The Flood

I woke up this morning to the sound of rain on the tin roof of my mother’s brownstone. It’s become routine. An eerily familiar sound that, no matter what is playing in the background, is like a fan or some sort of white noise. At first, it drove me crazy. I felt like it was watching me, ruining my life. Then, I thought that I just got used to it, but now it feels like it’s soaked into my bones. The ominous dark stains dripped down the walls. The constantly damp, gooey furniture. The humidity and sweat. The air is thick with the smell of rotting wood and mildew no matter where I go. Puddles have formed in the corners of every room, and each step I take feels like I’m sinking into the porous floorboards. Outside isn’t much better. The streets run ankle-deep in water, the buildings sagging under the constant downpour. In the distance, I hear rushing, car alarms wailing, and the occasional crash. All from the weight of this rain. 

In the early days, it was a novelty—umbrellas crowding the streets, wet socks, kids splashing in the puddles. “Historic rainfall,” the news called it, “Wear a raincoat,” they said, but it continued—day in, day out. 

Then the power started to go out. Not completely, higher ground was still safe and some things still worked if they were dry. But really, what’s dry anymore? The blackouts seemed like an inconvenience at first. They drove Annie crazy, but Mother still had power. She could still make calls. That’s when we moved in with her uptown. 

Then came the drownings… First, it was a little boy. His name was Asher. He lived a few blocks down from Mom. He might have been 5 or 6 years old. My mother was heartbroken. God, his parents were a wreck. Asher was the first to drown. It was shocking. It made the rain feel real. Annie taught him English class, she was also really upset. But then there were more. It seemed to be the elderly. The people who couldn’t take care of themselves and had no one to help them out. There would be more children to come. Fear started to grow within the city. 

One day, 34, a building down the block collapsed. It was the middle of the night. A Peruvian family, my mother told me. Four kids, parents, grandparents. I remembered them growing up. Annie and I ensured the apartment was secure and started checking the ceiling daily. Day 34 is when life started to change. 

Food became more scarce. There were reports of crimes throughout the city, but we never really felt it. People were hungry. Some started arriving in their boats from Jersey and the outer boroughs. They’d collect what they could from the supermarkets. Evacuations started also. Leaving practically nothing for the rest of us. Mother felt it first. The body aches, pain, and hunger hit her harder being an older woman. The weight loss was visible, and she refused to eat any spare food. She gave it all to Annie. “For the baby,” She’d say. Motherly instincts I guess. Sometimes, doctors or volunteers would come by the house. Check up on her and make sure she’s okay. She insisted she was. 

We lost Mom on day 51. It was a dark day—-the day I started keeping track. She had fallen and gotten this cut on her leg. With the malnutrition, fatigue, and lack of care, it didn’t take too long. The doctor told me it was probably sepsis, but we really didn’t have any way of knowing for sure. I think heartbreak played a role. All her friends had either drowned or starved. I think it was an easy way out. The doctor told me that mom was one of the last elderly people she knew of in the neighborhood. They took her body four days later. 

It got lonely after Mom was gone. I have Annie, but we’ve grown distant, all alone in this house. Well, with the sound of rain watching over us. It reminds me of the late nights at the office. The rain would hit the air conditioner. The flickering lights, sound keyboards, sipping burnt coffee out of a paper cup. God, what I’d do for a cup of that coffee… I used to look out at the Brooklyn Bridge and think to myself how amazing it was, all the weather it had endured. Then it fell. 

I think people still move through the city. We haven’t made it too far around in a few weeks, but I can hear people splashing through the streets. Fewer every day. My neighbor Tom had a boat. A small one for fishing. We used to travel in, just to have something to do. Tom left for higher ground. Really everyone did. We stayed. I don’t really know why. 

Every day, the radio plays emergency broadcasts. Warning us of the rain. Like we need to be warned. A crackling voice. Sounds like a professional: Stay inside. Ration food. If you can, leave the city. They’ve never said where to go. Is there really anywhere for us to go? 

