Prologue - The Nile

What is it with rivers, anyway? Some stream subversively below the surface, trying to reach a destination only they can envision. Others take a more direct approach and drown those who would cross them, taking them to the shadowy depths to be never seen again. 

I'm sure there was an analogy there somewhere. Maybe it was caught in the swell as well. Or maybe it was a metaphor?...

My point is that right now I can't hear anything but the thunder of the stream and can't see or experience anything except the white foam and deep currents, overwhelming in their intensity and omni-presence. 

So I turn away from the water to face the sleek and high walls of the bank besides me. It's all white and clean and empty. It is bypassing the river's essence in favor of silence and forgetfulnes, of calm and stillness and immobility. It is ignoring reality in its full force and effect in favor of a sheltered, commuted, easily digestible lie. 

I yearn to rest awhile on the slippery bank, to avoid the greater purpose I profess to seek. Perhaps if I can sit here for just a few moments the river will calm itself or turn into a wide meadow or will somehow teach me how to swim. 

But no. The river is seemingly all encompassing, it's wild and will heed no one and no thing. It rushes and gushes, sending foamy tendrils up the bank to grasp me, to have its cold water go over, shake and wake me up. 

What is it with rivers, anyway?