Camping By The Riverside

I went camping at out of Hokkaido last 2 days. It was hot like hell at Honshu Area (the main island where big cities like Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka are located). My destination was Gifu (famous place is Hida Takayama), indeed there are lots of steeps and mountainous area but I headed to a camping area nearby a river.

"Hey Roy! My friend! I've been waiting for your arrival! Did you walk here? I thought you have a motorbike, the famous... Side-car right?" An old friend of mine came over and greeted me with a very strong hug.

"Hey, Bryan! How long has it been since we last met? And by the way I am in Hokkaido now, did you see my SNS that I got the motorbike?" I slapped my friend's back as I hugged him back.

We were telling old stories back when we are both in Nagoya. Bryan is a "young man" who came from Australia. He was about 24 when I first met him, now at his 30's (Wow, time zooms by)... Thinking back now he was the one who brought me into this hobby of camping.

We came to our site, it is located nearby an old cherry tree nearby the river, every year in April the river end will be carpeted by petals of cherry blossoms (I really wanted to see it by myself one day). Anyhow, so we set our tents up and lighted our stoves up.

The keeper of the camping site came over and checked if everything is OK "Well done!" said the keeper with his thumbs up. He pointed at the sky and said "rain cloud is coming do not go in the river". We also looked up and saw a couple of grey clouds, wondering if it was really going to rain.

Later that afternoon, it rained hard. We packed our things up and prepared to move to a upper side nearby the log house. The keeper come over and told us not to move yet we can tell that the river current is very strong. In my dim sight I saw a child like image standing at the middle of the river. "Hey, Roy" Bryan patted my shoulder hard and fast "You see that kid there?" Bryan was looking at the direction where I see the image.

"You see that too? I have bad sight and it seems blurry" I told him.

He shook his head and said "We should not talk about him."

Now that I remember as I am writing this story, Bryan seems to be "gifted"; his mother was a famous Indian Fortune-teller and his father left them when Bryan was quite young (Maybe divorced?) ， because of that they moved from Australia to Japan. His mother passed away after Bryan graduated his university, since than he started to see and hear things... Back to my story.

I was wondering why he said that, what if the child is real? I ran out and caught the keeper and told him that there may be a child in the river. He drove a van down nearby our site and shouted out if there was anyone from a distance I saw Bryan standing still in the tent as if he was paralyzed, I looked at the river but there was nobody.

"Hey Bryan! Where did the child go?" I shouted. Bryan still was standing there. The keeper drove further away down the river end, I went back to the tent and ask what is going on and Bryan said that the child was in the tent with him all the time but is gone the moment I came back.