The Missing Island

An island once was here. Not years ago, but merely days. After only a week of rain the river swallowed it whole, leaving behind only the glassy reflection of the neighboring trees.

Less than a year ago we watched the water swallow up the houses, roads, and trees. It took months for the river to drop and when it did the landscape had changed, rearranging itself beneath the currant. Things were lost, things were found. We lost a dock, we gained a rock. Stairs and trails carved into the earth melted back into the soft curves of the river bank. But where things had become lost the island was found. A marvel, emerging as the brown silty waters slowly drained back into the sea.

The ducks were the first to discover it, cackling in delight as they nested upon the small pool of land that had appeared. We sent toy boats and rafts to it as the water dropped lower, asking the ducks for a spare egg or two but they never obliged. By summer we swam laps around it and played upon its beach peppered with tiny white shells. Birthday Island I called it, eating popsicles upon it with friends long before and after my birthday. By autumn the water had cooled and the swimmers had gone. It then became Dog Island, for the dogs would paddle out and run wet laps victoriously around it.

Perhaps the island was a gift from the river after the floods. An apology of sorts. An offering from the earth in exchange for the flood caused by the fire caused by the drought caused by compound natural distress she’s in. The island was indeed a gift, but not as an apology. As a request.