The Origin of Rivers

By Daefyd Williams

The Origin of Rivers is a sequel to the author's novel, Fiery Rivers. It is a miscellany of short stories, poems, teleplays, and a screenplay that he wrote prior to writing Fiery Rivers. In essence, he says in a short preface, the materials are "the springs from which Fiery Rivers flowed." The short stories are quirky tales that deal with murder, accidental death, a miraculous ascension, and suicide. The poems deal with nature, mysticism, and love. The two teleplays are Twilight Zone-like tales about a man who awakens into a blasted landscape and a virgin who has arachnophobia. The screenplay is an alternative version of the novel, Fiery Rivers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Daefyd Williams
• Release date: Dec 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463649237

Daefyd Williams

Daefyd Williams has been a gardener, a dishwasher, a factory worker, a chauffeur, a warehouse worker, a security officer, an actor, a poet, a special education teacher, and an English instructor at a community college. This is his first novel.

Book preview

Review of the screenplay River of Fire

The storytelling is naturalistic, allowing characters to behave and flow freely, in a manner true to themselves. This makes for human, immersive viewing. There is a number of lively roles, especially amongst the kids, which steal many a scene. The dialogue is sharply characterized, finely tuned to the setting, and flows lyrically. There are some magical / fantastical elements that could really shine in the hands of a daring director. The narrative’s themes of family pathology, faith, and community in the face of tragedy are skillfully interwoven throughout the script. Altherea’s storyline is heartbreaking and delivers powerful drama and catharsis. The tone finds some welcome moments of humor and levity that balance and buoy the moviegoing experience.

The Black List.com

The Origin of Rivers

Daefyd Williams

Published by Daefyd Williams at Smashwords

Copyright 2019 Daefyd Williams

This book is available in print at most online retailers.

ISBN: 9781708766696

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Author's Note

I called this miscellany The Origin of Rivers because it is a compilation of work that I wrote prior to writing my first book, Fiery Rivers, a semi-autobiographical novel. If you are familiar with that work, you will discover similar motifs or alternative versions of incidents in this book. Essentially, I have been mulling over the ideas in Fiery Rivers my whole life. These stories, poems, and plays are the springs from which Fiery Rivers flowed.

Table of Contents

Short Stories

Out of the Ashes

Departures

Puberty Rites

Rapture

A Time of Need

Poems

The Aeolian Harp

Not for These,

Foresight

Miami

The Body on a Dusky Beach

Four Oceanside Exultations

The Thirst for the Infinite

Meditation at Lake Hope

Displacing the Coffee Table

Dawn in New Hampshire

Colloquial Desire

The Old People

Elegy for the Great Auk

Plays

Out of the Ashes (A teleplay)

Deadly Love (A teleplay)

River of Fire (A screenplay)

Out of the Ashes

Ottis Jennings opened his blistered and burning eyes slowly, blinked twice, then closed them. He was lying on a floor, his knee leaning against a wall, trying to remember what had happened. The last thing he could recall was opening the massive steel door of the bank vault and placing two bags of coins on a shelf that he had brought down at the request of Miss Langley. Then the entire vault had lurched violently left, and darkness had overcome him.

Perplexed, he sat up and leaned his back against the steel jamb of the vault. Immediately, a sharp, intense pain shot from the top of his head down his back. He screamed in agony. He stood up and the pain spread to every part of his body. It began to subside slightly as he stood very still.

He felt in his shirt pocket for the metal lighter that he always kept there. Finding it, he painfully flicked it once, twice. Then it lit. He saw that his hands were covered with blisters. His blue shirt had been scorched. He brought his left hand up to his face and gingerly moved it over his cheeks and nose, feeling sharp pains everywhere he touched. Holding the lighter in his right hand, he took a tentative step to leave the vault and the pain returned. Gritting his teeth, he shuffled out the door until he came to the steps that led down to the vault.

Gathering his strength, he placed one foot on the bottom step and began the torturous climb. Excruciating pain flooded his body as he dragged himself up the steps. Panting heavily, he began to sweat, and his mouth became so dry that his tongue felt as if it were too big for his mouth. By the time he had pulled himself up the flight of stairs, he was totally exhausted. He eased himself down and sat against the wall.

He felt the hanging bits of skin in his wet palms where the blisters had burst from the friction against the handrails. Why didn’t anyone come down? he wondered. Where is everybody? What happened to me? His head filled with unanswered questions, he pulled himself slowly to his feet.

He looked at the metal door which opened into the main part of the bank and saw that it had a huge bulge in the middle caused by some tremendous force. My God! he exclaimed. He pulled on the doorknob, and the door fell outward, struck the handrail with a loud bang, and clattered down the steps to the floor below. Jesus!

His nostrils filled instantly with smoke and the sickly sweet smell of burnt flesh. He choked and fell backward, but shot his hand out and caught the doorjamb just in time to keep himself from falling.

He steadied himself and fought the nausea welling within him. Oh, Jesus! he cried. Help me! Help me, please!! The anguish of the constant pain overwhelmed him completely for a moment. He shook his head from side to side slowly, moaning.

As the pain decreased somewhat, he lifted his bleary eyes and surveyed the room. The walls and ceiling were black masses of charcoal. Gray smoke curled toward the ceiling from the few studs remaining. The blue-tiled floor, now black with soot and ashes, had melted, and in cooling had fused with fallen pieces of wood, like a black, frozen pond studded with jagged stumps. The row of metal desks along the right wall were misshapen hunks, grotesquely twisted by some unimaginable force.

