Her Name Was Lola

62 River in the Mind

September 1999. ‘Talk to me about the river,’ says Charlie Prickles to Max. ‘Tell me whatever comes to mind.’

‘Well,’ says Max, ‘it’s pretty much what I’ve told you. We paddled. We swam. We had canoe fights. I think we went through a lock. We cooked over a fire, we slept under the stars. When we got to the end of the canoe trip a truck took us back to camp.’

‘That’s the canoe trip,’ says Charlie. ‘But what I asked you about was the river.’

‘The river we took the trip on?’ says Max. ‘I don’t even remember if it was the Allegheny or the Susquehanna or what.’

‘I just mean river,’ says Charlie. ‘The river in your mind.’

‘Oh,’ says Max. ‘That river.’

‘Yes,’ says Charlie. ‘That one.’

‘It flows to the sea,’ says Max. ‘They all do.’

‘Think about that,’ says Charlie.

‘I always do,’ says Max. ‘And then the Ark comes in. It’s in my dreams with the raven and the Noah child but there’s no story in that.’

‘You can’t get a story out of everything,’ says Charlie. ‘Some things are just for thinking about.’