The Scoured Banks

The mud sucked at my trainers, a soft, insistent pull. Heat shimmered off the sluggish river, tasting of stagnant water and faint, distant exhaust fumes. I wiped a sheen of sweat from my brow, smearing a bit of the bank's dark, clinging soil across my temple. Another fruitless search. Three hours now, tracing the same stretch, squinting through the reeds for a glint of what was already, probably, gone for good. My phone, of course. Tumbled out of a loose pocket somewhere between the busted storm drain and that clump of aggressively yellow ragwort, the kind that thrives on neglect. The sun hammered down, the kind of summer sun that felt less like warmth and more like a physical threat.

I dug a bare heel into the sludge, imagining the tiny, impossible circuit boards drowning, a digital burial at sea, or rather, at river. The irony wasn't lost on me. Here I was, utterly disconnected, knee-deep in something resembling primordial soup, all because my tether to the twenty-first century had decided to make a break for aquatic freedom. My last memory of it alive was a notification from 'LifeFeed,' a trending video of a cat playing a tiny piano. Humanity’s pinnacle, right there. Gone now, presumably to become a home for some unfortunate, confused freshwater crab.

A fly, fat and buzzing with ill intent, dive-bombed my ear. I swatted it with a wet hand, the sound a dull clap that seemed to echo in the heavy air. The river itself barely moved, a brown-green smear framed by concrete chunks and the occasional plastic bottle. This wasn't some pristine wilderness; this was the urban river, a forgotten artery, flowing with the detritus of a species too busy staring at screens to notice what it was doing to its own backyard. In 2025, 'nature' was a hashtag, a filter, something you scrolled past on a curated feed.

The Tyranny of the Algorithm

I kicked at a half-submerged tyre, sending a cloud of gritty silt swirling. Losing the phone felt like losing a limb, or at least a significant chunk of my social persona. Not because I needed to talk to anyone, not really. It was the data. The endless, curated stream of 'connections,' the digital breadcrumbs of my existence. Without it, I was just… Alex. A guy in muddy trainers, by a greasy river, with nothing to offer the algorithm. That was the real terror. To cease generating content, to become a non-event in the vast, churning ocean of online relevance. The thought made a laugh bubble up, dry and humourless.

My thumb instinctively went to where the phone usually sat, brushing against the clammy fabric of my cargo shorts. Habit. A phantom limb twitch. Everyone had one, these phantom digital appendages. People walked into lampposts because their eyes were glued to handheld portals. Conversations died mid-sentence because a notification demanded immediate attention. Even out here, in this forgotten pocket, I felt the ghostly pull of the internet, the collective hum of billions of minds simultaneously consuming and producing, utterly oblivious to the damp, living world around them. Was it better? This constant state of 'on'? This pervasive, inescapable performance of self? Probably not. Definitely not. But God, it was hard to escape.

I remembered a 'viral' video from last week – some influencer attempting a 'digital detox' by camping. She'd filmed the entire thing, editing it into a perfectly lit, aspirational montage, complete with drone shots of her 'unplugged' wilderness experience, ending, naturally, with a sponsored post for portable chargers. The comments were all 'So brave!' and 'Queen of mindfulness!' It was a performance, a lie. Like everything else.

A crunch of gravel behind me. I startled, nearly slipping on the slick bank. It was a figure, silhouetted against the bright haze, moving with a kind of methodical slowness. Older, maybe fifty, with a wide-brimmed hat that cast his face in deep shadow. He carried a long pole, tipped with a small, rusted net. A fisherman? Here? The absurdity of it was almost too much.

He stopped a few metres away, just where the bank widened slightly, and looked at me. His eyes, though obscured by shadow, seemed to hold a weary amusement. My clothes were smeared with mud, hair sticking to my forehead. I probably looked like I'd wrestled a badger and lost.

"Lost something?" he grunted, his voice gravelly, like the stones beneath his feet.

"My phone," I mumbled, gesturing vaguely at the opaque water. "Probably gone."

He gave a low, rumbling chuckle. "Digital leash snapped, eh? Happened to my neighbour last month. Said he felt naked without it. Panicked. Bought a new one within an hour."

"Yeah," I said, a dry smile touching my lips. "I'm feeling the withdrawal already. The phantom vibrations are getting intense."

He nodded, a slow, deliberate movement. "They'll have us microchipped soon. Save everyone the bother of losing the bloody things." He didn't sound angry, just… resigned. Like he'd seen it all before, the endless march of progress and its increasingly ridiculous side effects.

He waded into the shallows, the water barely reaching his knees, and began to sweep his net through a patch of weeds near a submerged shopping trolley. A small, dark fish darted away, disturbed. This was his version of a digital detox, I supposed. Or maybe it was just his life, unfazed by the relentless march of technological 'advancement'. The river, in its own slow, indifferent way, would claim anything, digital or otherwise. It was a great leveller.

"You find anything interesting in there?" I asked, gesturing at the river with a sweep of my hand.

He paused, pulling his net up, a single, glistening tin can caught in the mesh. He eyed it with a mixture of disdain and familiarity. "Mostly broken promises and plastic dreams, lad. Sometimes a fish. Depends on the day."

He tossed the can onto the bank with a soft clatter, a morbid trophy. The metal glinted in the harsh sunlight. I wondered what stories it could tell, tossed aside like my phone, just another piece of human refuse finding its way back to something resembling nature.

I considered asking him for help, but what would he do? Plunge his rusty net into the murky depths for a shiny rectangle designed to become obsolete in six months? The image was ludicrous. And yet, the idea of just leaving it, accepting the digital void, felt… terrifyingly liberating.

The Grand Return

The fisherman gave one last sweep, then pulled his net free, shaking off the water. "Well, good luck to you, then," he said, his eyes finally meeting mine, and I saw a flash of something ancient, something that had nothing to do with Wi-Fi signals or trending topics. "Some things are better left to the river."

He turned, his back to me, and shuffled off upstream, his pole a thin line against the shimmering horizon. I watched him go, then looked back at the river, at the spot where I was sure my phone had met its watery end. The sun was dipping now, painting the distant clouds in bruised purples and oranges. The air was still hot, but a faint, almost imperceptible breeze ruffled the reeds. The mud still clung to my trainers. The smell of the river hadn’t improved.

My hand went into my empty pocket again. No phone. No endless scroll. No 'LifeFeed' telling me what I should be doing, feeling, or buying. Just the quiet hum of the summer evening, the distant thrum of traffic, and the persistent itch of mosquito bites. It felt less like freedom and more like being untethered, floating, with no clear direction. But maybe that was the point. Maybe the panic wasn't about missing out on anything, but about having to actually *think* for a change.

A tiny, iridescent beetle crawled over my big toe, its legs tickling. I stared at it, a miniature marvel, completely oblivious to algorithmic recommendations or quarterly profit reports. Maybe I should embrace the primitive. Maybe I should go home, grab a spade, and come back tomorrow, not to find the phone, but to plant something. Something real. Something that would grow, instead of just consuming data. Or maybe, just maybe, I should find a really big magnet.

The river flowed on, indifferent. I sighed, the sound loud in the sudden quiet. The hunt for my digital limb was over, for now. But a new quest had begun: the terrifying, ridiculous, utterly pointless task of finding out what Alex did when the world wasn’t watching, or, more accurately, when he couldn't watch the world through a screen.

I took one last, long look at the murky expanse, at the slow, indifferent pull of the current. And then, carefully, cautiously, I began to pick my way back along the bank, the mud still sucking at my trainers, but this time, the purpose felt different. Foolish. Absurd. But definitely different.