He walked slowly and painfully over to the desk closest to him and stared at the chair behind it. A black, wrinkled mass of ashes occupied the place where Miss Langley, the loan officer, had worked. She had been cremated by some terrific fire incomprehensible to him. She didn’t even have time to get up from her desk, he mused. What could have happened so suddenly?

Gazing around the room, he saw that the three tellers and the four other employees who worked in the bank had been completely or partially cremated. Ugly, shriveled limbs and unnatural positions characterized those that had not been completely burned. Ottis turned with revulsion and hobbled toward the front door to seek an explanation for this deadly destruction.

He stopped at the door. A cold numbness filled him as he looked into the street. An ominous gray mist filled the air. All of the automobiles had been burned; some were overturned. The buildings across the street were black from soot and smoke. Only smoldering ashes remained where once a wooden pawn shop had been. Brown water from overturned hydrants swirled through the street.

With the icy tentacles of shock gripping him, he stepped over the metal frame of the door into the broken glass on the sidewalk. Looking up and down the street, his eyes took in the miserable carnage that had resulted from a sudden and horrible cataclysm. Scores of crumpled and blackened bodies lay along the street. No, no! he screamed. It can’t be!

Confused, completely drained of all energy, he sat down on the curb and gently rocked back and forth, clutching his throbbing head. Then he took his hands down and placed them by his side. One of them fell off the curb; he felt warm water course through his fingers. Remembering his dry throat and swollen tongue, he leaned over, stuck his face into the warm, brown water and drank for a long time. Then he turned onto his back and lost consciousness.

When he awoke, it was night. He heard nothing but the sound of the rushing water. He was cold and hunger gnawed within him. The pain in his body had settled to a dull, constant throb. His head had cleared, enabling him to think rationally about the cause of the death and destruction which surrounded him. This hasn’t happened only in this block, he thought, but probably in other blocks too, since no one came to help. Maybe something has even burned the whole city. It would’ve had to be something pretty big to do this much damage.

Then he remembered. That morning (Was it that morning, or had he been unconscious for days?) he had listened to a newscast on the radio, as he did every morning getting ready for work; the announcer had said that the White House had become increasingly angry that Russia had invaded Ukraine. The president had demanded that the Russians withdraw, but no resolution had been reached.

Ottis tried to dismiss the thought from his mind. They wouldn’t start dropping atomic bombs just because of that, he reasoned to himself. They wouldn’t because they know that nobody would win. Or did they? The Air Force base was only twenty-five miles away and if they had dropped an atomic bomb . . . No, I just can’t believe they would do something stupid like that.

He slowly staggered to his feet and began the five-block walk to his house. He told himself that the destruction had been limited to a few blocks, that Jane and the kids were all right. But his hope was slowly undermined by dread as he walked two blocks, three blocks, and continued to stumble over corpses on the sidewalk. Oh God, he prayed silently. God, please somehow let them be safe.

When he got to his house, he painfully shuffled up the sidewalk and the three steps to the front door, stretched out his hand and felt the charred door. Anger shot through him. His hand trembling with rage, he grabbed the doorknob, turned it and flung the door wide open.

He took out his lighter and flicked it. The light revealed the blackness and destruction that only fire can produce. All of the furniture in the living room had been reduced to ashes. The sofa was a jumble of springs and shreds of black cloth.

With his hand on the wall to steady himself, he stumbled down the hall, tripping over debris on the floor and counting the doors as he went. He stopped before the third door. He touched it and discovered that it was partially open. A wild hope flitted across his mind. Maybe they escaped, he thought, maybe there was an alarm and they had time to escape. He pushed the door open and entered the room.

His hope was extinguished by what the light revealed. There, on the black springs of twin beds lay two tiny, withered forms, Lisa and Ian. Their black, withered arms were near their heads, as if they had tried to shield their eyes from a blinding light. On a chair between the beds sat a larger form, its black head resting on its chest. Jane! Oh my God! My babies! he sobbed. Oh no, no, no! Shaking his head and weeping, he dropped the lighter and sank to the floor, exhausted.

When he awoke after a long period of time, he opened his eyes slowly. A gloomy light was filtering through the charred sash across from the beds. He rose unsteadily and stood before the form on the chair. Jane, he announced in a flat voice, I will always love you. You will always be my wife. I love you. He bent over and pressed his lips against the dry, blackened flesh where once beautiful, silky hair had grown. A piece of dried skin stuck to his lips; he pulled it off and dropped it into his shirt pocket. You will always be with me, he whispered. He took off his wedding band and placed it in the crack where the skin had pulled away. And I will always be with you. He sighed. He turned, picked up his lighter from the floor, and left the room.

He sat down on the porch outside the house. His own labored breathing was the only sound he could hear. A yellowish haze filled the air. He spat on the sidewalk in front of him, which only strengthened the bitter taste in his mouth. His hunger no longer gnawed within him; he was simply empty and weak. He stood up and began trudging westward. He stepped on the blackened bodies as he walked, no longer aware of them.

I’m the only one alive, he thought, the only survivor in this whole city. He smiled. It was amusing that he had been saved by what he thought was the bank's asinine decision to place the bank vault in the basement as an added security measure. It had saved his life. I’m like that bird we read about in high school, he mused, "the