𝙾 𝙲 𝙲 𝚄 𝙻 𝚄 𝙼

by Eva Clark

The water is cold.

We stand in a river. I saw you as I was passing by, ranting and raving to yourself about God or something close to it. I stopped off the path to listen, walked right up to you knee-deep in icy moving water. Now we stand in a river.

Your hair is gray, thin and thinning; teeth askew, skin peppered with warts. Your torn robes maybe once were white; they are a dusty gray-yellow, something jaundiced. Sick. I think you might be sick—sick people are always looking for God. I can tell you are (looking for God, that is, so maybe sick, too) from the cornered-animal look in your wild eyes and the twigs tied round your neck that you probably hoped would look more like a crucifix than a target. I wonder what the difference is. We stand in a river.

Midday but wintertime, the sun hangs at an odd angle of the sky, chilled yellow, some lemon on ice in the drink of Heaven. The layers I wrapped round myself in the soft morning are soaking now, wool heavy, leather slick. My gloves are full of water, I think; my hands are holding this water, this thing of movement, of intangibility, this thing that should not be held. I was never baptized as a child—is this it? Is this me, washed away? This might be what it feels like: numb and glassy. This might be renewal; this might be all I get. We stand in a river.

You ask me, “Are you the sign?”

“I don’t know,” is barely audible over the roaring of the river. I’m late to realize it was my voice that said it.

“How would you?” you ask. There is a chattering somewhere—I can’t seem to tell the difference between your teeth and mine, your mouth, your words and everything inside my skull. “How would I? Would He tell me? I’ve been waiting so long. I’ve been listening. Why won’t He tell me?”

You move through the river, current pulling me along behind you. The world is wet, I think, or maybe that’s just the way I see it. You step from the river, and then I do. We stand beside a worn cotton bedroll on the gravel bank; a handful of lumpy wax candles, unlit but ready; clothes belonging to a man not a preacher, something from a dead life, something old but carried; a cross buried into the damp ground, rotting driftwood and twine. You sleep by the water; you live beside the living. You have been here for some time, long enough to name this thing home, long enough to not belong anywhere else. You have been worn by your time—this is what a river does: eat away at stone, chew through the earth. Your body wears it ill-fittingly, rotting like the crooked rood that will surely be your headstone, and it must be unfair. You are waiting for God, living and breathing His life, this river, and it turns you to this.

If you don’t know, I’m not sure who’s supposed to. The water is cold.

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Eva Clark (she/he) is a professional overachiever by day and amateur overthinker by night. Her various literary exploits include co-running creative group Procrastinating Writers United, editing and contributing to anthologies Both False & True (2019) and Long-Winded (2024); as well as contributing to Purely Liminal and ERA Magazine. Previously Senior Editor of GAYGENDA Magazine, he now works as a Project Editor at Dial R Studios. When awake, Eva enjoys performing for various audiences, wearing cool jackets, and short walks on the beach. You can find her and her assorted socials on evaclark.com, and hopefully can’t find her anywhere else.