By that time (fiction)

The rocking of the boat is significant enough to alert Mr. Sawatzky, but it's too late. This trope weighs heavy on the-boy-in-the-striped-shirt, named Paul, who, at this time in his quest to do what Jesus would do, has waited. Rather than being a harbinger in action, he has chosen to wait, to watch, to know what will happen, to be implicated in it, to suffer within it. The frantic pulling of the starter cord, the futile mechanical noises and the clenching of a jaw. These things comfort him. He hides them in his heart. Surely he hopes to reach the shore once more, but the simple satisfaction of knowing his fate has calmed him. 

In the news later in the week no one will know that the boy understood what would happen before it did, well before it did in fact, or that he chose the paradox of silence in the face of destruction, even the possibility of his own. If we all could know of his silence and inaction we might see tragedy. Catharsis. We might see reason and cause. More than sympathy, we could realize that had the right person acted at the right time, disaster could have been, would have been, averted. The scientific view of things could have won the day, though there would be no fanfare or self-congratulation. Only the young hero thanked by the heedless, now grateful, father.

But what would this do for you really? Assuage your fears of a numb and nameless universe? Certainly Paul, the-boy-in-the-striped-shirt, finds no gain in once again being right and helping others avoid destiny. Where's the betterment for anyone in these scenarios? Shouldn't we let the chips fall? Shouldn't we nod and wince at the train-wreck, the highway mishap, the slipped disk and subsequent back spasm. It happens. It should happen. It must happen. The universe wills it. 

It only takes a few hours for the searchers to rumble down to the bridge where the truck is parked, note it, launch their boats and head up and down stream at once. At the downstream rapid would-be rescuer James Friesen, familiar with the river, lands his boat and walks the shoreline. Fifty yards later he picks a child's sneaker, blue with two gold stripes, still wet. Ten yards farther he picks up a fishing rod. Sure now, but heartsick, he approaches a monstrous cottonwood sweeper looming over the fan of the current on the outside of a bend that turns the river back East. Its overreaching  inert forking limbs have caught something larger. James wills it to move, to sound out as he approaches and calls out, to return his call with a plea for help, but the life in that small down-turned body bears its witness in silence.        

Ride report

in:       -3 wind 10ks W

out:     -1 wind 25ks WNW