Have you ever looked at a mountaintop so high that you were sure nobody could possibly live there? Well, in most cases you would be right, but sometimes that isolation offers shelter to very unique creatures. Creatures with stories that can only be told by the wind and waves.
This story is about one of them. A boy who lived up there with nothing but his cabin and the river that flowed down to where the world starts to exist. There was a reason why he chose to live in such seclusion. He was afraid of the world.
His life was joyless if it weren’t for the one thing that allowed him playfulness. Every morning he jumped into the river to play with his soul. They giggled and laughed out loud together. Splashed each other with water and swam until their muscles got tired and their faces burned.
He and his soul were great friends indeed, but as with every friendship, there was a problem. His soul, curious as he was, always wanted to discover. Stroke by stroke he went further downstream and every time he did, the same words were spoken.
‘Stop, don’t go too far!’
‘But I want to.’
‘The current will pull you away from me. I don’t want to lose you.’
One day the words got lost. His soul followed the bark of a dog, the song of a bird and before they knew it, he had drifted too far off. There was nothing the boy could do but to watch his soul disappear into the horizon.
The boy continued his life as usual. The only thing that changed was his morning ritual. He couldn’t get himself to jump in the water and splash around anymore. All he did was stare at his reflection that got paler and paler. Every morning he whispered the wish for his soul to return into the river, but the wind would bring him the same answer every night.
‘Come and find me.’
And so the boy collected all his courage and started to walk down the hill. He asked the birds if they had seen his soul. He spoke to the trees that towered over everything and he met many wanderers. He slept in houses where he was welcomed with kind smiles and food to eat, but he never found the one face he was looking for.
Defeated, he finally decided to go back. He crossed the same paths and saw the things that were now familiar to him. The trees that still stood as strong as they did before and the birds that sang the same songs. When he arrived back at his mountain top it seemed different. The scents were stronger, the colors brighter. And there, next to the river he saw him staring into the water.
‘I have missed you,’ the boy said.
His soul slowly turned around and smiled at him.
‘I’m glad you are here. Now that you have seen what I have seen, experienced what I wanted to experience we can finally be together again.’
And so, with a loud cry of joy they jumped together into the water, never having to worry about the current again.