Short Story: The River Must Breakthrough

There once was a river that flowed through the whole town. It was a river that brought abundance and life to the town – water to drink, fish to eat and and ability to travel to the outside world. This river for generations brought prosperity to the families in the town. 

There then came a storm that ravaged the whole town. Once it passed and the townspeople came out to clean up the aftermath of the storm, they noticed that the river’s water level had dropped significantly. Over the course of a few weeks, the river’s flow continued to lessen and lessen  and concern spread throughout the village. This river was their livelihood, what would they do if it dried up? 

The river’s flow continued to diminish until it became only a small trickle, barely a stream that flowed through the giant river bed in the middle of the town. The fish from the river became few and far between, and water had to be rationed as the once-abundant supply was no longer enough to meet everyone’s needs.

This continued until one day, the river ran completely dry. The town was devastated and families soon began to suffer. Something had to be done! The townspeople met and discussed their options. They concluded that due to the recent storm, something upstream must had caused the river downstream to run dry. So they sent out a party of townspeople to venture upstream into the mountains where the river originated to figure out what was causing this problem.

After many nights of long travel along a dry river bed, the group finally discovered what had caused the problem. A giant rockslide had come down the mountain and intersected the river, effectively damming up the river. There were massive boulders and tons of dirt piled up, fully spanning the river and nearly a mile high.

The townspeople were overwhelmed at the towering heap of rocks that stood before them, an immovable mountain in and of itself. How were they possibly able to move this so that the river could flow freely again? 

Some of them ventured over this mass of debris to see to the other side. The barrier of rocks had caused a massive buildup of water on the other side. A small lake was beginning to form as the river flowed, pushing up against the pile of rocks as it desperately attempted to break through. Its efforts proved unsuccessful, leaving the water to take consolation in pooling around the sides of the rock wall, spilling over the edges of the riverbed and out into the surrounding forest. 

The river wanted to push through but couldn’t. It didn’t have enough power. All it could do is continue to collect on the sides. The townspeople climbed back down, feeling powerless against the forces of Mother Nature. They camped out there that night, trying to decide what to do next. 

The next day, they went back to the village for supplies, returning within the week, prepared to take on the rockslide’s barricade. The rest of the village was hopeful for a solution after hearing that they identified the root of the problem. Surely now that they found what was damming up the river, it was only a matter of time before they fixed it.

But how wrong they were. Days turned into weeks as the villagers relentlessly tried to break open the obstruction. They went at the rocks and boulders with everything they had, using shovels and pick axes and hammers to pound away. When they had thought they made some level of progress, they only had to step back and look around to see they were only gaining inches compared to the miles of rock they had to move. As the days began to blend together, it slowly began to dawn on the villagers  – this block was too big to move on their own. 

They began searching for alternatives, toying with the idea of using more intensive methods like explosives. But that ran the risk of creating even more potential rockslides further down the mountain. They even sent word to surrounding villages, asking for them to send their strongest representatives to come help move the rocks. But even with the added muscle, their progress was limited. And as time dragged on, the rest of the village continued to suffer as they were cut off from the very source of their nourishment and prosperity. 

The village was at a loss for options and at this point, had begun to come to terms with the harsh reality that this block was permanent. As the village representatives at the river block sat around the fire that night, they began discussing the worse case scenario – moving the village because the river had dried up. They faced no other option and as they all laid down to sleep that night, they had all but given up hope. 

They awoke the next day to an earsplitting crack. The group of villagers camping out at the side of the river all jumped up, their eyes fixed to the center of the pile of boulders blocking the river. Above the little indent they had made, a fissure had appeared in a boulder. Another crack resounded through the forest as a split appeared to the far right of the fissure. Then all of a sudden, like a violent earthquake, the barrier of rocks broke open, giving way to a great wall of rushing water.  

The river had broken through! 

The massive pressure of the cascading river behind this pile of boulders had finally reached its breaking point, its own force having broke open the blockage. The villagers stood in awe as they watched gallons and gallons of water rush through the pile of boulders, sweeping them away in their currents as if they weighed nothing at all. The river rushed down the mountain in its familiar path of the river bed, lost in sight as more and more water rushed past the villagers. 

They all cheered, their worst fears washed away as they watched the river begin to flow again as it had done their whole life. As they began their victory trek back to the village along the river’s path, they were astonished to notice that the river had carved an even bigger path down the mountain than before, almost doubling the original size of the river. The high water mark of the river was permanently raised. As they approached their village and saw the enlarged rushing river flowing through their village, they realized that this meant more water, more fish, and more of this amazing source of prosperity for their whole village! 

What was a catastrophe now had turned into the greatest source of blessing this village had ever known. As the returning villagers joined the celebrations with the rest of the village, explaining what they had witnessed on the top of the mountain, the whole village knew they should have never doubted their trustworthy river – its eternal source always supplying their every need.