The River That Remembers By Melanie Kivuva

The river murmured lullabies in the moon’s reflection. Its surface was a silver ribbon, a thing of beauty. But it was no bed. No cradle. It was a thing that never forgot.

The river always remembered.

He bent at the edge, toes curling in the damp earth, watching the waves spread from his fingertips. A silent boy, a nameless boy. A shadow among the reeds. His feet were tough, his ribs tracing their stories under his skin. He had never known words. Only the weight of water, the push of the current, the taste of salt when the rains came. 

The villagers whispered around him, their voices hushed but never silent. 

"Aa, mwaitu, mũtavyeena nĩ ũũ?" (Ah, my mother, what is wrong with him?)

"Wia wa Ngai!" (God’s will!) 

They spoke of him, but never to him. To them, his silence was an absence, an unspoken sickness. But he was not deaf to their laughter, their mockery, their fears. He simply belonged to none of them. The river did not ask him for words. The river only carried secrets, as he did. 

Kasau ka ngya niko kenyenyaa muongo. (An orphaned calf licks its own back.) He had learned early that there was no mouth to call his name, no hands to pull him close. He belonged to himself, to the silence, to the current. The village mothers turned their faces away, their children yanked by the wrists when he passed as if he was some sort of monster. Yet he was just a child like them, yearning to receive the love others so freely had. Men huddled near the elder’s hut, their voices low.

They feared what did not plead for mercy, what did not explain itself, they feared the boy.

He spent his days by the river, dragging his fingers through the silt and watching the fish bolt beneath the surface. Sometimes, he would walk in, letting the water cradle him. The water never fought him then; it only whispered, curling around his limbs like something ancient and knowing. 

But the river was never just a friend. It was a thing of hunger. He had seen it take before. Goats too slow to cross, an old man who misjudged the season, a woman who thought she was faster than the water; his mother. It never gave them back. It didn't give back his mother. It only carried her deeper, swallowing her whole, just like the others.

The sky split apart. A growl of thunder rolled over the hills, shaking the village huts. Rain struck the earth, turning dust into mud. The river turned navy, dark and wild, unrecognizable. The villagers shouted to one another, gathering baskets, forcing children indoors, and lifting goats onto higher ground. But the water did not listen to panic. It swallowed the land, erased paths, and dragged voices under. 

A girl grasped the old muvai tree by the river’s edge, her hands slippery with rain, her feet slipping against the drenched bark—the chief’s daughter. The villagers called her name, but no one moved. The river was no place for men who wanted to see the next sunrise. 

No one except him. 

She did not scream, only reached out a trembling hand. And he reached back. 

The river took them. Its teeth were cold, its pull relentless. He felt the girl slip as the current twisted around them, swallowing them whole. He kicked and fought, his fingers locked around her wrist. The water roared, but he did not listen. He had always belonged to it, but tonight, it would not take another soul, not again.

The river hugged him, dragging them deeper. The world above blurred and vanished. He saw nothing but darkness and felt nothing but the weight of the water pressing in. His lungs burned, and the air fled his chest faster than the last warmth of a dying fire. The girl’s body was infirm, her hand barely gripping his. He kicked, and his arms pulled against the force that wanted to claim them both. 

His heartbeat pounded against his skull. A memory, sudden and uninvited, broke through the fog. A hand—his mother’s?—pressing against his cheek, a whispered breath of coziness before it was gone. The river had taken her, too. It had stolen her from him before he had words to cry out her name. But he was still here. He had lived. And he would not let the river take another. He couldn't let the river win again.

With the last of his strength, he pushed against it, dragging them upward as he prayed to Mulungu (God). The air tore into his chest. 

They washed onto the shore, coughing and shaking. The village stood over them, silent. The storm had passed, but the village still held its breath. 

The chief knelt beside his daughter, his voice trembling. "Wathiĩ kũmanyĩa ĩtina wa mai, ndũkotaa mĩtũ." (You have gone to know the bottom of the water, yet you have not drowned.) 

The silent boy met his eyes. And for the first time, the village listened. 

They did not call him cursed after that. They did not turn away when he passed, the village mothers did not yank their children when he walked by. The river had tested him and spat him back onto the land. 

They called him Mĩtũ—Depths. 

He never spoke a word. He never had to. But he heard it as he lay awake that night, gazing up at the thatched roof. A whisper crawling at the corners of his mind, a sound like breath. A voice, deep and rolling, not of the village, not of men. 

In the days that followed, the village watched him differently. The children still avoided him, but were no longer in fear—only in awe. The men nodded as he passed as if acknowledging something neither of them could name. The women did not rush to hide their baskets when he walked too close. 

Yet he remained on the edges, always watching, always listening. The river had not taken him, but it had left something behind. A knowing—an understanding that the water did not just take, it kept. It carried the echoes of all the souls it had ingested, the voices of the lost. He wished he could save them the way he saved the chief's daughter. He could feel them now, whispering beneath the surface, lingering in the currents, calling him, pressing against his skin like whispers of the past. In addition to the weight of survival, what the river remembered also weighed heavily on his chest.

He returned to the river one evening as the sun was setting behind the hills. The water was chilly on his skin as he entered, swirling like a soft promise.

The river muttered his name not as an echo but as something woven into the current itself, as though he were now a part of it. His name floated through the sea, transporting it beyond time, past the village and the reeds.

The water curled around his feet like an old hug as he stood at the edge. For the first time, he did not fight. He allowed the river to flow through him, past him, and around him– until he was certain that even when he was gone, it would still remember.

And somehow, that was enough.