The River of Glass: A Surreal Fable of Illusions, Shadows, and Hidden Wisdom

 

The River of Glass

There was once a river that ran clear as crystal, so polished it reflected the sky like a broken mirror. Travelers avoided it, for its banks whispered—soft, rattling sounds as though someone were knocking on glass from beneath the water.

One evening, a weary wanderer reached the river, carrying nothing but a pack of crumpled maps. His maps were useless; they showed places that no longer existed—cities swallowed by deserts, forests burned into ash. Yet he carried them, stubbornly, as though the world might change to match them again.

At the river’s edge, he found an old fisherman with a boat that floated not on water, but just above it, suspended as though the river itself refused to touch wood.

“Where does this river lead?” the wanderer asked.

The fisherman smiled with too many teeth. “It leads where your maps end. But the price is sight—one eye, for the journey.”

The wanderer hesitated. He had heard tales: the river showed visions to those who crossed it. Some saw the lives they could have lived; others saw truths they wished had stayed buried.

Still, he climbed in.

The boat glided silently across the glassy surface. Beneath, he saw shadows moving—his own face as a child, pressing against the underside of the river, then his own reflection as an old man, beckoning him downward.

The fisherman’s voice cut through the silence:
“Most drown here, chasing their ghosts. The wise cross without leaning over.”

The wanderer gripped his useless maps tightly and kept his gaze forward. Shadows clawed at the river’s underside, promising answers, love, and lost time. He did not bend.

When the boat touched the far shore, the fisherman was gone. So was the river. Only a wide plain stretched ahead, empty and real.

The wanderer unfolded his maps once more. To his astonishment, the plain was drawn there—ink faded but true.

For the first time, his maps matched the world.

And the lesson lay quietly in his chest: wisdom is not found in chasing every reflection, but in carrying what endures across the glass.