There was a waterfall down behind the apartment house where I lived.  It was at the bottom of a steep river gorge below a concrete embankment.  The cascading water made a thunderous sound due to both the height of its fall and the swiftness of the current.  It hit the rocks with a  thud and a swoosh that had no beginning and no end.

During the rainy season the waterfall was especially loud, and we had to close the windows just to hear the television.  But once the rainy season was over, the river quieted down and we opened the windows to the sound of the cicadas and the night air.

One summer night after the sun had set and the moon had risen, I was on the veranda looking down at the white water in the shadows below.  It was hot and I couldn’t sleep, so I leaned over the railing for some air.  After several minutes, I felt myself being pulled inside the sound of the rushing water.  Suddenly, I could hear not only the one continuous rushing sound of water that I had always heard, but several other sounds as well.  It was like the river was a head of hair being plaited into braids.

As near as I could tell, what I was listening to was the sound of the various currents being circuited into streams by the rocks and the trees in its path.  Some of the currents were rushing headlong down the mountain.  But others were eddying around in loops before rejoining the main current.  One sound, however, just went round and round.  I latched onto this sound and when I’d followed it long enough, I couldn’t hear any of the other currents.  It was then that the circling water raised a voice.

‘Here,’ it said.  ‘I’m here.’  And then finally, ‘Come here.’

The voice startled me and I pushed myself back from the rail.  Then it was gone and all that was left was the one continuous sound of the waterfall and the wail of the cicadas.  I went back inside and tried to sleep but tossed and turned until the sky grew light.

The next day, I climbed down the ravine behind the apartment building to have a closer look at the waterfall.  It had been many years since I had been down there and the path was overgrown.  On the banks of the river was a high perimeter fence and signs that read, ‘Danger – Keep Out!’  A dozen years ago, an elementary school boy had disappeared.  Although his body was never found, he was presumed drowned.  Since that time, few people had ever thought to swim there.

But now just living seemed dangerous enough and you couldn’t ‘Keep Out’ of everything.  It was hot.  It was very hot.  We were in the middle of a record heat wave and it didn’t make much sense to take a bus and a train to a crowded beach an hour away when there was an icy stream just a few minutes below.

I jumped the fence and swam in the cool water.  The pool beneath the waterfall was not very deep – maybe a meter and a half at its deepest – so I couldn’t understand what was dangerous about it.  What was disconcerting was the sound.  When you were in the pool the rushing water overhead was so loud that you couldn’t hear anything else.  Everything – the cicadas – the noise of the trucks on the bridge high above – was just a blur downed out by the roar of the waterfall.

I went swimming in the river countless times that summer without hearing the voice again and thought that I must have been dreaming when I’d heard it before.  So one night when I got home late and the temperature was still in the mid-thirties, I thought that I would take a dip in the river.  It was a full moon, so I didn’t need a flashlight; and since no one wanted to go there with me, I went alone.

It was a beautiful night.  The moon was in the water and in the sky above.  Once I’d reached the waterfall, I could see the spray hanging in the night air and I was soon enveloped in its cool embrace.  I entered the pool and waded out into the middle.

Again, it was the sound of the water that pulled me down.  When I’d put my head under the water, I had the sense that I was now bathing in sound.  It was an indescribable sensation.  So I was not only cool – I was shivering cold.

I had been hot, so miserably hot, that I willed myself to stay in the water even after something told me that I should get out right away.  And then, I heard it again.  The one sound started separating into the many and I could hear the various currents breaking off from the stream.  Only this time, because I was also in the water, I could see them as well.  And then I knew that each one of the currents was alive.

I couldn’t move.  I was no longer wading or swimming.  It was like the water was gripping me and caressing me at the same time.  It moved in waves that buoyed and battered me and then went off laughing downstream.  Then I saw an eddying current going around and around.  It didn’t have to speak – I knew who it was.  Inside I spoke to it and pleaded with it not to answer.  I knew that if it did, I might not be able to go back to the world that I had known.

But the water just laughed and whirled around me in tightening curls. 

‘Ha ha ha ha!’  It was a child’s laugh, bright and shiny without fear.  ‘Here I am, here I am,’ it chortled.  ’Come with me!’  The current bounced off the rock wall to my right and disappeared under the waterfall.

I didn’t want to follow it – I wanted to go home.  But the currents laughed.  Then they joined hands and began pushing me towards the waterfall. 

The little boy’s voice beckoned me on ahead, ‘Don’t be afraid; don’t be afraid.’

But I couldn’t let go of the world that I knew and I thrashed my arms and legs in an effort to break free.  Just then the undercurrent beneath the waterfall began to pull me down and that, together with the push at my back, sent me into the middle of the sound.

I could no longer feel my arms and legs and I couldn’t see my hands.  Then I realised that I didn’t have any hands.  I was part of the river now, part of the sound.

End