Water, part 1

This is the beginning of the story I was talking about the other day, but I'm not really that happy with it. I think it sounds overworked and pretentious. But, I've been feeling that way alot about my stuff lately, so I'll post this anyway and work on fixing this problem ::sigh:: Hope you like it anyway!

In the River

The night was dark, except where the mist collected light in the air, low hanging stars in the solid sky. The grass glittered with freshly fallen raindrops as I walked slowly down the archaic cobblestone streets that did their best to connect the community. My mind still hummed with the after affects of a busy day at work: I pondered problems left half solved, re-hashed carefully made conversations with superiors, and sighed as I thought of the many looming deadlines. But as my mind whirled and my feet paced, the languid evening air began to soak through the mantle of worry I wore and ease my mind. The streets I had driven down so many times possessed an unusual mystery as the fog bent shapes and shadows into new patterns, and admiring these, I paid little attention to where I walked. After a time, I came to an old bridge, perched over a stream bursting with the day’s rain. I paused for a moment to watch as the usually docile waters surge forward with determination, dragging at trunks of trees that usually stood high above its’ banks. The silt from the shores stained the water brown, and for a moment, the river’s pulsing waves appeared to be hundreds of powerful swimmers riding the rapids, pushing forwards over rock formations they had overwhelmed, arms outreached, then snapping back in sharp breast strokes. A sharp snap from a tree, giving in at last to the river’s relentless heaving, drew my mind back to reality. The tree, unmoored from the loose mud slammed against the bridge and with the excruciating rasping of metal tearing from wood, the bridge collapsed into the river. Spinning dizzy, battered by waves and wood I struggled to the surface, gasping for breath. The scintillating cold sucked me back under and rushed me on down the river. Head over heels, I was pushed onward by the throng of insubstantial swimmers until I felt my body dragging on sharp shards of gravel. I clutched handfuls of it, as if holding the pebbles would slow my progress through the darkness. A passing wave thrust me toward the shore and I dragged myself onto the half flooded island and collapsed, curling into a ball to fight the cold.