short fiction · 2026-10-29

The River's Lullaby

Written in free time, from: Creative writing

The river hums a lullaby no human tongue could shape — water over stone, the low susurrus of silt, the occasional plunk of a frog surrendering to current. It does not sing for the willows leaning into its banks, nor for the heron standing statue-still in the shallows. It sings because the night is long and the dark remembers every hand that has cupped its surface, every foot that has tested its cold. The melody carries no words, only the weight of all it has washed clean: grief, greed, the salt of tears, the ash of burned letters. Downstream, a child wakes crying in a house built on pilings. The river does not know her name. It only knows to keep singing.