The Ripples

He stood at the riverbank, stone in hand.
Behind him: a woman who loved him.
Ahead: a path to power.
Both could not be his.

The stone was small, ordinary. Yet when he released it, the water did not simply splash, it multiplied. Circles upon circles rushed outward, colliding, bending, breaking.

One ripple brushed a fisherman’s boat, making him turn his head just in time to escape an approaching storm.
Another carried a leaf farther downstream, where a child would one day pluck it and begin to wonder about destiny.

And one ripple, only one, curved back toward the shore, brushing his own foot. The decision he had made had already returned to him.

He understood then: we are never free of our choices.
We are surrounded by them.
Swimming in them.
Drowning in them.

The river doesn’t forget.
Neither do timelines.