is a child, standing at the river’s edge, being seduced by sounds of uncontrollable waves, and still: no urgency to preserve this baby. Yellow will be swallowed up, dragged down current, across the landscape, depositing into something far more violent and grand than what brought their demise. Jealousy fed a growing gap from the hanging edge where two people sat on a red bench and dirt placed beneath Yellow’s feet. Why aren’t the waves trying to swallow me, thinks the father, who stands beside mother and still feels all alone. As if there aren’t jumping catfish, mating mice, swaying trees, stealing ants, struggling butterflies, or pouring woodpeckers all vying for his attention. Alone.
Rank water and unpleasant stings of shit smells take over this gully where dozens of rabbits a day succumb to drowning. Deposited rocks made home the shore, creating a dangerous landing post should anyone look too far over the edge above. If one wanted to reach the bottom, you had to work for it: either jump or climb down, better yet: fall. Desperate- to-survive cicadas fill the air with unholy sounds, guiding onlookers straightway to depths of where life and death mambo together. Past two fallen trees where mice burrow is a soft and easy opening into the river. It is seductive where violence soothes itself by sipping on the little water available at this mouth-opening. Neurons causing legs to run for lust or danger couldn’t restrain Yellow any longer, impulse and adventure overpowered even the strongest of atoms. Yellow refused to remain a part from the waves. Over time, down below, in a place where the sun refused to shine most days, Yellow needed to surrender to each push and pull of a monstrous, yet benevolent, river.
Mother sulked at the edge above letting her tears saturate deep brown rigid and thirsty sentiments below her weight. Eyes like hers replicate those left behind from martyrdom; oh, you know, the ones who decide to die for something or someone else. Similar to Marthas’ groan that caused the savior to weep or the tears left on hot ground by Mary after her Son ceased breathing, calling His Father to forgive for they know not what they do; all this appeared on her face. Trekking to pay the shadow-figure their due so aunt pearl (aged 99) could make it to 100; or so uncle syd (missing two eyes and a leg) might be able to walk on Wednesdays like he did all last year; generations have met between the clearing down at the gully. Lord, take it to the gully chil’un. It be once you do. Grandmother hands prepared baskets for each child to beg blessing but it made no difference. Still she did and passed it on. Grandmother made sure all ten of her children had friend-of-deaths blessing, even though it didn’t mean much. Death found children anyway and squirrels still danced for attention, butterflies refused to evolve and new weeping women came for scraps of blessings.
As she was told, Mother knew if she prayed to God above and brought four loaves of bread, two bottles of tasteless whiskey, and a white linen shirt folded neatly placed near the kind-of-safe- mouth opening, there was a chance she and her family would survive. No answer as to why it had to be four loaves, two bottles, and one single folded linen shirt but four generations ago someone decided and it was so. They all thought it paid for something, those things, as if death would accept a barter of enough chickens and jackasses to prolong protection from its grip. Everyone in town whispered when Mother missed last years’ offering. It didn’t make sense. Had Mother forgotten about her child named Yellow who hated everyone (beside father) and made it known by screaming past the wilderness every morning? Had mother forgotten they whispered like bored schoolhouse children about her shrinking child who lost all longing for life after last spring? No way could Mother forgot the tickled pain Yellow brought to everyone near and far with their melancholy and heaviness. How could she forget when it was her burden to rock horrors away and cover doorways with rooster blood? No. Mother hadn’t forgotten. They hadn’t considered, these folk with loose lips, that Mother paid her price not in gully but each day was her painful plea to placate.
Last month after the youngest child laid for a nap mother gathered pieces of her familiar offering. Mother made haste to arrive at quarter after one leaving four minutes later. She drove the red truck with rusted left doors and a bed filled with fallen and forgotten autumn leaves. It takes eight full minutes from her driveway, through back-ways and dirt unincorporated roads, to the mouth opening of the gully, at the perch between a clearing made possible by the gracious splitting of two centuries old cypress trees. She knew before pushing open the rusted door how lost the cause already was; her love alone for Yellow couldn’t save the child. Nothing she did or tried to do worked. Not the extra pieces of fluffy cornbread at dinner or the superfluous outdoor time allotted to run rampant. Yellow should’ve thanked her, she thought, now approaching the safest place of the gully, for letting them scream with such venom every morning. Without this pleasure of being the town crow, Yellow seldom found luxury or use in life. Mother pleaded to God for strength to love her second child who hated everyone beside her husband but nothing seems to work, not the second baptism or midnight prayer circles, certainty not the exorcism father stopped that saturday night in October . Feet planted at the mouth opening mother began her silent ritual as water snakes came to shore, there were small sounds of thanksgiving from the water as mother must do the rest. Surely this mother of three, well now two, (though does one ever lose motherhood?) would’ve stood in her child’s place had she known. Wouldn’t she? But she did know. Mother heard Yellow struggle to collect enough breath most mornings; she knew because every morning at five forty-five mother placed her ear near each child’s mouth: to smell, hear, and feel the love she gave them. Except for Yellow, who returned that love as soon as it was given. Yellow who hated everyone including the woman who labored ten hours and fifteen minutes to bring them into this God forsaken world.
