It was fall in the high country, and the air had that clean quality that settled over the mountains after the last hard rain of the season. The man, whose name was John but who had stopped thinking of himself by name at all, walked alone along the river that ran rough and dark beneath golden-leafed aspens and pine-needled branches. The storm had swollen the river: its currents splashing against rocks as if trying to claw him into its depths. The river bank began to steepen and became impassable as it descended into a gorge, but he would not turn back.

 

John had come here for reasons that seemed more complicated in his mind than they felt in his bones. His path led nowhere in particular. He simply followed the river in pursuit of something he couldn't name. He'd started in the silence of dawn, astutely aware of his heartbeat and the constant rhythm of his breath in the thin air. As the hours passed, he had found the river and intended to follow it simply to see where it led him.

 

Coming face to face with the cold, fast, moving water seemed an inevitable force in his life, a crossroad where he either had to push on or turn back. Foam gathered along the river's edge, and the water's dark surface reflected only shadow. 

 

He removed his boots, tied them around his neck, and stepped into the river. The water was colder than he expected, stabbing at his legs with a numbing clarity. The crossing became more treacherous with each step as the current strengthened; he slipped over the uneven rocks beneath his feet, the weight of his pack tugging at his shoulders. In the middle of the river, the current was the fiercest. He had to stop, bracing himself against a boulder to regain balance. He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the water pressing against his chest, daring him to resign his body to the current. And he wondered briefly if this was life in its essence: a fight against indifference, his own will against the river's relentless push.

 

The thought then came to him, strange in its simplicity: life is no more than this. He had come to this place thinking he sought truth and meaning, but here, chest-deep in the river, he saw his own mind in conflict with an unconscious force. Everything fell away—ambition, regret, the memory of why he'd come here. The knowledge that defined him in conflict against unthinking forces. Maybe he never really knew anything until this intimate moment in the river, alone. In this instant, he felt the shared burden of understanding inflicted upon all life and the relief when its weight is relinquished. He understood that he knew nothing among the collective; everything he had ever been taught fell away except for the natural world before him. 

 

With a final push to regain life, he moved step by step, feeling the river relent as he reached the other side, each inch of progress hard-fought and precious. And when he fat last staggered onto the far bank, soaking and shaking, he looked back at the river, its dark waters again indifferent to him, as if he had never crossed. 

 

He sat down on the bank, exhausted, his breath visible in the air, coming in steady gasps. He was alone, just a nameless man stripped of everything he had once thought made him. He was left only with his own thoughts, beating heart, and taste of mountain air. And somehow, that was enough.