The story behind the story: Recently, I was pleased to make it to the shortlist in a local writing competition. The competition focused on nature writing, and the story entered needed to be about a body of water in the Port Adelaide Enfield Council area, so I wrote about the Torrens River… We all see the earth differently, but we all work together around it, upon it, and through it – so we need to care for it.

I was choked and clogged up. I was like the river, choked and clogged up. I wanted to be clean and to flow brightly and brilliantly. I wanted to reflect the sun. I wanted to tumble and laugh, but life was constantly running, and I was running after it, and there was no time for tumbling and laughing. Then I stopped running and I was never the same after I stopped running. I let go of life because it didn’t give me what I thought it would. Let down, disappointed, forgotten. I didn’t think my ordinary, monotonous, unoriginal life could ever lead me anywhere. But it did because time was still taking me places even after I’d stopped running with it. Time went of its own accord, and I was carried along regardless. I hated it. The rude, invasive nature of time. The constant effort to keep up, to slow down, to catch it, and to always look away from it even while it demanded my attention. To forget about all the slowing and catching and looking away, I walked along the river. In winter, clover grew against the grassy banks, stark and wet and grey with rain. In spring, the sun set, small and orange past the trees, and the reeds lightened. The river shrunk in summer. It was brown in summer but happy to sleep for a while, waiting, clouded in sun. In autumn, it woke up thirsty and when it rained the river flowed, and I realised the river didn’t actually sleep–it was awake all along. And it never stopped running either. Didn’t stop like me, only slowed. There were places where the river was sad. I knew it because I felt the sadness tip against the beauty. There were places where it couldn’t run, even if it wanted to. And I watched as the tipping grew and grew. The sadness grew and grew, and I watched it grow. I just watched; I didn’t run because I’d stopped running. Watching was always better and easier and lighter. I watched the man and his dog. I sat on the grassy banks and watched them. He was an old man, and he wore vests and caps and trousers and heavy leather jackets. His dog was brown with flappy ears and carried a stick in its mouth. The old man had a green net on the end of a long pole. He would scoop the net out into the water, leaning over, tipping like sadness, and the still, greasy film lining the surface would part–white bits sliding away–and the old man would glide the net back. It came back, choked like I was. Choked like the river and the old man would take out all the clogging and choking and put it into a black bag tied to his belt. Moving down the banks, tipping like sadness, the old man unclogged and unchoked, and his dog followed along behind. In winter the rains dripped from the old man’s bucket hat and darkened his jumper. In spring, he whistled in the new light and the dog barked. In summer, when the river shrunk, he walked the banks with the net over his shoulder in the cloudy sunlit heat. In autumn the old man sang. People walked past and saw them and looked at them sideways and glanced at them and ignored them. But I knew them, and I watched them. Until one day they weren’t there. I never saw them again, but I thought about them often. They were always running, just like time and the river. But not like me–never running.

And here I am, watching an empty coke can floating, bouncing, red and white in the river. I saw the man toss it in. He’s wearing shorts and thongs. His thongs thwack against the pavement. He’s smoking. The smoke puffs out and away, invisible–oblivious and unaware. He doesn’t care, too lazy to care. Too blind, too lost, too sad. I think about the old man and his net and his dog. I remember the rain dripping on his hat and the summer heat and the whistling and I stare at the man in shorts and thongs. And the river is sad. I want to shout but I take a deep breath instead. I walk towards the river’s edge and the coke can drifts towards me and taps against the bank and I reach to pull it out, lifting it out, light and empty. I feel light and empty–a beautiful feeling. Making me think I could hold the world together, making me want to start running again. I wait for the feeling to go, but it stays. I dream about rivers that night. Great, wide rivers reaching for the sea. Curling, gliding, running rivers. The next morning, I walk along the riverbank. I’m holding a net in one hand and a black rubbish bag in the other. I fill the rubbish bag. Then I fill another, then two more after that. I can feel people watching me, just like I watched the old man and his dog, only they’re not here to be watched anymore. It’s just me. I’m light and empty. Did emptiness drive the old man to do this every day? Was it lightness? Did it make him run again? I walk along the riverbank, unchoking, unclogging. Leaning over the water with my net. Cleaning, while the black garbage bag tied to my waist rustles as I walk.

The sun makes the river stink. Mozzies flit about and flies churn around my head. I whip them away. The reeds catch everything. Everything that’s floated downstream is stuck in the reeds and a white ibis strides along, picking at the mess. I plunge my net in and the bird jumps away, spreading its wings once before striding over to the other side of the bank. A family walks past, laughing. They glance at me then look away. One of the kids points at me. The dad squats down beside him and nods and says something to him and takes his hand and they keep walking together. Then the boy twists around, holding his dad’s hand, trying to look back at me. I smile at him. I start walking home with my net slung across my shoulder. A woman wearing jeans and a grey t-shirt passes me. She looks at the bag on my hip and keeps walking. I think about the old man and his dog. I don’t go to the river for a while after that. Let down, disappointed, forgotten. And instead of being light and empty, I’m heavy. Heavy like the air before a summer rain.

A month later, I’m walking along the river again with my net slung across my shoulder, while the mid-summer light gathers along the banks. Someone is laughing. I can hear eager conversation and kids shouting. I can hear splashing. The woman wearing the grey t-shirt is there. She’s got two bags, one on each hip, and she’s nearly filled them both. The laughing family is there. They have two nets and four bags. Other people are there too, and they’ve all got nets and bags. They move along the riverbank, up and down, dragging the nets across the water. I join them. The boy and his dad smile at me and I smile back. The woman in the grey t-shirt winks at me. The sun touches everything bright green. And here we are–unchoking, unclogging, cleaning, leaning. Here we are, running.