Cool and Fresh and Impossible

"The river was so clear I could see the bottom—which was more than I could say about my situation."

"Jamie!"

My voice cracked across the landscape with an urgency I hadn't felt since discovering the portal wouldn't let us leave. The sound echoed off the rust-coloured hills and disappeared into that vast, indifferent sky, swallowed by silence. I waited, breath held, listening for any response.

Nothing.

The realisation that I'd wandered too far struck me with a blend of frustration and sudden, unexpected concern. The river's discovery had pulled me forward like a fish on a line, each step driven by the need to confirm that what I was seeing was real, that hope had a physical form I could touch and taste. I'd forgotten about Jamie entirely—left him standing by that useless gateway, probably still pressing his palms against an invisible barrier that would never yield.

The landscape that had seemed so monotonous now revealed itself as deceptive. Hills rose and fell in gentle undulations that hid one section from another, creating blind spots I hadn't noticed during my eager descent toward the water. Jamie could be anywhere behind those rises, invisible despite being metres away.

"At least, I think it's only one hill," I muttered to myself, squinting back the way I'd come. The uncertainty of the terrain felt like a metaphor I didn't want to examine too closely—the way despair could transform into cautious optimism with a single unexpected discovery, the way geography could hide what you needed most when you weren't paying attention.

I cupped my hands around my mouth and called again, louder this time, throwing my voice toward the hills with all the force my lungs could muster.

Finally—blessedly—Jamie's head bobbed into view as he crested the rise, a dark silhouette against the rust-and-blue backdrop. The relief that flooded through me was startling in its intensity.

"Come over here!" I waved my arms in broad arcs, trying to draw him away from the portal's magnetic pull. "Hurry up!"

He made his way down the slope toward me, his feet dragging through the dust with the reluctance of a man who'd stopped expecting good news. Every step seemed to cost him something—hope, perhaps, or the last reserves of energy that had kept him functional through the past impossible hour.

"What is it?" His voice carried curiosity despite the weariness dragging at its edges.

"There's a river."

The words came out wrapped in an enthusiasm I hadn't heard in my own voice since before everything had shattered.

As Jamie drew closer, I watched his face transform. The change was subtle—a loosening around the eyes, a slight lift at the corners of his mouth—but unmistakable. Hope was kindling there, faint as candlelight in a cathedral but present nonetheless. We'd both been drowning in the same despair, and now here was water that might save us, water that spoke of life persisting even in desolation.

I turned on my heel and led the way down toward the riverbank, my steps quickening with the impatience of a child who's discovered something wonderful and can't bear to wait another moment to share it. The dust shifted treacherously beneath my shoes, threatening to send me tumbling head over heels, but I didn't care. The river was singing to me now—that soft, constant murmur of water over stone—and nothing as mundane as uncertain footing was going to slow me down.

I reached the bank at something close to a run, my legs carrying me with a fervour that surprised me. When had I last moved with this kind of purpose? When had I last felt anything other than the leaden weight of circumstances beyond my control? The water stretched before me, and I dropped to my knees at its edge, heedless of the dust that puffed up around me.

The clarity of it stole my breath.

I'd expected murky outback water, the kind that came from Broken Hill's ancient aquifers—drinkable but hardly pristine, carrying the taste of minerals and time. This was something else entirely. The river's surface was a mirror, reflecting the sky with such perfect fidelity that for a moment I couldn't tell where air ended and water began. I could see straight through to the bottom, watching the way light danced across smooth stones and the occasional ripple of current.

Jamie arrived beside me, his breathing slightly elevated from the descent. I heard his sharp intake of breath as he took in the scene.

"It's so clear," he said, and in his voice I heard my own wonder echoed back at me. His eyes scanned the surface, that blend of awe and scepticism that seemed to define him. "Do you think it's safe to drink?"

I shrugged, the gesture noncommittal. The question was valid—back home, clarity was no guarantee of safety. I'd grown up in the outback, where bore water could look perfectly fine and still carry enough minerals to upset an unaccustomed stomach. We learned early to be cautious, to boil and filter and never assume that what looked pure actually was.

But here? Here, the rules we knew seemed as irrelevant as the physics that should have prevented us from standing on an alien world in the first place. Perhaps water in Clivilius followed its own laws, just as the portal did, just as everything in this impossible place seemed to.

Jamie reached out before I could formulate a response, his fingers breaking the river's surface with the impulsiveness I was beginning to recognise as characteristic. The gesture was almost childlike—that irresistible urge to touch what you're seeing, to confirm through sensation what the eyes report.

"It feels so cool and fresh." The surprise in his voice tugged something loose in my chest. There was wonder there, genuine and unguarded, the kind of reaction that belonged to someone who hadn't yet had all the joy beaten out of them by circumstances.

I found myself reaching out too, drawn by his reaction into joining the experiment. My hand plunged beneath the surface, and the sensation that greeted my skin was unlike anything I'd expected.

Cool, yes—the kind of cool that spoke of depths and shadows and water that had never known the brutal kiss of an outback sun. But there was something else beneath the chill, a warmth that seemed to pulse from somewhere deep within the current, as if the river itself carried two temperatures simultaneously. The dichotomy should have been impossible, and yet my nerves reported it with absolute certainty: cold that refreshed and warmth that comforted, braided together in a single stream.

