Two Rivers
Before the flow of the river began there was a faint rainbow visible in the wake of a white wing of lakewater spurting from a port opened in the dam. Below it, at a distance, fishermen waded in knee-high boots with their sons and lures snatching up the bluegill and bass that had washed out of Percy Priest. Above there was a bridge dividing the river and the lake and the cars that drove across it were privy to the curvature of the stream as it ducked underneath the interstate overpass and the immeasurable beauty of the lake at dawn, when it seemed the sun had melted into the spangled waters with a glory nearly too radiant to behold. The wind blew amid the churn of the dam. Flocks of birds at play in the surf. He stood in the grass and watched them for a while. Leadeth me beside the raging maelstrom. Upon a wooden bench in the field were etched old carvings, messages, signatures. "NO FATE", one says. More still were spray-painted under the overpass, where the trail just begins....