Causation

He finds himself in the Anacostia River, soaked to the bones, carried along by its current, now going under, and now coming up for air.

Earlier, he left a busy house for no particular reason that he can remember. There was a girl he walked home, part way; fortunately, pleasantly, this took him close to the library, where he picked a book from the shelf to borrow; and, near the library, he bought cigarettes at a corner store.

He walked for hours that seemed like days, along familiar streets and then through streets he wasn’t sure he’d heard of much less walked along. It was one of those days with all the seasons in it. So he kept on walking.

He met a woman he knew, and walked with her for a while. They spoke of what had happened since they had last met, and shared stories about people the other didn’t know.

In a museum, they looked at paintings, as children ran from gallery to gallery as noisily as they could. There were lonely landscapes, crowded city streets, portraits of severe and smug or defeated people, and others of a happier character – contented women in colorful dresses, confident men looking the artist straight in the eye, landscapes you wouldn’t mind walking through.

He arranged to meet the woman later, and walked alone to a bar near the gallery, hoping to read the book, but there were too many revelers there, and the music was loud, so he waked on to another some distance away, just as it began to snow. The snow was wet and soft and felt good on the skin, in his hair. Smoking, he exhaled, and in the cold air didn’t know when to stop exhaling. And when he reached the second bar, the noise was just people talking, so he stayed a little while and read.

In the street again, he marveled at how fresh and foreign it all looked in the snow – modest buildings suddenly ornate, the trees taking on darker greens and browns in contrast with the snow, walls like marble. He imagined others from long ago in his past looking at what he was looking at, as though seeing through his eyes, and seeing the beauty with which he had somehow managed to surround himself.

Eventually, he came upon a bar he knew well. It felt like an accident, arriving there, but maybe he was headed that way all along. It was warm and quiet and the bartender let him drink as much as he liked for next to nothing. There was some music he listened to, a magazine he read, some small talk with the bartender, but mostly he was content to drink and turn the pages of the book or watch the snow fall through the windows.

Then he remembered his appointment and headed out into the snow. He was late already. The snow was now deep and drifting and there were no taxis or buses running. No one else was out walking in this weather. He called the woman to let her know he would be late (maybe he hoped she would come and pick him up) but there was no answer.

It was hard going in the snow, but he was in a hurry, now. The snow was almost up to his waist. He couldn’t tell where the roads were, where sidewalks started.

And then, mid-stride, he fell, feet first, down a drain - which was gaping because of summer swelling of the road, because the road had not been re-laid, because the drain had been cast and set right where it was a hundred years ago – and which, in any case, he could never have seen in the snow, being so distracted, walking so carelessly.

Water carried him along - past garbage and rats, through sewage - but quickly so that he wasn’t concerned about the filth, only about not finding a foothold, and being flushed along helplessly.

The river is cold and fast-moving. He knows he has to get out fast. Slowly, and already at half-strength he works his way towards the bank. A man dressed for the weather and with a hat shaped like a bell watches his struggle and makes his way towards him, extending his hand out from the very edge of the bank.

The thoughts, such as they were, of people he had met, the day he had passed, the habits he had adopted, how he had got from one place to another, rushed over the man in the river like cold water as though they were the thoughts of the river itself.

The man in the bell hat seems to know these thoughts, for he says, “I will help you out, if you can tell me how you got here.”