Would That I Were a Water Weed
“Would that I were a water weed,” she murmured to no one, to everyone. “Would that I could crumple in the current and let myself be strung along...”
This became her ever-evolving mantra when she wove down the high street, past shops, past bars, past little stalls that boiled coffee in cezves, half buried in sand. A road where so many portals, arches, doorways led to places well-loved. She muttered just above beneath-her-breath: “Would that silt like silk might be my leggings and eddies my sleeves...”
She was overflowing.
The river of her was overspilling its banks.
Plants, grown too thick, had tangled flotsam up. Ersatz ponds formed and now her problem was everyone's.
She remembered when who she was, that frightened woman who had come here so long ago, floated away as quietly as she came, peace her farewell music.
“Would that I could puddle up in the shadows, be a tangle for oars,” she whispered. Passersby on pursuit of the smallest experience or the grandest — nothing in particular — spared her curious glances. “Would that I were a water weed...”
She did not know why she did this. She did not know why she walked upstream in search of some greener grass. She did not know why she sought out the sea of infinite faces hunting bottomless cups of coffee among the peddlers. A river is an unknowing thing.
The current of this river of her burbled in her chest, rippled in her heart. The oars that drove her thought indeed tangled in who she was, caught ideas up and held them obscured.
How many shops on this strand of road were themselves rivers? How many named after this river or that? How many obscured punts drifting alongside Tethys? How many alleyways led to impossible doors that opened onto a prow?
Would visiting one unstopper the flow of her?
The river that she was trickled down the street, pleading, “Would that my dreams were little fish; would that wishes were fishes; would that I might look into glittering scales and see some more perfect version of me...”
She continued on, past café and cart, past stall and hole-in-the-wall. The sun here never set, but she imagined that she might continue past that, taking not a single cloud in the midst of overflow.
“Would that I were a water weed...”