As the story goes, the Mountain and River lived harmoniously side-by-side. Each giving the other it’s own shape and direction. The River snaked through the forest at the Mountains base, and eventually had carved itself out a small bed to lay in lazily as it drifted along. The waters, however, were cold. Perhaps this was a run off from another mountain from an exceedingly long distance away, but throughout it’s travels the water remained an almost frigid temperature. This didn’t phase the animals who commonly came to the river for a drink, as the cold was refreshing on a hot day. The Mountain was not used to such freezing climate at his base, but he was simply a Mountain. He could not stop the River from being so cold, for he wasn’t necessarily tepid himself. The stones that shaped his craggy sides would grade and gentle, they would crater in some places where the weather had worn away at him; where a piece of him would fall away chaotically. However, towards the upper end of the peak would grow sheer, and it was impossible for anyone to climb to the top without assistance. Many people had tried to make the journey, and a few had succeeded, but so many had fallen to their demise in the process of conquering him. It was a formidable Mountain, but one that could be humbled with the right experience.
One such creature of the forest that could accomplish this daunting task was a young Adamawa cattle. He had strayed away from his herd a long time ago, but when he happened upon the Mountain and it’s icy River, he had found his own stomping grounds. There were shrubs and grass a-plenty to grave upon, and the solitude of the area was magnificent. Imagine it. Here he stood at the shallow depths of the River. He faced the Mountain and observed the 250 foot tall redwood trees that surrounded the base of the Mountain, plus a few that had attempted to grow roots up the side of the more graded and gentle slopes of the mountainside. The redwoods were overgrown; they had shed time and time again the dead branches from their trunks. The ground was covered in the brown, rotting pulp of bark and leaves. Not a soul had tainted the surrounding area with a single human footstep, but you could make out the occasional hole in the ground where a squirrel might have once lived. It was peaceful. It was quiet enough that when the wind blew, you could hear each tree creak and moan with the wind. You could hear the sounds of individual branches snap and break till they came to a crash on the ground. This didn’t happen often, but the Adamawa was at peace with his surroundings. He couldn’t have been happier in his new home. It was truly a place of serenity.
When the River came, it was a great flood indeed. Waves of water crashed against the cliff sides, sending water as high as the trees that surrounded the Mountain. The Adamawa was luckily heading towards the upland of the mountain this day, and did not feel any danger from the rushing River. It came so suddenly. It was without warning that this had happened. One minute he was chewing fresh cud from a patch of grass that had just bloomed in time for Spring, and the very next moment there was…this. All this water. A sea of it, almost. It didn’t have a place to be, so it rested here. The Adamawa was confused, so it spit out it’s cud and trekked back down the mountainside to see what this new landmark’s purpose was here. Of course he waited for the tides to die down, and for the River to begin it’s shape along the base of the Mountain, but after that time he approached the River with caution and tact.
The River had cleared away all the debris and old leaves from the years and years of neglect. What was left was a wet ground with jagged rocks underneath it. Rocks and stones that had not seen the light of day in almost a century. As the Adamawa navigated the new ground, it’s feet had a difficult time negotiating the terrain. Where the ground was not slick with mud, there was a piece of a rock to avoid. Sometimes his hoof would slide right into a piece of rock, and this would cut him. It was unheard of the amount of razor sharp stones he marched on through to reach the River. With every other step he would cause more injure to himself, and at a certain point he wondered if it was even worth all the trouble to achieve his final destination. After some thought he decided it was. He was thirsty.
In some points of the River there were exceedingly wide and deep areas that could not be navigated. The River moved so swiftly through some parts that the ground slid away almost instantaneously. However, in other places the River had met the Mountain and in these areas were where the River was most shallow. What wasn’t shown under the years of debris had emerged almost everywhere in the base, and despite his best efforts to avoid it, he would still find himself getting cuts and scrapes from these rocks. Alas, he did find a suitable place to rest, and in doing so he rested for a period and took a drink.
The water was so cold. It was like drinking from a glass of ice water that had sat in a freezer for just enough time to begin forming it’s own slush of ice. The water had not yet settled from it’s explosive display of power from hours before, but the Adamawa was nonetheless thirsty and continued to take sips from it. He could taste the sediments. He could taste the bark and leaves from the redwood forest in every drink. He could taste unfamiliar things. He tasted something sweet, clouded by something very bitter. It was not pleasant, but this was not the time to concern himself with what the water tasted like.
