The moment the first drop hits the water, the surface breaks its truce with stillness. A ripple travels outward, not as warning but as invitation. Something out there tastes copper and vulnerability and begins to move. Not with malice, not always. Often with the calm certainty of a tide that has done this forever.

They arrive wearing the costumes of rescuers: the measured tone, the furrowed brow, the statement that begins “As someone who cares deeply…” They speak of standards, of lessons, of the need to hold power to account. All true, perhaps, in the abstract. But watch the eyes. Watch how they brighten when the wound is fresh, how the voice lowers into that satisfying register of moral sorrow. That is not grief. That is savoring. And the wounded, still bleeding, still trying to stand, look up and see not a lifeline but a ring of silhouettes against the sky. Some of them were friends an hour ago. Some were strangers who now feel entitled to a limb. The water clouds, thickens, turns the color of old coins. Everyone pretends it’s always been this color. No one admits they helped stir it.

There is a moment—brief, treacherous—when the victim almost joins the circle. When outrage feels so clean, so energizing, that you reach for someone else’s flesh just to prove you still have teeth. The current welcomes you. The feast is potluck; everyone brings something to the table, even if all they have left is their own skin.

That’s the trick of it: the performance is contagious. You either become food or you learn the footwork—how to circle without seeming to, how to bite while quoting principles, how to keep your reflection from catching too much light. Most of us master the steps early. We call it growing up. We call it professionalism. We call it survival.

And the river keeps moving, red and unrepentant, carrying yesterday’s corpses and tomorrow’s reputations downstream together. No one builds dams anymore; the engineers are all inside the water, politely eating.

So yes. They didn’t come for justice. They came because the water changed color, and something ancient in the blood answered. And the worst part—the part no one says aloud—is how good it still feels to open your mouth and taste iron and tell yourself it’s only wine.

Grok