When I was a boy I was on a baseball team. We weren’t official or part of a league or anything, just a bunch of neighborhood kids who enjoyed the sport. During the summer we would all meet in the park and play for hours until dinner time. We met after lunch and by the end of the day we would all be covered in dirt, and sweat, with bloody scrapes on our knees, but it didn’t matter. We had fun. Friendships were forged during those long sunny days. When it rained we all met up at each other’s houses and played board games or cards until the clouds dissipated from the sky. Sometimes we went down to the nearby river. We skipped stones and tried to catch frogs. But the water began to move faster one day. The currant was rough and the water was dark. My best friend, Jim, said he could jump over the river, but no one thought he could. He was an adventurous spirit, always getting into trouble for doing daredevil things. This one time he stole a candy bar from the corner store and didn’t get caught. So as he stood there at the edge of the fast flowing water, I cheered him on. Jim could do anything, and I looked up to him for it. That was the moment I will forever regret. Time seemed to slow down. As Jim leapt into the air, the other kids stood around in awe. He looked like he might make it over what seemed like the Grand Canyon to us. But he didn’t. He landed in the river at just the right angle to fatally hit his head on a rock. We never saw it coming, and we barely saw him going, as the river swept his lifeless body away in the blink of an eye. We were in complete shock. No one screamed. We all walked home in silence, doubting what our own eyes knew to be a tragedy. When his parents called my house around dinner time to ask why Jim wasn’t home, all I could say was, “The river.” It was raining when the police found his body that night. It was mangled an had washed ashore some thirty miles away from where he jumped. Where I didn’t stop him. I didn’t save him. I haven’t thought about Jim since then, I pushed those memories far back into the recesses of my mind. That is, until last night. I had sworn I had turned off my television before I went to bed. But in the middle of the night I heard the static that was typical of it being turned to the wrong channel. “The dog probably sat on the remote.” I thought to myself. It didn’t occur to me that my dog was at my neighbor’s house, because I took trip back home over the weekend to visit my parents. I walked quietly through my house, exhausted being that it was three in the morning. Entering the living room I noticed that the television wasn’t on the wrong channel. The screen was white and the sound it made was this high pitch ring, like the ringing in your ears you get after hearing a gun go off too close to your head. I got ahold of the remote and tried to turn it off, but much to my surprise, my effort was all in vain. The sound persisted. It was slightly disturbed by this situation. I put in my glasses to see the problem clearer, as if this might solve things easier. Maybe I was pushing the wrong buttons. I went to turn on the light, but nothing happened. I remained standing there, confused, in the dark. “What the Hell?” I whispered under my breath. I flicked the switch up and down rapidly as if the sheer friction would ignite the electricity. All throughout my panic, the ringing pierced my mind. After feeling cold air on the back of my neck I spun around, startled. Standing in front of me, dripping wet, was, Jim? He was still in his baseball uniform. But why would Jim be in my living room? Jim was dead. He looked into my eyes, they were vacant and cold. Dead. That split second felt like eternity. Slowly my fear rose up into my throat, but I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t say anything. When Jim spoke it sounded deeper than I remembered, and water, dark water, poured out his mouth with each word. “Why have you done this to me?” He stepped closer. My throat began to constrict, my breathing shallow. “Why didn’t you stop me?” I backed up, but he stepped closer. “Why didn’t you save me?” When his hand touched my arm water began to drip from my mouth, leaving me speechless, but I struggled to respond. All I could say was, “The river.”