Days passed by. Months, even. Eventually the water took on a crisp, more clean tone. The sediment and debris had settled in, and what remained was an icy-like River that the remaining plants and animals enjoyed the company of. The Adamawa was quite happy with his new source of water as well. For, when the rains would come and fill the craters along the steep edges of the Mountain was the only time the Adamawa would have a chance to drink anything, and eventually those waters would become stagnate and fill with algae or other strange creatures that didn’t have a reason or rhyme to be there.
So everyday he would get his fill from the River. After the initial rush, the waters quieted down extensively, and carved their way through the Mountain.This was a gradual process. What he noticed at first was when he would take steps into the River to drink, it would not sting as much. The jagged rocks underneath had smoothed over, and it was much more pleasant to walk along the River’s bank than it was to walk anywhere else in the lower redwood forest. He’d stay as long as he could tolerate the cold. It was so cold sometimes that he couldn’t stay in the banks for more than a few hours, but there were some days that he could stay for the entire afternoon.
It was on one of these fateful days in the River that he started to spot some fish swimming in the waters. Sometimes they would fight the currents, but most of the time they continued to swim downstream. As an Adamawa, he was a simple horned cattle with no knowledge of what type of fish these were, but they were Bitterling fish. The species didn’t necessarily match what these fish looked like, because they were actually quite small and beautiful. The scales reflected light that made them shimmer on a sunny day, and they had this peaceful tranquility about them. They were going somewhere though, that was the part that confused the Adamawa. He was so accustomed to his surroundings, he didn’t understand why these graceful little fish would ever want to leave. It was so quiet here. Not much happened, but that’s how the Adamawa liked it. He could laze about in the River as much as he wanted, and at the end of the day climb the Mountain to his bed and sleep through the night. It wasn’t much of a living, but it’s what the Adamawa knew. When the fish came, it was a whole new world to encounter everyday. He would watch them dance through the water, but mostly he would watch them swim away. They’d get close enough to be touched if he stuck his snout in the water, but when he would try they would scurry off and dance in the deeper water further away.
This was his new peace in the day. He would wake up in the morning to greet the sunrise, and he would walk down to the banks to watch the Bitterling dance around him, and every once in a while he would try to get close enough to touch these delicate creatures. It was interesting, to say the least. His boring, one-track mind had something different to do, and he would be lying if he said he didn’t find it entertaining. It was. Sometimes he would stir up the waters and send all the fish screaming through the water as far away as he could get them to go, and then come back to a resting position in the water. Eventually, the fish would come back. For whatever reason, they enjoyed his company even if it was only slightly. Maybe it was whatever body heat that he radiated, maybe it was the fact that they, too were bored and wanted something to entertain them, but nonetheless they lived out most of their days in bliss.
On a day like any other, the Adamawa greeted the sunrise, he took his normal trot down the Mountain to greet the River and lay in it’s bed. He sat down with a plop, and rolled around in the dirt and sediment. By this time the rocks all around the River and inside the banks itself had smoothed out from the times the River had swelled or shrank from rainfall. And after all his playing in the water, he waited for the Bitterling to come around and dance with him as he would blow bubbles in the water. He had gotten so used to the cold that by now it didn’t feel cold at all. It didn’t feel warm, mind you, but it was not cold. He reveled in the water now. He was not afraid of it.
On this day, however, only one Bitterling showed up. She was not surrounded by any other fish, but this time was different. This fish was not afraid of him, either. The Adamawa was taken aback by this new friend he had made, and gently placed his snout down into the water. The Bitterling swayed through the river, reached out, and just barely grazed the cheek of the Adamawa with his fin. That, however, was all it took. The feeling of her scales on his cheek was such an exciting feeling. The bull was elated! He jumped up out of the water and kicked and made noise that woke the birds in the trees! He didn’t care! What a new-found excitement he had found! This was like anything he had seen, and this fish that had touched his cheek was the best thing that had happened to him! But…then he looked down. He didn’t see the fish anymore. All his excitement has stirred up the water to a brown mess, and the fish was nowhere in sight. He calmed himself just long enough to see what he had done.
There, under his front hoof, all he could make out was the fin of the Bitterling. The tiny, posterior fin protruded from under his hoof, and when he stopped to think about what he was standing on, it wasn’t hard and smooth like the stones of the riverbed had grown to become. This was a new feeling. This was..
This was a mistake.
He lifted he hoof, and the Bitterling’s lifeless carcass floated downstream. It didn’t make any movements to dance away. It didn’t even avoid the rocks and other debris that lined the River. It kept on floating. It never stopped, and there wasn’t another Bitterling in the water. He would come back down the Mountain for his drinks of water, but the beautiful fish that had made peace with him did not come by anymore. They had moved on, but he was still stuck in place.
In his deafening solitude.
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