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12.8.05

Flash Fiction: Tchefuncte River, Summer 2005

One summer a boy dove into the Tchefuncte river and hit something at the bottom. When he came back up he hurriedly free-styled to the flood wall, clambered up the algal steps, frightened. We all looked and saw the corpse of a calf float to the top of the water. It had risen up from the depths. A black and white photograph of the banks of the Bogue Falaya River near Saint Benedict, LouisianaBloated. Passed along by a farmer from downriver to here, near the mouth. Thrown in for the alligators. And a few days before that, a kid caught a nurse shark in the same river, near the same spot. Adam told me he used to swim in it, but not anymore. -- Rivers aren’t supposed to have cows and sharks swimming around in ‘em, he said. Besides, the water’s been getting muckier, disgusting. It’s not just the boats, either.
Image Credit: "Bogue Falaya River Bank" © 2005
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2 comments:

  1. ScottJuly 22, 2008

    What else is muckying it up? The way you write it makes me think something occult is going on, like wicked souls have become the new alluvium, which would be really neat.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Greig RoselliJune 09, 2011

    Yeah, this story certainly wants to be wickedly occultish. I don't really know where to take it though.

    ReplyDelete

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