He lay there awhile listening to the river, its low rush along the banks, the periodic gurgle as the waves swirled around an inlet. It must’ve sounded like this for thousands of years, the only constant thing, no matter how much people polluted it. No matter how much waste was dumped into its depths from the chemical factories in Springfield or Manchester, how many bodies it swallowed and spat out, clean as teeth, this sound of its flow toward the sea remained unchanged.
