Echoes of the Midnight River
And in the heart of a small town that comprehends the river as its arms and the mist as a spouse in the early morning, there was a riddle that everyone who dared listen to it was held by spirits. The town was shaped and its existence and functioning was based on Boryslav River – the source of life, of commerce and also of rumors. The elder’s stories that were told late into the night by the fire included one that narrated how there was a boat that moved in the night in a very creepy and silent manner.
Other fishermen especially the elderly said that they had seen it before, in a statement made by the main character Old man Peterson. He described it as a pitch black night with the moon concealed by thick clouds of the night but still highlighted the water a bit. One evening when he was fixing his nets close to the old pier when the fog covered the sea he saw a boat coming towards him, the boat was old and of wooden construction, had a thin foggy color of gray tint and dirty, sere sails like rag while the wind was out long ago. Such was the exclusive old boat: there was no oars, there was no lanterns; only ghost like figure floating along the water.
Such rumor went round the town as the wind move round the trees. Some people dismissed it as a mere story from the old man while others who had the creeds of superstitions did not dare to cross the river at night. But dear Thomas the young boy who had an intellectual curiosity, the heart of an explorer could not close his eyes to the mystery. He would prefer going to the side of a river and spend his young age, drawing boats and other animals that took water sources. The haunt is then taken and becomes an obsession—an enigma; a thing that he wished to get to the bottom of.
Once there was a boy called Thomas and the story goes that one day all the stars tried to hold a breath and keep the night silent, only then, a moonless night was right for Thomas to begin his journey. Clutching a flashlight and sketching pad, he walked in front of the car into the unknown. The river continued to flow its waters gently, a comforting sound that masked the dangerous journey he was undertaking thou on his own.
And when the ‘twelfth bell’ rang to break the witching hour, as the tales had predicted, a mere shadow loomed out of the fog before Thomas’s eyes. The boat of the rather haunted began to appear before him in ethereal content and seem to navigate through the water. Thomas looked intently at Ned, and for the moment he closed his eyes he took a deep breath full of fear and anticipation.
This boat seemed very old, and even the sounds of the planks of wood in the hull’plates groaned softly as the boat rocked with a gentle list. The moon shone on its worn and aged wooden floor, where he could very clearly see Zhaan and Pilot designs etched into the wood. It was rather sad—or perhaps more appropriately said, it had a tragic atmosphere that was similar to that of a ship that drifted in the middle of the sea as it belonged to neither the world of the living or the departed.
This caused Thomas to advance forward being filled with the bravery as well as the curiosity that comes with youth. Sometimes he had the sensation of being pursued and could almost see a phantom density approaching and looming over in the darkness. Finally, with his hands, suff ering from palsy, holding the light, he pointed it at the deck and saw the silhouette of a man at the wheel.
The figure was surrounded by fog so no details of his face but the countenance could have been one of any man. It appeared to be like a legendary image of water floating far in the middle of desert and so vague and shimmering. With fear, Thomas felt someone was observing his conduct; this fueled him to continue practicing witchcraft.
Tom’s hand shook so hard that he could barely keep his voice loud enough, “Who are you?” There was no response and the only thing Carol could hear was the water slapping against the side of the boat. He inched forward further, equally weighed down by the darkness and curiosity for more.
On the spot, as if in answer to the thought, a slight movement of the boat, a gentle rocking could be felt. Thomas was shocked that such a feeling as cold could be felt by the skin – as if one could hear something as cold as death breathed into the ear a story of distant epochs.
As the dance continues, the boat in which they are seated gradually starts to move closer to the water thanks to an underwater existing force that pulls its bow. Suddenly, panic rose in Thomas – he dared not let this opportunity slip away from his goal to discover the truth. Determination gitted him for the next move and he sprang up into the deck with a free-hand flashing with shots of the reflections mimicking the flow of the river.
The wooden floor beneath him was cold, slightly moist; the sand had worn the floor to a glassy polish over the course of many centuries. He approached the man standing at the helm of the craft slowly – his chest was filled with a sensation akin to a lullaby being played on the water. With every new breath he drew, there was the distant sound of a stream, the sound of water that raced through trees and rocks.
He was nearer now and Thomas could even make out some washed-out features—a coat in dire need of a polish, hands gripping an imaginary wheel and eyes carrying the tales of a thousand seas. As an angel, he appeared to have withdrawn into a world of his own as his mind wandered through realms higher and farther than human understanding.
It was all so unfamiliar Even the moon hanging heavily in the ebony sky seemed foreign ‘Who are you?’ Thomas enquired for the second time this time his voice was almost inaudible like the wind whispering secrets of the night. The figure started moving as if that was the most natural thing in the world and enough to end that dreamlike state. Gradually it lifted its face towards him; the eyes were steadily fixed upon him, as though expressing the love which it had lost – the despair which it bore within its heart.
‘I am the witness to the secrets that the world has locked away and thrown into the darkest corners.’ the figure said in a voice as fragile as the wind’s. Still in chains to the ship as my dues are to be paid, crossing the dominion of uncharted waters.
Thomas listened with rapt attention – even love – to the ghostly beauty of the figure that spoke to him. It remained being a sort of a soul being in two places at once, a disembodied spirit forever tied to the endless travel of the boat. The water joined them – the quiet river whose only part was to look at them like at two strangers meeting once in a lifetime and then parting away.
As night gave way to day, this in youth, pulling back to the horizon, so did the boat get gemeinschaft and vanish. It then dissipated as though it had melted into thin air immediately; the ethereal figure as elusive as the morning fog; and there was Thomas on the deck with only his thoughts of the night to keep him company.
He stood still before the many worn out trenches and while the types of boats are undetermined, the somewhat enigmatic rider also remains unidentified. They had solved the mystery, like in the saying at sea ‘it is easy when you are on the shore,’ but there were questions left in the mind of the character-like ripples in the river. What other stories would be mouthed in waters? These questions made me wonder what other hidden tales are behind the gales that stirred through the waters?
Round this he went, sorrow in his heart; but curiosity burning within him, he returned once more to the river’s edge. With him, the sounds of that night, the broken boat and the man, who looked as if he still had some stories to tell in the depths of his worn out eyes. And I suspect that as he returned to the act of drawing, of dissecting the story of the river as a riddle, he came to understand that some things are beyond comprehension, they must be felt.
However, in the middle of this small riverside village or behind the haze of light and the gentle glimmer of the night, Thomas had finally found out about his story, his chronicle written on the silver-bright stream, and the rather life-like vision of a ghost-like rowing boat.