A Thousand Words

Picture

Our house rests not in the ground, like a normal house, but in the water. It floats along the river as the river likes. Usually, it gets trapped by rocks before it gets too close to the waterfall but it has tumbled over a few times. Those times, Ellie clings to me and screams and screams. It makes me laugh when she checks herself everywhere, checking if she is still alive. The house is more stable than that though. It will never fall apart.

The house is practically a maze to any outsider who comes. We never really invite people over or anything. They would freak out when we tried to get them to swim to our house. It certainly isn't a normal place for a house to rest, after all. in the middle of a river, subject to all of the craziness that comes with it. But we never have cared about that. It is always just the family, and we're used to it.

The family consists of me, my sister Ellie, and our mother and father. We aren't the closest family in the world, but we are closer than most families, that is for sure. Ellie is six, I am sixteen, and our mother and father are both forty. They don't work or anything, and Ellie and I don't go to school. So we don't really meet people very often. That is just how things always were, and always will be. I have learned that by now.

I'll admit it. I want a normal life a lot of the time. I sit on our floating porch and wonder how things came to this. Wonder what made Mom and Dad afraid of stopping. What made them want to float with the river, be untamable, and never stop in the same place twice. That seems to be their goal to me, at least. I can't be sure of their opinions on it. That is just how things seem to me. If you lived my life, I think you would wonder the answers to the same questions I did.

I remember a day, long ago, when our house was falling over a waterfall. I was thirteen, so I suppose Ellie was three. The house started slowly rocking, back and forth. Ellie was in the middle of walking towards Mom and she teetered and fell over crying. I quickly swept her into my arms and started comforting her and she quickly calmed down. I don't really know why, but she always seemed to calm down better with her older brother than with her mother or father. There were a few more sniffles from Ellie, but that was it. Other than that she was still in my arms.

The house slowly teetered, more and more frequently so that soon it was throwing all of us everywhere. "We're going to go over," Mom stated. I had only witnessed going over a waterfall once or twice, so I was fascinated. I quickly handed Ellie over to Mom and went over to the window. Sure enough, I could see the foam at the bottom as we finally started tipping over the edge. Everything seemed to move in slow motion as the house went forward, further and further. It was an incredible sight to see the foam getting closer and closer until wham! We hit the bottom.

I had always been instructed to stay away from the windows when we went over. And I soon learned why. The force of the hit slammed me against the window, which broke, and I tumbled into the freezing cold water. It was the middle of winter, and I was honestly lucky the river was moving too fast to freeze up completely. I gasped, and the water quickly filled my lungs. It hit me so fast, I was helpless to do anything.

I don't know exactly how long I was stuck under the water. I can't express exactly what it felt like either. The house had started to float away, with only a broken window. But I wasn't so lucky. My lungs felt like they were on fire, and I was sure they would collapse soon. After I started fading away, I felt arms wrap around me. They had a motherly sense to them, and I knew they were my mom's. I was barely slipping in and out of consciousness when we broke the surface. I immediately started coughing and spluttering out the water. It was almost a minute later when I ran out of water to heave.

We didn't try to catch up to the house right away. Mom said it got stuck in some rocks a little bit out and would be waiting for us, stationary, when we got there. Instead, we looked out at the scenery before us. It was incredible. Even though we had just gone over a waterfall, we were still on relatively high ground. There was a steep drop about fifty feet away from the river going down into a gorgeous valley. "There aren't places like this everywhere in the world, you know. Take it all in while you can." Her voice seemed to sigh deeper and deeper with every word she said and I could tell there was a real burden carried with those words. I didn't question her on it. I just looked around and did what she said.

We looked at the valley for a long time before setting out in search of the house. We found it, as predicted, resting among some rocks. We gave it a little push and set it off to start floating again and jumped on the porch. "The window's broken," Dad said, simply. He never directly acknowledged events, it seemed. My entire family, I realized, was an enigma even to me, their own son.

"The window's broken," Mom agreed. I wordlessly picked Ellie up and put her to bed. She slept peacefully, unaware of the chaos I had just endured.

I, too, merely whispered to myself "The window's broken" while kissing Ellie goodnight. Then I went to sleep, never to mention the event again.