There's an old house that sits on top of the hill on Old Springs Street. It's abandoned, although the mailbox still sits at the end of the driveway with the letters B T O N and part of an S still painted on it. It used to say BURTONS, the last name of the old man and his wife that used to lived there. In my school, there had been a rumor going around that the house was haunted. I had known that wasn't true. There were no such things as ghosts. When I confronted some of my friends about their lies to the younger kids to make them scared, I got pulled into a dare to spend a night in the house. I never regretted my night there. Not once.
When I entered the house, an old pillowcase filled with necessities slung over my shoulder, I was instantly aware of three things. It was dark, the house was essentially empty, and it stank. I mean that it stank really, really bad. I almost ran out the door and forfeited the dare. There was no way I could stay in there one more minute, never mind a whole night. I realized I had to, though, for the sake of my reputation. If I was too chicken to do this, I would never hear the end of it. So, I grappled in the darkness for my matches (thoughtfully added to the bag of necessities) and lit one. With the light, I was able to see most of the room I was in. It appeared to be a living room. There was a fireplace at one end of the room, and a single, antique chair at the other end. I thought that there was no need in exploring the house and chancing crashing through the rotting floorboards, which would probably end up with me having a broken neck. I settled myself down on the floor nearest the doorway I had come in. I leaned back on the floor, saved from dirt and debris by the blanket I had brought for the night. I held up another match and took a better look at the room, this time making many observations. I saw a lot of things about the house I did not like. There was no way I could see that it would be possible for me to go anywhere but down the small path I had already crossed from the door to this room without some chance of injury.
My gaze shifted to the walls and I saw something that would change some of my perspectives forever. Hung on the wall opposite me was a painting. The colors were vivid; the scene was magnificent. It was a painting of a river, in the middle of what seemed to be the most beautiful forest I had ever seen. I got up and leaned my torso toward the other end of the room, craning my neck to see it better. I couldn't get my fill of the painting from where I was standing. I tried to convince myself that it was just a painting, that it wasn't of any great importance at all. But, curious child that I was, I couldn't resist getting up and making my way slowly and carefully towards the painting, checking the footing beneath me each time I took a step. It took longer than any real adventurer would have taken, but I got there all the same.
When I got all the way across and looked at the painting, I noticed something very odd about it. There was no dust covering it, no sign of decay or fading, or anything really to suggest that it had been in the house when the Burtons were alive.
“Nice paintin' ain't it, kid?” A voice said suddenly from behind me. I twisted around, my senses instantly kicking into “fight-or-flight” mode. The source of the question was an old man, a bum by the looks of him.
Now, don't get me wrong, my parents raised me right, I had heard the warning, 'Don't talk to strangers' time and time again, bu the unexpectedness of this situation drove that clear out of my mind. It took a second for me to find my voice, but when I did I asked him,
“Who are you?” My voice was surprised, higher pitched than I would have liked, but I was proud of myself upon noticing that the words came out without quaking or a single stutter.
“Mph. My name's an irrelevant piece of my existence. All people ever care about from me are my stories. I'm a storyteller, see. That's what I do. But if you want, you can call me Bill.” He walked across the room as he said this, without any visible concerns about the stat of the house or the floor and just sat down in the lone chair.
“Like I said,” Bill continued, “I'm a storyteller. And I just happen to know the story of that very painting.” He looked at me expectantly. I stared dumbly back at him.
“Well?” He asked. “Do you wanna hear it or not?” I couldn't see anything threatening about him. Besides, if I had left then, I would have lost the dare. So I sat down on the floor, making sure it was safe first. Then I said to him,
“Alright.” And he began the tale of the river.
“If this were about one hundred years ago, this house'd be in the middle of a huge forest. Now, this part of the forest, where Ol' Springs Street is now, was untouched by humans. In fact, there were no predators at all in these parts. They say the bears and the wolves favored the animals that bordered the forest rather than the ones deep inside the heart of it; I think it was somethin' else. You see, there was just somethin' about the heart of this particular forest. Somethin' special. The trees grew tall, the briars were weak-rooted, and the animal life was well provided for. The grass was green as all get-out and the rain never came carryin' a storm. Now, the reason I think the heart of the forest was so special was the river in that paintin' right up there. You see, the artist who painted that didn't even come close to doin' that river justice. It's waters sparkled and shined like nothin' you ever seen before. The water was clear, cool, and pure. The wildlife got its very life source from that river.
That is, until the humans started goin' and doin' things to learn more about this world. It was inevitable that they would find their way to the forest, and they never gave an inch till they had the whole thing explored. Which means that they eventually came to this place of peace.
Most of the men were explorers, men who only cared about discovery, wanting to tear apart everything to discover how it worked and it was made of. But among these men was a young woman, one of the explorer's daughter. Her name remains a mystery to all but a few, but what she did when they reached the river was known by all who came to the town they ended up foundin'. She painted that picture hangin' there on the wall. She had already been known for her artistic abilities, but that painting was her masterpiece, even if she never came close to matchin' her inspiration's true appearance. But it was a good thing she captured the image of that river. Cause when those men brought others, and they started to build a town around the river, things changed.
See, the men thought that the river would always supply water to them and their descendants. But as time went on, they realized that rains were nonexistent. Over time, the river dried up. But during that same time, wells were dug and other means of getting water were created. The river ended up gone, and eventually forgotten. Except when people saw that paintin'. When they saw that, the townsfolk remembered a story that their fathers had told them, one about a beautiful, cool, clear river that was the cause for settlin' this town. They also remembered the stories that were told about the big storm that the town had soon after the riverbed had flattened out.
The river's gone and can never come back. Life thrives nonetheless. Not the life that had been here before, but it's life all the same. I can't help but feel that some things should be left untouched. Now, just about every inch of this world has been mapped, explored or lived in by some human or one of their contraptions. But who knows? Maybe there is somewhere out there that man has yet to discover.” He got up from the chair and stretched his arms out wide. “Thanks for lending me your ear, kid,” he said and walked out of the house.
My thoughts reeling from the story I had just heard, I walked back to the blanket I had laid on the floor, never really caring or paying attention about where I stepped. As I laid down, I was still amazed by the fact that once my hometown had been very possibly the closest thing to a Garden of Eden since the original. I fell asleep that night, my dreams filled with images of my imagination's take on the lost river and the forest surrounding it.
When I left the next morning, I took the painting with me. Before I made it back to my house, I was approached by my friends who had dared me to spend the night in the Burton house. They asked me if I had seen any ghosts.
“No,” I stated. “No ghosts.”
The painting now hangs on my bedroom wall, right above my bed. I look at it every night before I close my eyes. Maybe Bill was right. Maybe there was someplace like the heart of the forest, with something pure like that river in it. Part of me still wants to be the one to find it. But a bigger part of me wants to leave it alone, if it does exist. Besides, I keep smiling to myself, I can always visit that place, and the river in my dreams and imagination. Those two things have never let me down. Not yet at least, and I very highly doubt that they ever will.
