I ran from Kentucky to Indiana and back again, just to say I could.

There was only one river to cross, a single pedestrian bridge. Patches of ice made it look treacherous but there was plenty of dry ground. It was possible to feel daring and safe at the same time.

There are audio monitors on the bridge playing classical music. I wonder if this is a method for reducing crime? Do they play this music all through the night? I imagine it's harder to rob someone at gunpoint if Handel's 'Messiah' is playing in the background. Without this music, there would just be the sound of the wind, a certain type of silence no matter how loud it is. I've never thought of the wind as evil, but perhaps it could be. I imagine it's easier to hurt people when the wind is blowing.

Along the shore of the municipal park, you can see exactly where the river, swollen with ice melt, has risen to in recent days. There's a surgical line of mudwood and human plastic - bottles of half-frozen piss, bent polymer wings that look like toy boomerangs, cups and lids and shapes, their original use no longer clear. The river is known by what we've put into it. Someone will have to clear away the high water mark, otherwise it will stay there for hundreds of years, refusing to degrade. It will remain, slowly drying, until a new flood swaps it for something else.