And Father cried, and cried, and cried. There he was: left leg hanging over edge and the right knee barely holding up his elbow. Sulking like a newborn in fury and sorrow because the bathwater was too hot. Father met the pushed up jealousy guided over by those birds and blues-playing crickets, wishing it was he who found themselves being carried away by gully. Father couldn’t stomach the thoughts he was sure everyone passed to one another, especially the remaining children. Not only had father lost his beloved favorite but now the others, those still here, know he can’t protect them from danger or death. How pitiful, he thinks. I am a man who couldn’t protect my baby and now the others know even my midnight kisses or guiding love can’t pacify the grip death has on them. What more am I to do? I stopped their mother from hurting them; I made sure there was food in the fridge and linen in the closet; I gave them three kisses and many hugs; I found myself losing me to give them, them.
What more can I give?
There appeared before Yellow another dark shadowy creature with chalk casting outlines across their face and long blonde hair touching the golden horse it rode upon. Took only a blink of the eye for a circle to form with this creature and Yellow center front; one wore shoulder-length, blunt cut blonde hair with a different chalk pattern covered by an intricate black mask; another no different than the original; others beside it wore a red fabric with windows of vignettes. Yellow, who raced a raging wave, fell four times and stayed down once, was finally frightened staring into those windows. Yellow saw their life shown back inside little windows marked in black outlined in dark color, seemingly representing how Yellow never noticed the rainbow in the clouds. How do they know I cried all day and night? How could they know I hated myself so much I crisscrossed my legs? How do they know someone taught me to hate me? Presented back in this red way brought to fore how Yellow made it to gully alone attempting to outrun moving water, avoid rambling over mating mice, or starving the squirrels picking their pocket. In the red windows Yellow couldn’t believe there were no rainbows or lighter pictures; no smiling wonder or twinkling souls; only despair and darkness.
Before the tears became overbearing, Yellow noticed their mother (who they only barely loved) and father (who made their living bearable) staring down, seeing nothing, weeping for more time and love. Those same screams Yellow shared each and every morning to her community’s chagrin, couldn’t find their way from their gut to mouth. Muteness became the situation as no words felt accommodating enough to say: “I’m sorry,” or “I wish I was enough,” or “why couldn’t your sometimes muted and dull love sustain me?” Nothing made Yellow feel as the rushing water had. The intensity of beating waves and jumping fish felt immaculate, outweighing any previous sounds of “love you” and “we’re thankful for you.” Words and tears laid dormant as the friend of death appeared before a broken family and an infatuated with water child. There was nothing left to do but get on with it — life, living, grief, sadness, unfinished love.
Trust me child — your parents will get it one day. Father will travel down gully two more times before he surrenders and finally acknowledges how desperate the catfish and swallowtail butterflies are for his affection. Mother may never understand why you came here first, why your burden was her, not the other way round, but one day she’ll come to gully chasing raging rivers. I come for everyone, whether you are ready or not; whether you noticed the crumbs of life littered every centimeter leading here or ignored every drop of goodness left near bad things. Still, Child. I come. Nevermind your great-great-great-great Aunt Mae decided to leave me offerings of four loaves, two bottles, and a folded linen, all your kin doing the same. You may wonder why I let them come this way each harvest, why I don’t close the clearing or shake down cypress to prevent their entry. I’m not cruel; I don’t choose to only take the unloved or treated for; I don’t only come for the well-to-do or downtrodden; I am. I come to all . I am all. I am life and death is my friend. I am death and life is my friend. You can’t just take, or love, one of me. Both are present, always knocking together, swinging the pendulum, in unison; If I can’t teach the lesson, or you won’t learn my teaching, surely my friend will bring you where you need to be.
No one dreams to simply be alive anymore — to enjoy watching life get on with itself — and perhaps this is why the gully stays full, ledges of weeping folk stay present. Hallowing wind marries mourning songs as the world passes by and all the children become adults who miss the clamoring of life to be noticed. Mating things and jumping ones, unforgiving waves and scurried butterflies, barely alive running rabbits, and needing to be loved- trees, all wondering when we’ll stop and give them due. Lest we forget the friend, who is life and death, is all and comes for all, we may never notice the rainbow nestled in our own smiles.
Bye. Bye Bye. Waved Yellow. Yellow. Yellow. Mother and Father removed themselves from in between the clearing. Mother went home to prepare dinner. Father drove until tomorrow was possible.
