The River That Learned English Backwards

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PART I — The River That Learned English Backwards

I went trout fishing elsewhere where the river had been taught to pronounce things incorrectly on purpose. It flowed south, which already felt like a joke played on maps. The trout were polite and foreign. They waited in the water as if they had been invited late to a party they did not understand.

The woman in the clearing leaned against a tree as if the tree had suggested it. She had the look of someone who knew the river before it had a name and after it had lost one. Her arm was lifted, not in greeting, not in surrender—just lifted, like a sentence that had stopped midway and decided that was enough.

Behind her, the river folded itself into smaller rivers, like a story embarrassed by its own length. Somewhere upstream, a waterfall practiced repeating itself. The trout held position, practicing nothing.

I cast my line and it landed lightly, like a thought you don’t intend to keep. The trout ignored it. They were immigrants. They had papers. They had been stocked. They had no interest in my nostalgia.

This was trout fishing elsewhere, where the fish had accents and the water remembered other continents. The river did not belong to the trout. The trout did not belong to the river. I did not belong to either, which made it feel briefly correct.

The woman watched without judging. That was the best part.