Kurt:
Kurt thought of the Kuyokan Indians of northwestern Alaska, caribou hunters who believed the animals would sing when they were ready to be sacrificed and eaten. The Kuyokans woke up hearing the caribou’s song in their heads and knew where to find them.
neema = she sings.
In Kuyokan, the name Neema comes from the verb neem — to sing, especially when no one is listening.
As a noun, it can also mean:
a song that causes transformation
a sung creature
a sound you follow even if it kills you
Neema:
“Did you get my song? I recorded one.”
Kurt:
“Today I woke up singing it.”
Neema:
It’s hard to stay whole when everybody wants a piece of you.
But without these fairy tales the world would not be real.
Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Don Quixote 
“Jesus walked the earth,” Hugo countered, challenging.
“So did the Lenape hero Nanapush, in all likelihood.”
“Jesus performed miracles,” Hugo added. “He turned water into
wine.”
“So did Nanapush. He turned a snake into a river.”
But mostly, the river is a river.
But sometimes, patiently hissing, it turns into a giant snake. Her tail (and isn’t a snake nothing but tail?) causes earthquakes. It is almost endearing to observe naïve humanity stubbornly trying to come up with a rational reason. 
“To drop a feather is to leave a message for those who follow.”
--Lenape teaching
Pray tell me, what took you so long? Good of you to bring the feather.
“Good girl,” the Feathered Woman said, addressing Minetta—the evil snake, still drowsy from eons spent as a river. “Do your thing.”
However wide awake they may have been before they entered that sleepy region, they are sure, in a little time, to inhale the witching influence of the air, and begin to grow imaginative—to dream dreams and see apparitions.
Washington Irving, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow 
Coco:
The Subway Miracle. How comforting, how chilling.
What made the story so comforting was its uniqueness; what made it chilling was that it reminded her there wasn’t a hero for everyone.
“The eye is the first circle. The horizon which it forms is the second.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
Neema:
“And then Tobe pulled out some primitive stone axe, thrust it into my hands, and declared I’d just come back from chopping up my uncle and step-aunt and—”
Coco:
Scanning the crowd, she looked around carefully.
You never knew who recognized you.
But you could always be sure—someone was watching. 
Kurt:
Only, subway rides weren’t so easy in a wheelchair. Most New York stations lacked elevators, and even if you reached the platform, the gaps between train and platform varied wildly—sometimes manageable, sometimes insurmountable. No wheelchair user in their right mind ven- tured underground alone.
Kurt:
It was the blue hour—Kurt’s favorite time of day. The sun clung stubbornly to its final moments, casting a reluctant glow. On humid August evenings like this, Kurt imagined mist rising—not from the city but from the bones buried beneath it: victims of long-ago yellow fever epidemics, interred under the park.
Kurt:
Kurt typically drove to bars—always those near NO PARKING signs. But tonight, he felt the urge to roll. He glanced at Coco, weighing whether to ask her for help unloading the wheelchair. It was a lot to ask: her bright blue suit was pristine, and the chair was far from clean, bearing streaks of dirt from the trunk.
“My wheelchair was my wings.”
— Stephen Hawking (paraphrased) 
Carrying counter-agony into the world,
dream-singing, river-madness,
the tragic fugal love of a theme balancing
another theme.
Muriel Rukeyser, “Sixth Elegy. River Elegy”
Kurt:
Believing in sense was madness.
It felt as though it was flowing out of him, like water from a bathtub. His thoughts became a pristine stream, flowing only Nature knew where.
This was river-madness.
\\\"The river never forgets. It just runs quieter when it’s watching.” 