The Dry River of High-Rise No. 4

puncakbukit (79)in #photography • 29 days ago

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The residents of High-Rise No. 4 always told their children never to follow the dried creek bed on days when the sun hid behind a pale, milky haze.

Constructed during the late seventies as part of the residential complex’s manicured greenbelt, the artificial stream had long since fallen silent. The city had turned off the water pumps a decade ago, leaving behind a winding path paved with jagged grey basalt, edged by overgrown hydrangea bushes and slender trees that arched like watchful sentinels. To the casual passerby, it was just another neglected pocket of urban landscape.

Ren knew better.

Every Thursday morning at nine, Ren walked his usual loop through the park. On most days, the dry riverbed was just stone and dead foliage. But on foggy, overcast mornings—when the concrete tower of High-Rise No. 4 seemed to stretch upward into nowhere—the creek did something impossible.

It flowed without a single drop of water.

It started with a low, rhythmic grinding sound, like pebble-sized molars chewing on gravel. Ren stopped by the low stone footbridge and peered down. The black stones lining the channel were shifting. Slowly at first, then with fluid grace, the rocks began to slide over one another, rolling down the gradient in a churning, bone-dry current.

Ren knelt beside the cluster of hydrangeas. He reached out a hand, halting inches above the moving basalt. The stones hissed as they tumbled, producing a sound uncanny in its imitation of rushing water. Leaves tossed into the channel didn't float; they were dragged beneath the churning surface, ground to fine dust in seconds.

Further down the bend, where the dry stream disappeared into the shadow of the tall oaks, something was coming upstream against the current of rock.

It didn't move like a human or an animal. It appeared as a cluster of smooth, river-worn river stones bound together by thick vines, pulling itself forward against the grinding flow. Where a head might be, a single, iridescent mineral sphere reflected the gray sky like a blind eye.

It paused in front of Ren.

The stone creature lowered itself, opening a fissure across its central core. Inside lay an object that did not belong to the modern park: a heavy, tarnished silver pocket watch, tick-ticking softly despite its glass face being encrusted with dried silt.

"A trade?" Ren whispered, his voice trembling slightly.

The creature didn't answer in words. The surrounding basalt rocks clicked together in a soft, rhythmic cadence, sounding remarkably like a clockwork heart.

Ren reached into his pocket and pulled out what he had brought—a small glass marble he had found in his apartment's floorboards the day he moved in. He placed the marble into the fissure. The stone organism snapped shut, swallowed the glass, and rolled backward into the churning riverbed, dissolving smoothly into the flow of grey rock.

The silver pocket watch remained resting on a flat slab of basalt at Ren's feet.

As he picked up the heavy metal watch, the grinding noise suddenly ceased. The riverbed froze into motionless, silent stone once more. Above him, a stray breeze rustled through the leafy canopy, and the towering white apartment building stood silent against the pale gray sky.

Ren opened the silver casing. The watch face had no numbers, only twelve tiny carved stones that shifted position as he watched, keeping time to a world beneath the pavement that no one else would ever notice.

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