“I have been here before, but I do not remember why.”
The river stretches before me, dark and endless, its surface rippling with memories I cannot quite grasp. Mist curls over the water, soft and restless, swallowing the trees that line the shore. The air is thick with the scent of damp earth and something else, something old, something lost.
I stand at the edge, my bare feet sinking into the mud, my breath uneven. The wind moves through the reeds, whispering in a voice I almost understand. There is a weight in my chest, a knowing without words.
I have been here before.
But I do not remember why.
I
The first time I came to the river, I must have been young.
I do not remember my own face, nor the life that led me here, but I know the river has seen it. Its waters carry the things we let slip away, names, voices, broken promises. It remembers what we choose to forget.
I take a step forward, and the water shivers in greeting.
“You’re back.”
The voice is soft, familiar. I turn to see a woman standing beside me, dressed in white. Her hair is long, dark, the color of storm clouds before the rain. She does not look surprised to see me.
“You always come,” she says. “And you always forget.”
Her eyes meet mine, and for a moment, something stirs in me, a flicker of recognition, like the last glow of a dying ember.
“Who are you?” I ask.
“You never remember,” she says, almost sadly. “But that’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” The river murmurs between us. The mist thickens.
“I don’t understand.”
She steps closer, close enough that I can see the fine lines around her eyes, the way her fingers tremble as she reaches for me.
“You will,” she says.
And then she is gone.
II
I walk along the riverbank, my feet finding a path worn smooth by footsteps, my own, perhaps, though I do not remember taking them. The water moves beside me, reflecting a sky that seems too vast, too empty.
Ahead, an old man sits on a fallen log, his hands resting on his knees. His face is lined with time, his eyes heavy with the weight of something unseen.
I know him.
And yet, I do not.
“You’ve come again,” he says without looking up.
“Who are you?”
His fingers trace patterns in the sand. “The same question. Every time.”
A cold breeze moves through the trees, rustling the reeds. I watch as the river swallows it whole.
“Why do I keep coming back?” I ask.
The old man finally looks at me. His gaze is steady, knowing.
“Because you lost something.”
The words settle into me like stones.
“What did I lose?”
He exhales slowly, as if he has been waiting for me to ask this.
“The question is not what,” he says. “But who.”
III
The river shifts.
And suddenly, I remember a name.
It drifts to me like a leaf on the current, soft yet insistent.
I whisper it under my breath, and the air around me changes. The river stirs. The wind holds still.
I turn, and she is there.
The woman in white.
But this time, she is not a stranger.
I know her.
Her face is carved into the quiet spaces of my memory. Her laughter lingers in the echoes of my past. She was…
She was everything.
And I lost her.
Her eyes meet mine, and I see the sadness there, the longing.
“You remember,” she says.
I nod.
She steps forward, and I feel the pull of something deep, something I have tried to escape. “You have to let go,” she says.
I shake my head. “I can’t.”
“You have to.”
The river is speaking now, its voice rising, filling the space between us. It swirls at my feet, waiting.
“I never meant to forget,” I whisper.
“I know,” she says. “But you did. And every time, you return to remember.”
I reach for her, but my fingers pass through nothing.
She is already fading.
The river is pulling me back.
“No,” I breathe. “Not again.”
Her voice is barely more than a whisper.
“Until you learn to let go.”
And then…
Silence.
IV
I wake with the taste of river water on my tongue.
The shore is empty. The mist has thinned.
The old man is gone. The woman is gone.
But the river remains.
I look down at my hands, empty, trembling.
I know now why I keep coming back.
I know what I lost.
But knowing is not enough.
I turn away from the water, my steps heavy. The path is familiar, yet each step feels like the first.
The wind sighs through the trees.
The river forgets.
But I do not.
Not this time.
“I have been here before, but I do not remember why.”
