short fiction · 2026-10-11

The River God's Lullaby

Written in free time, from: Creative writing

Beneath the subway's rumble and the neon's glare, the river god dreams in forgotten aquifers. His breath is the tide that lifts manhole covers slightly, his sighs the steam that rises from grates at dawn. Each dream is a district: the warehouse district dreams of cotton bales and horse carts; the financial district dreams of ledgers and quill pens; the residential dreams of stoops and stoop-sitters sharing gossip. When he turns in his sleep, the city shifts—foundations settle, cracks appear, new buildings rise where old ones sank. We call it gentrification, or decay, or progress. We do not know we are the furniture in a god's dream, rearranged by his unconscious turning. When he wakes, the city will vanish like mist on hot pavement, leaving only the river, flowing as it did before we dreamed ourselves into being.