Sitting up, your eyes still blurry, you feel the shock of water on your first leg out. As you slide your other foot down, you notice the wobbling of your bed. You look around half-heartedly, the sky not yet broken which means no light, only shadows and the off-kilter feeling of a dream.
You notice now the soft lapping of the water, how that stand with your school things slightly shifts, the way your bookcases seem to slant – Your books! Suddenly you're rushing to the door, sloggishly, with wet slopping sounds, to face knowing the water isn't only in your room.
“Mommy!” you choke, your hands against the walls.
You worry about what’s in the water, snakes maybe. Still you go, stopping at the living room door, your head poked in. Why the sun reached an arm through here you don’t know, a little dizzy from what you can see: a line of stain across the wall from where the water was, surreal with water bouncing underneath from all the furniture it meets.
Then you remember mom. Turning your head right, a little behind your shoulder, you stare at the door, listening closely for any sound that tells you she’s awake. Reaching for the handle, you hesitate, your eyes wet, but with a breath you enter the darker space which is crowded with boxes and a shape on the bed that’s thin, almost the same as a blanket.
Your hand trembles as you reach, grabbing her shoulder and, with firmer voice, “Mommy, wake up.”
“Huh?” she answers, “What is it? Did the alarm go off?”
“You have to get up. There’s water on the floor.”
“What?” she snaps, jerking right and sitting up.
She looks at the alarm clock, it’s black. Getting up, her face changes and she charges out, opening the back and front doors before she notices you again.
“There’s nothing we can do now but wait for the water to leave. I know it’s scary, but we must be strong. If you need to pee, remember not to flush or turn on any lights.”
Everything is light now. Squeamish with the water on your legs, thoughts of bacteria having floated in, you see the bag of bags on your bicycle bar, decide to make some shoes to get you through but, when they fail to stay while you walk around in them, you take them off and sit on a chair.
Your mom makes peanut butter sandwiches, some of the only things left out. You look past her to the wall of water by the gate behind the carport. The source you know: the bayou beneath the roll of green field. What unsettles you is seeing the water like this, its body long and stretched across with no seeming end. You fear it more than the water inside, your body shaking.
Shifting your body you set your elbows on the table and cross your fingers to your chin. You feel a perverse calm, ignoring the plate she sets in front of you.
You have a sudden sense of things to come. You see it clearly, that wall of water pushing in to every door and swallowing whole all time and place, an absence of the human race. Oh, how you wait there, listening for the whoosh of silence, and death.
Like a child you pull your legs up, feet on the chair, huddling with your head between your arms. Soon you feel her hand on your back, open one eye to meet her two. With a squeeze and a scratch she leaves, you stand and go outside, this time with no jitters in your stomach as you watch that water wall.
You notice now the soft lapping of the water, how that stand with your school things slightly shifts, the way your bookcases seem to slant – Your books! Suddenly you're rushing to the door, sloggishly, with wet slopping sounds, to face knowing the water isn't only in your room.
“Mommy!” you choke, your hands against the walls.
You worry about what’s in the water, snakes maybe. Still you go, stopping at the living room door, your head poked in. Why the sun reached an arm through here you don’t know, a little dizzy from what you can see: a line of stain across the wall from where the water was, surreal with water bouncing underneath from all the furniture it meets.
Then you remember mom. Turning your head right, a little behind your shoulder, you stare at the door, listening closely for any sound that tells you she’s awake. Reaching for the handle, you hesitate, your eyes wet, but with a breath you enter the darker space which is crowded with boxes and a shape on the bed that’s thin, almost the same as a blanket.
Your hand trembles as you reach, grabbing her shoulder and, with firmer voice, “Mommy, wake up.”
“Huh?” she answers, “What is it? Did the alarm go off?”
“You have to get up. There’s water on the floor.”
“What?” she snaps, jerking right and sitting up.
She looks at the alarm clock, it’s black. Getting up, her face changes and she charges out, opening the back and front doors before she notices you again.
“There’s nothing we can do now but wait for the water to leave. I know it’s scary, but we must be strong. If you need to pee, remember not to flush or turn on any lights.”
Everything is light now. Squeamish with the water on your legs, thoughts of bacteria having floated in, you see the bag of bags on your bicycle bar, decide to make some shoes to get you through but, when they fail to stay while you walk around in them, you take them off and sit on a chair.
Your mom makes peanut butter sandwiches, some of the only things left out. You look past her to the wall of water by the gate behind the carport. The source you know: the bayou beneath the roll of green field. What unsettles you is seeing the water like this, its body long and stretched across with no seeming end. You fear it more than the water inside, your body shaking.
Shifting your body you set your elbows on the table and cross your fingers to your chin. You feel a perverse calm, ignoring the plate she sets in front of you.
You have a sudden sense of things to come. You see it clearly, that wall of water pushing in to every door and swallowing whole all time and place, an absence of the human race. Oh, how you wait there, listening for the whoosh of silence, and death.
Like a child you pull your legs up, feet on the chair, huddling with your head between your arms. Soon you feel her hand on your back, open one eye to meet her two. With a squeeze and a scratch she leaves, you stand and go outside, this time with no jitters in your stomach as you watch that water wall.
