In the deep waters of the Obiga River, where the currents told old stories and the reeds swayed like dancers in prayer, lived a crocodile named Kachi. He was broad-backed and quiet, with a face that looked stern but eyes that saw far beyond the riverbank.
Kachi had lived in the Obiga River longer than most could remember. He had seen floods carry away trees, seen fish vanish and return, seen children born on the banks grow into fishermen. But above all else, he had known loneliness.
Years ago, Kachi had a friend a young monkey named Dara. The two of them had grown up together, one on the water, the other in the trees. Every morning, Dara would swing down and sit on the rock that jutted out of the river’s bend. Kachi would float nearby, eyes just above the surface.
They would talk about everything how the clouds looked like goat herds, how the frogs sang when the moon was full, how the world felt softer when you had someone to sit beside.
But as the seasons passed, Dara changed.
He grew restless. Curious.
One morning, he came down to the river slower than usual.
“Kachi,” Dara said, “I want to see what’s beyond the hills.”
Kachi didn’t answer immediately. He stared at the rippling water.
“I understand,” he said finally. “But will you come back?”
Dara laughed, jumping from one branch to another. “Of course I will. You think I’d leave you forever?”
He disappeared into the trees.
That was five years ago.
And Kachi waited.
Every morning, he floated to the same spot. Every evening, he lay still beneath the rock. And every time he heard the rustle of leaves, his eyes lifted—hoping.
But Dara never came.
The other animals whispered.
“That crocodile is wasting his time.”
“Who waits that long?”
“Monkeys forget. They don’t come back.”
Kachi said nothing.
He just waited.
One day, a storm struck the forest. Rain poured like boiling oil, and the river rose with fury. Trees crashed. Huts bent. The ground soaked until even the ants had to swim.
When the skies cleared, Kachi emerged to find the landscape different. The old tree where Dara had once perched was gone. The rock was cracked. But still, he came.
Then, one morning, as the mist clung to the river like a whisper, Kachi heard a familiar sound the rustle of light feet on bark.
He turned.
There, clinging to a broken branch, soaked and shaking, was Dara.
Older. Thinner. But unmistakably Dara.
Kachi didn’t speak.
Dara climbed down slowly, one paw at a time, and sat on what was left of the rock.
“I was afraid to return,” Dara said, voice almost a whisper. “I thought too much time had passed.”
Kachi blinked.
“I thought you’d be angry,” Dara added. “Or gone.”
Kachi floated closer, then rested his head beside the rock.
“I told you I’d wait,” he said simply.
Dara’s eyes filled with tears.
“I went far,” he said. “I saw mountains, villages, deserts. But nothing felt like this river. Nothing felt like home.”
The two sat in silence.
Birds chirped.
Fish darted below.
And the river flowed gently around them.
Days passed. Then weeks.
Dara built a small perch near the edge of the water. Kachi brought him shiny stones from the riverbed. They spoke sometimes. But mostly, they sat.
And the animals watched.
They stopped whispering. They stopped mocking.
Because they saw something they had never understood before a friendship that had outlived absence, silence, and time.
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Moral Lessons:
1. True friends wait without resentment, even when it hurts.
2. Forgiveness doesn’t need an explanation it just needs love.
3. Some bonds flow like rivers deep, quiet, and unbreakable.
