A Current Event 

                                        by           

                                 P.D DeLucchi

When we think of sentient beings, we feel a little alone perhaps; being the only ones we know who are sentient. 

Maybe we are misguided in thinking this.

In fact. I know most certainly that this is not true.

I’m not going to make a case for dolphins or elephants or aliens from somewhere in the inky unknown.

This is a story about a river.

Now, when we see rivers, we generally perceive them as a singular, ever-flowing and unaware mass but, not that this is a revelation, they are made of different currents, traveling together endlessly.

What if I told you that each one of these currents have their own identity, names as well as ambitions and feelings?

This is a story of Sarah, the current.

She travelled on and on with other currents that she knew or came to know along side her. Some of these currents she had known since she first came to be in this world. Others she had met in her travels and they replaced some of the childhood friend currents that at one time, Sarah would never have Imagined parting with.

The banks of the river were lush and green and the trees bore fruit and the fauna ate and played and mated along these banks and many currents were happy to know that they were giving life to an ecosystem.

Beyond these banks, the land was arid and dry and the soil was dead and hard as stones.

Sarah was tired of being lost in a mix of currents that made up the river because she had always wanted to be recognized as an individual and not just a part of a group.

This was a rare sentiment among the currents, however she had met and had known several currents who also felt like they wanted their own identity and to make their own special mark in the world.

These currents inspired her and were the catalyst for her longing to be something more and to divert to another path that was truly her own.

Carry, was Sarah’s best friend growing up and Carry had very wild and almost taboo ideas and was the most individualistic person she had ever met.

One day, Carry couldn’t take being part of the crowd any longer and she told Sarah that she would be leaving the river soon. 

Part of Sarah was deeply afraid for her friend but another part really wished that she would do it and succeed, so that Sarah may have hope to someday do the same.

The day had come and it was a particularly hot day with very low humidity.

The river banked hard to the east near some rapids and without another thought, Carry used all of her strength to bank to the West.

Carry flowed over hard clay without the shade of any trees. 

Carry had finally become her very own stream. 

Sure a river is mightier than a stream but this stream was entirely her own effort and ambitions.

Carry made it as far as half a mile before the sun vaporized her into nothingness and after, there was nothing that would ever signify that she had one been a stream of her own.

Sarah mourned her dear friend and almost abandoned the idea of trying to become her own stream, or day she say, river, someday.

As the years passed, Sarah met many others like Carry who wanted to do and even tried to do the same thing Carry had attempted.

They all failed and burnt up in the sun.

The other complacent currents would “tisk-tisk” about these foolish currents and felt little to no remorse or empathy for their loss.

It had been pouring rain for several days at one time and they had not seen the sun in a while. 

The river flooded here and there and some of even the most conforming currents were lost to the banks of the river due to the storm, never to rejoin the pack.

Sarah decided that this was her chance. 

There was a hard western bend up ahead and with all her might, she went to the east instead.

She heard some of her friends calling after her to come back but she just kept going.

The storm lasted long enough for Sarah to survive solo, and by the time the weather had returned to normal, green grass and large bushes had grown around Sarah’s stream. 

Years passed, and now Sarahs stream dwarfed her home river in size by almost double.

Her banks were green and the trees bore fruit and the fauna ate their fill and played joyfully.