"I could totally jump in right now." The words escaped before I'd consciously formed them, a half-joking expression of the longing the water had awakened. After everything—the sleepless night, the desperate journey, the betrayal and entrapment and the terrible weight of separation from my children—the thought of submerging myself in that impossible river felt like the closest thing to escape this world could offer.

Jamie's laughter cut through the air, bright and unexpected. The sound was so at odds with everything we'd experienced that I found myself staring at him, momentarily disoriented.

"Well, you'd have to do it skinny," he said, the tease evident in his tone.

The comment took a moment to register. "Huh?"

"Well, we don't have any towels or spare clothes." His words carried the practical weight of our situation, wrapped in humour that somehow made the reality more bearable rather than more bleak.

A chuckle escaped me—genuine, surprised, the first real amusement I'd felt since stepping through that cursed portal. "Oh, of course."

The absurdity of it all settled over me like a strange kind of comfort. Here we were, two grown men trapped in an alien dimension, debating the logistics of going for a swim as if we were mates on a camping trip who'd forgotten to pack properly. The gap between our circumstances and our conversation was so vast it circled back around to something almost normal.

We continued to trail our hands through the current, finding solace in the simple pleasure of cool water against warm skin. Each time my fingers broke the surface, it felt like reaching for something—connection, perhaps, or a reminder that not everything in this world was designed to trap and torment us. The river flowed on regardless of our presence, carrying its secrets toward destinations we couldn't imagine, and there was comfort in that constancy.

"Do you really think we're stuck here?"

The question left my lips before I could stop it, fear and hope tangling together in the uncertainty. I watched the water slip past my submerged hand, waiting for an answer that might determine whether I could continue breathing or whether the air would finally refuse to enter my lungs.

Jamie's response came soft, almost gentle. "I don't know." The vulnerability in those three words matched what I felt churning in my own chest. "I hope not."

"But what if we are?" I pressed, needing something more substantial than hope, some plan or possibility I could cling to.

Jamie's response was immediate, his voice suddenly laced with a determination that bordered on desperation. "If Luke can get out, I am sure we can too."

The logic was sound, even if it offered no practical solution. Luke had the Portal Key. We didn't. But the conviction in Jamie's voice—the refusal to accept that we might be permanently imprisoned—struck something in me that had been on the verge of surrender.

I watched as he rose and began making his way back up the hill, his silhouette shrinking against the vast backdrop of rust and blue. He was heading toward the portal again, I knew. Heading toward another attempt at the impossible, another collision with the invisible barrier that would throw him back like a rejected offering.

Part of me wanted to call out, to say something that might bridge the strange distance between us. Instead, I let out a gentle sigh, releasing a small portion of the weight I'd been carrying.

Of all the people to be stranded with in Clivilius, fate had chosen Jamie.

The thought arrived unbidden, carrying with it a whisper of frustration. Luke's partner. A stranger whose connection to my life ran only through my brother. If I had to be trapped in another dimension, couldn't the universe have at least given me someone I'd chosen? Someone whose presence didn't constantly remind me of the brother whose grand visions had landed us in this mess?

But even as the thought formed, I pushed it aside. Life with Claire had taught me the value of focusing on what could be controlled rather than railing against what couldn't. The years of navigating her moods, her expectations, her disappointments—they'd honed in me a particular kind of resilience, the ability to find stable ground even when everything around me shifted like sand.

I turned my gaze back to the river, letting its constant motion fill the space where my thoughts had been spiralling. The water caught the light and scattered it into fragments of silver and gold, a small miracle of physics that required no explanation and offered no demands. Just beauty, simple and present, asking nothing in return for its gift.

My reflection stared back at me from the surface—a tired man in rumpled clothes, dust coating the lines of his face, eyes that had seen too much in too short a time. I barely recognised myself. The Paul Smith who'd driven from Broken Hill last night had been a different person entirely—worried about his marriage, anxious about his children, preoccupied with the mundane concerns of a life that now felt as distant as the stars.

This Paul—the one kneeling by an alien river, trapped in a dimension he couldn't explain, separated from everyone and everything he loved—this Paul was someone new. Someone still being forged, perhaps, in the crucible of impossible circumstances.

I let my hand trail through the water one more time, watching the ripples spread outward in concentric circles. The tension I'd been carrying in my shoulders began, slowly, to unknot. The river didn't care about my problems. It simply flowed, as it had presumably been flowing since long before we'd arrived, as it would continue flowing long after whatever happened to us happened.

There was comfort in that indifference. The universe went on regardless of our small dramas, our fears and hopes and desperate plans. The sun didn't rise and set according to our suffering. Water found its way to the sea whether we watched or not. And somehow, that vastness—that reminder of forces and patterns larger than any individual life—made my own situation feel slightly more bearable.

I stayed by the river's edge until my knees ached from kneeling, until something that might have been peace settled into the spaces between my ribs. It wasn't happiness—happiness felt like a foreign concept, something belonging to a world I could no longer reach. But it was calm, and calm was its own kind of gift.

Whatever came next, I would face it. Not because I was brave, or strong, or any of the things heroes are supposed to be. Simply because the alternative—giving up, lying down in the dust and waiting for the end—was not something I could do. Not with Mack and Rose somewhere out there, still believing their father was coming home. Not with the possibility, however slim, that Luke might find a way to send us back.

I rose slowly, brushing dust from my trousers, and took one last look at the river. It flowed on, unchanged by my attention, offering nothing and everything at once.

Then I turned and began the climb back toward whatever the future held.