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The river moved like it had somewhere to be, but at the same time it had no urgency of getting there.

The water was clear enough for me to see the pebbles beneath, smooth little obstacles that had long since become part of the river’s shape. Sunlight broke through the large canopy of oak trees and scattered into restless fragments on the flowing water.

There was a damp smell of earth and time in the air, the kind that made you feel like things have been happening long before you arrived and will keep happening long after you leave.

That is where I chose to sit. Not by the river, but in it.

I found a rock wide enough to sit on and let myself settle into it.
In quiet meditation, I closed my eyes and let the current wrap around me.
It pressed gently but persistently, reminding me every second that nothing here was still.

In my hands was The Dream of a Ridiculous Man. I had found it in a small secondhand bookshop, tucked away from a louder street. The kind of shop that smelled like old paper and forgotten afternoons. A black kitten slept in the cashier’s seat that I made sure to adequately pamper.

The book itself carried history, the edges were worn and bent, as if it had been opened and closed by someone who needed it more than once. There were markings in the margins. Not many, just enough to tell me that someone, at some point, had paused where I now paused.

I opened it carefully, Dostoevsky does not ease you in.

The words came heavy, of a man convinced of life’s absurdities. A quiet descend into meaningless, and then a dream.

I read slowly, or atleast, I tried to.

The river kept pulling me, not physically, but in attention. The sound filling the space between sentences constantly.
I remembered reading somewhere “Water would not sound so melodious if there were no rocks in the way” and reflected on that for a while.

The man in the story needed a dream to believe life mattered, needed something to break the weight of his own thinking.

Sitting there, I felt like the opposite was true.

The river was not asking to be understood.
It did not explain itself.
It did not argue for existence.
It did not search for meaning to continue.

It just.. moved, naturally, around rocks and leaves.

The book was open in my hands, my thumb still holding the page, as if I might go back to it.

But I did not read another line.

Here is a link to a short video of the adventure:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DW2sMrxjUmr/