The Waterfall

By the second night, Anne was sprawled out in the middle of the bed, limbs bending and stretching in every direction. It was the best sleep she’d ever had. Delicious and luscious, like being nestled in a noiseless, weightless cocoon. The feeling of not wanting to ever move disturbed only by a throbbing bladder.

Anne was supposed to be in this huge bed in the cosy bungalow with her partner of eight years. But as she’d expected for a long time, he’d found another big bed, belonging to someone not younger or prettier, just not her. “More present” as he had put it.

Her personality had swallowed itself in the last few years. Each day a vat of wet cement to be trudged through. The listening, smiling, nodding, and replying required hollowed her to the core. Anne sometimes glimpsed at him as she watched soaps in silence, wondering when he’d put the withering thing out of its misery. She couldn’t be bothered to do it herself.

Anne went to the rooftop for the complimentary breakfast and as she drank her coffee and stared out to the sea, she thought about when she and Mike had last eaten breakfast together. They usually spent Saturday morning at a greasy spoon called Heartland Café, where they watched couples in various stages of decay, newspapers as buffers. They’d wondered if the silence was companionable. Was everything already said? They’d vowed in those first years to never be like those couples. But on that last morning the only sounds between them were the scraping of knives on toast and the slurping of coffee. She thought about asking him what he thought these people were going to do after they paid their bills. He would have answered animatedly, making her laugh with his turn of phrase and unpredictable ideas. But she said nothing and neither did he and after they paid, she went to the library and he went for a ramble through the city.

After breakfast, Anne went to the appointed spot for a trip she booked to a waterfall. As she awkwardly climbed into the songthaew, she saw that she was the only customer and felt a stab of fear and loneliness. Then she remembered the last trip she had taken with Mike, each of them in different seats on the train so they could “both have a window view” and feeling lonelier when they were forced to sit together on the way back.

 The palm trees were unnaturally tall, like redwoods and the layers of green suggested untameable places with snakes, spiders, and all types of horrifying insects. When Anne was a child, her father brought the family out on Sunday drives out in the country. She would project herself out the window and watch herself run in the tall grasses and fields, her arms held out, face turned slightly towards the sun. On this ride in the jungle, Anne feared any projection of herself would be strangled and consumed by all that green. But she imagined it anyway.

She heard it before she saw it. Louder than any thunderstorm and strangely calming. She laughed at the enormity of it, a wall of white that stretched as far up as she could see. In the sun the droplets of water shone like diamonds.

The driver slid out of the truck and lit a smoke. He looked at Anne and then seemed to scold his young companion, who shyly beckoned with a skinny arm for her to follow. He didn’t smile or look at her and she imagined that he’d much rather be hanging out with his pals in an internet café than schlepping a middle-aged white lady through the jungle.

As the climb became more difficult, she noticed how deftly the barefoot boy jumped from rock to rock, spotting the easiest route for her to take. The boy frequently held out his hand to help her over steep and slippery spots. At first she felt weak and reluctant to feel his small, slender almost bird-like grip on her but as the energy drained from her legs, she welcomed the boy’s strong and gentle hand and found herself not wanting to let go.

In the beginning, she and Mike had always had their fingers laced or at the very least, touching. Walking down the street, sitting on the old broken sofa in their favourite pub, at night when falling asleep. She had known every line, vein, and callous of his hands by touch. Why had she started burying her hands deep in her pockets and sleeping with them curled under her chest?

As Anne struggled to breathe in the thick air of the jungle, she gasped at the realization that the simple act of withdrawing her hands had been the first act of sabotage. The gradual silence had followed.

Anne and the boy were now at a relatively flat area of the mountain, a giant bench that had been carved out and covered with a soft layer of grass. The water was shallow and there were large smooth stones shining in the sunlight. Anne slowly trudged up and over stones and climbed onto a large rock. She felt the spray of the waterfall behind her and could see the sheer drop before her. She let herself be surrounded by the noise before beginning to sob into her hands.

She suddenly felt two hands covering her own as the boy hugged her from behind. He rested his head between her shoulder blades and she could feel his mouth on her skin whispering kind words in a language she didn’t understand.

As Anne walked back to her hotel hours later, the boy ran to her. She immediately thought she should give him a tip and began digging in her bag. He put his hand on her arm and with a smile thrust a small, smooth stone into her hand. He said something, which could have been anything, really, but for her was always, “Don’t let go.”