The Colored Lens Autumn 2013 Issue #9
Edited by Dawn Lloyd and Daniel Scott
Contributors: Rhonda Eikamp, Nyki Blatchley, Rachel Hayes, Lauren Fawcett, Sean Monaghan, Holly Jennings, Jamie Lackey, Sara Puls, Matthew Hentrich, Jennifer Stakes and David Gallay.
My story in this issue is River God, an ecological fantasy story. This had, if I remember correctly, more than a touch of influence from John Boorman's haunting film The Emerald Forest (as, I strongly suspect, James Cameron's film Avatar also did) but I've looked at the situation from a completely different angle. If we should choose, for our own convenience, to dam a river in an unspoilt paradise, it certainly impacts on the indigenous people who rely on it. But what about the god who lives in the river and has kept it flowing for millions of years. He's not going to be happy, I imagine.
This story tells of how the god and his people fight back against the more questionable aspects of progress.
The
river-god turned over in his sleep.
He’d worked hard for countless millions of years, guiding his river down
to the sea, and he needed rest. Voices
came and went, but this was more insistent and beat on the gates of his
slumber.
“Awake,
O great god.” The voice slipped into a
dream that wasn’t quite a dream. “Your
people call on you in their need.”
His
bed was less comfortable than usual: hard, jagged stones, instead of gentle
water to rock him. The dream from
within slowly merged with the world outside, and the voice was saying, “You
shall have whatever offering you wish, great god. We beg you to awake.”
The
river-god sat up, rubbing his eyes, and looked about. So that was why his bed felt so uncomfortable. The course down which his water should pour
was empty, exposing its stony bottom.
