'Anadromous' by Zach Keali'i Murphy

Elliott crouches atop a jagged rock on the shore of the river, spine contorting like a tree branch, skin wrinkled like a fallen fig, his weathered eyes squinting at a run of salmon as they swim upstream and launch their slippery bodies toward a crashing waterfall. He admires their ceaseless tenacity, their magnificent hearts, their silver scales glistening in the sunlight. The frigid wind whips through his beard, the color of sand, as the river water splashes his freckled cheeks. His dark blue veins are a map of where he’s been, where he’s going, and where he went wrong. Mosquito bites and scratch marks paint his arms and legs, but he feels alive. So alive. He takes a deep breath, lunges into the river, and submerges his head beneath the ice-cold water. He looks around and sees stones that have known the river longer than him. He sees his mother’s green eyes in the floating bubbles. He hears his father’s angry roar amidst the rushing water. He hears the silence of the son he always dreamt about but never had. He ascends back up through the river’s surface and exhales everything he’d kept locked up in his brain and in his bones. His salty tears disappear into his soaked skin. He smiles the widest smile he’s ever smiled, his teeth — abandoned shells. The river feels like home. Like home. The salmon swim past him in a frenzy. He looks toward the waterfall and follows behind the salmon, his magnificent heart leaping from his chest.

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Zach Keali’i Murphy is a Hawaii-born writer with a background in cinema. His stories appear in The MacGuffin, Reed Magazine, The Coachella Review, Raritan Quarterly, Another Chicago Magazine, Little Patuxent Review, Flash Frog, and more. He has published the chapbook Tiny Universes (Selcouth Station Press). He lives with his wonderful wife, Kelly, in St. Paul, Minnesota.