I still try to find food every day. When I can, I stock up. After Mom, we were sharing with my neighbor Dorothy. She couldn’t get outside—-bad hips. We’d have candle-lit dinners of canned beans, sometimes tuna. Her body was weak and she was frail. But her spirit was strong. She told us to keep having hope—-everything would be okay. I believed her. If not for myself, for her. On day 82, Dorothy stopped answering her door. I thought she was sleeping. Left a note I’d be back in a few hours. A few hours passed. No answer. A couple of days later, I broke down her door. It was the smell that hit me first. I didn’t look at her. I just shut the door and went back home. What was I to do? Annie was devastated. We talked about leaving, but we fear it may just get worse.

The few people I see on the streets don’t want anything to do with me. More weight. More mouths to feed. More energy expended, I guess. Plus with a third one on the way, I really can’t blame them. They’re like ghosts. Wet, miserable shadows. Most of them are alone. The lucky ones may have a friend or two, but none of us are really lucky. We are just the last to go. 

Things got more difficult in Annie’s third trimester. She was bedridden and couldn’t really help out anymore. Most of the work fell on to me. We agreed we would eventually go out and find someone. The delivery was too scary to tackle alone. Every day, I would check her temperature and blood pressure and then make sure she was hydrated. Staying hydrated is easy. We have an abundance of water. 

I found a boat. It wasn’t anything fancy, some canoe. I figured someone probably brought it from outside of the city. Made getting around easier. My arms would grow soar rowing.

On day 110, Annie had her first contraction. It was earlier than we expected. I had to scramble to prepare. We had no medical supplies left—-no sterile environment either. I set Annie up with a couple of old blankets that were pretty dry. They had been in air-tight storage boxes, we agreed to save them for this day. We also collected a few buckets of fresh rainwater. The cleanest we could get. I tried everything to make Annie comfortable, but it was nearly impossible. 

For the next few days, I went out to find meds. The streets were barren. Buildings crumbling around me. Silent beside the sound of rain. It was getting windier, thunder echoing through the streets, debris flying through the air. A storm was starting to intensify… These storms could last up to a week, we figured, it was when most of the damage was done. Day 115 was when I made the final push. I rowed to where a medical tent had been set up in the early days. It was destroyed, but it was our only chance. 

By the time I arrived, the waves had started. I could hardly keep the boat from capsizing. I dove into the riding water, feeling the murky ground. Empty bag after bag, I’d pull up. I wasn’t able to get a lot from the violent waves, but a jar of Tylenol and some amoxicillin. 

When I got back, I heard Annie screaming. I rushed upstairs, fearing the worst. She was in labor. I sat with her for hours as she gave birth, doing anything I possibly could. Then I saw him. A beautiful boy, his crying blending in with the sounds of roaring thunder and fierce rain. For the first time in months, I felt something other than dread and despair. I looked at Annie, sweating from the labor. Exhausted. I held her hand. She smiled. We named the baby Noah, after her father. 

The day Noah was born, we decided we had to leave. There was nothing left for us in the city. No way we could keep him healthy. We waited until Annie regained some of her strength and prepared the rest of our food to go—-the last of our batteries, medicine, and old family photos we were able to collect. A week later, we left. 

We wrapped Noah in a blanket, and Annie held him as I rowed. As we drifted away, our brownstone faded in with the sheets of rain. It was a calm day. The water was tranquil, and the sound of light downpour was now soothing. It took us around an hour before we made it to the river. I was already exhausted, but for them, I had to keep going. We left the radio on, hoping for a signal. As we left, the city looked back at the crumbling skyline, half-submerged, broken, a ghost of what we once knew. 

Days later. No one. Rowing through residential areas of New Jersey, looking for some high ground. We flew a flag as high as we could, trying to signal anyone out there. Then, the radio started to murmur. The same sounds, over and over again. We kept going west, hoping it would be clearer. Then we heard a motor. A megaphone blaring…  

To those hearing this… Keep going west… The boats are reaching survivors and taking them to higher ground… Follow the sound… We are still out here… You are not forgotten…