 If left to it’s own devices the areas’ ecosystem would drive powerful knotted tree roots under the man-mixed concrete to twist and tear it apart, freeing the ground for trees, brush, and grasses to grow as far from the river as could be supported.
In April, a month before my financial aid arrived and just before I quit my job, I came home one night to find multiple police cars, a crowd of news reporters, and several forensic vans in the motel’s parking lot.  Worn out from another day of mopping bathrooms, collecting carelessly discarded shopping carts, scooping ice cream for sweet faced kids and hungry looking adults, selling drugs photographs alcohol cigarettes and chocolate bars to people whose bodies looked like they were constantly experiencing shocking caffeine fueled explosions, and also learning about 17th century British authors I trudged up to our fourth floor, one room, motel studio.  My mother, who had picked me up from work but went to the front desk to find out what the commotion was about, came in afterwards with a look expressing excitement and that type of paranoia that expresses itself as gossip anxiety.  She told me, in a voice that sounded like it should be telling a ghost story, that someone had found a body in the river.  
The police had dragged the deceased onto the banks, so the coroners and detectives could examine the remains.  It turned out to be a woman, blonde, no description of the state of dress or bodily injuries.  She was said to have resembled a well dressed lady who had been seen accompanying different businessmen to their rooms in the previous several months.  I frowned slightly, trying to express concern sadness empathy fear and personal weariness with my eyes, as she spoke.  She stopped talking, and asked me to step outside and look with her.  We did, studying the scene for awhile.  She asked me some questions about remembering the businessmen and the lady, which I did and said.  Taking in all I wanted to I returned to our room, my mother remaining outside then returning to watch the news, myself sitting and contemplating.  The feelings I had developed for the motel’s dark but warm ambience, the river’s serene but liquidly active voice, and the forest’s harsh and gothic yet strangely evocative setting deteriorated not long after. 
The slick ink line of my pen danced epileptically between the strict rows of the test book.  Muscles over my eyes were spasming uncontrollably with jolts of energy my body was releasing every time my brain tried to remember which English writer wrote which poem from 300 years ago.  My hand cramped painfully, screaming at me in a voice I learned way back in first grade; “Relax your grip!  Slow down!!”  
The guy to my left, sitting sideways in the auditorium’s forward facing seats looked at me amusedly then calmly returned to working on his final. 