39 - The River

Written spontaneously on Friday night. Please advise, should I be editing this stuff?

They polluted this river of ours. We spoke to them about it but it was like we were talking gibberish and they were the sane ones. Problem is getting too carried away. Start raising voices and even while you're talking sense you've already lost.

Here's what we decided to do: we took this canoe and three of us, with a bundle of rags, floated down to where the big outlet was. We took some big stones that were piled up on the banks and rolled them down near the end of the pipe. Had to get wading in. While we rolled the rocks up inside the pipe, some of them who were taking a break watched us from up on the riverside. They laughed at us and one of them flicked his cigarette butt at us. We didn't really speak to them. It was like they thought we were kids, while we're shaking in this cloudy water that's up to our knees. Thought it was best not to draw any more attention to ourselves so we just hurried on. We stuffed the rags in any gaps around the stones until the waste only seeped out.

That Sunday some of them were in the stream, clearing up the mess we'd made. We snuck inside, where it was empty and quiet, this massive building full of tanks with pipes running a mile or so across the ceiling. We got into the controls and stopped the outflow.

Early Monday morning we sat on the opposite bank and watched. There was crowd on the other side, mostly by the gate, not allowed to go in. They got a load of them to suit up with gloves, hoods and masks and sent the rest of them home. They waded about in the flooded workshop.

A few of them approached us from behind. They pushed Manny into the water and held him under long enough for us to panic. We were outnumbered. Half an hour later, retreating, we laughed and felt victorious, even with the factory ready to open again the next day. Manny got seriously ill. We all felt it. Our skin peeled and our eyes itched. We had to move on eventually.