He was in all his equipment. His booties, his helmet, his lifejacket, his drysuit, sopping wet. He wasn't in his sprayskirt. It was that dark teal color that the whole northwest is this time of year–cloudy sky with a little drizzle coming down, dawn for four hours then sunset for five. Laying on the table with everyone gathered around him, paying their respects. The house overlooked the river where he drowned. His boat was still down there.

I couldn't say I cared about him. When I looked back and his boat was in that narrow slot with all the water being pushed onto him I felt nothing. I eddied out got out tried to help him tried to throw him a bag but, I really felt nothing. I don't like to admit that.

It takes eighteen minutes from the house to hike down. No trees the meadow's a symmetrical mowed green. The slot's in a canyon five feet wide. Moss covers it and you can't climb down. Downstream twenty feet the canyon widens into a pool and there's a ledge you can stand on. We hike down and I'm still in my drysuit so I jump into the water. Feel the cold on my face compressing my drysuit. When I swim the current is turbid around me and I'm sucked down for a second and I see the white bubbles the teal of the water. I make it to the ledge and the rock is iron and smooth with no moss or algae. The kayak's twenty feet upstream. Watch the water flow under and partially over it.

It can't be me. I know what I'll look like when I die. I saw it in the backseat of the car while I was driving home from Alsea–the old, shriveled, wrinkled, face, contorted and frowning. It appeared for half a second in my rearview then disappeared.

On the kayak sits a two foot person. He has the same shriveled leathery face I saw two years ago in Alsea. He's naked and covered in white curly hair, has feet the size of my feet, hands the size of a toddler. He frowns like he frowned two years ago. I throw him the bag and he catches it and clips it to the handle of the kayak. My friend watches smokes nods somber.

I crouch and pull and it comes loose. The little man rides it and it stops when it reaches the pool. I pull it towards me and he hops on the ledge with me. He almost slips.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . .. 

Under the falls of Ti'lomikh. I'll be bubbling in the road.