We Make Mud

The Singing Fish: Revisited

This is how the story, the story of us brothers, this is how it ends. It ends as so many of our stories always do, at night, with us brothers running down to the dirty river that runs its way through this dirty river town. And so, this is how this story begins too: it begins with a river, and it ends with a river, and through it all there is the mud that holds this river in its place. So this is the river. This is us brothers. This is the story that is and will always be the both of us. It begins one night. One night, us brothers, we run ourselves down to the dirty river that runs its way through this dirty river town. Here, at the river’s muddy shore, us brothers, because we are brothers, we drop down onto our hands and knees, down in the river-made mud, and down here on our hands and knees, down here where dirt and river kiss to make mud, us brothers, we bend down our heads, we close our boy eyes to the muddy darkness inside our own heads. Like this, us brothers, we take the muddy river’s water into our mouths. We drink. We drink dirty river from dirty river, we breathe in buckets of rusty river water, we drink and we drink and we keep on with this drinking until there is no more river for us to drink. We drink, that is, until the muddy river turns into muddy mud. When it does, when the muddy river water turns to even muddier mud, like this, us brothers, picture us brothers, this will be the last you might ever see of us brothers: are you with us? Are you watching this? Are you down on your hands and knees drinking with us brothers? Now listen to us sing.