Water, water, every where…

Welcome to the Spot Writers. This month’s prompt is: write a story in which an element (earth, air, water, fire) plays a major role (either literally or metaphorically).

This week’s story is written by Phil Yeats. Last fall, he published The Souring Seas, the first volume in a precautionary tale about the hazards of ignoring human-induced climate change. The second volume, Building Houses of Cards, appeared in May 2022. For information about these books, visit his website–https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com/

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Water, water, every where…

by Phil Yeats

 

The wind howled. Sheets of rain lashed the windows. The morning weather forecast predicted strong winds and rain, at times heavy, for the next twenty-four hours. Total rainfall could exceed 500 millimetres with a seventy-five percent probability of the river flooding its banks.

After a quick breakfast, Ben collected his rain gear, including the hip waders he’d bought during a short-lived enthusiasm for fly-fishing. He donned his rain jacket and shoved his sou’wester on his head before grabbing his briefcase and the rest of his gear. He hurried down the path to his car and threw everything in the back seat.

Inside his car, he assessed the situation. He’d been in the rain for barely a minute, but his jeans and shoes were already soggy. From the driver’s seat, he could observe the houses built behind insubstantial berms on the river’s floodplain. Their main protection was the slightly elevated road that paralleled the river, but the river, swollen with the spring’s snow melt, was already lapping against its edge. Flooding was inevitable.

He switched on the electric motor and headed for work. He had one pressing task that should take three to four hours. After that, he could return to help his neighbours fend off the encroaching river waters.

His house was not in danger. He’d built it on a ridge, a geological oddity that protruded from the otherwise flat river valley. The place where he parked his car was eight metres above the road, and his two-bedroom house, six metres higher. No floodwaters could reach that high.

When he built it, everyone thought he was crazy. In their view, no one in his right mind would incur the extra expense associated with building on the few pieces of elevated land. The flood plan had served their ancestors well, and it provided good soil for the extensive gardens they were all proud of.

But his neighbours endured serious floods in three times in the last five years, and they appeared set for another. Climate change, he thought as he drove along the river’s edge. The neighbours refused to accept it, but it must be the cause.

 

The storm delayed Ben’s arrival and caused one annoying disruption after another. As a result, his three-hour task took seven. He finally stepped from his office into the unrelenting rain at three thirty. Ten minutes later, he encountered a police road block where he would normally turn onto River Road.

“Road’s impassible,” the officer said. “Strong current and one to two feet of water on the road.”

He was still twenty minutes from home. His only option was an inland route to the wilderness park behind his property. He could park his car in the wilderness area’s parking lot and hike in from there.

In the carpark he considered his choices. One option was the rugged wilderness path. It descended into a ravine and then climbed the inland side of his ridge. From the lookoff at the summit, he could scramble down to his house. Or he could take the gentler, downhill path to the floodplain. From there, he would face two hundred metres wading along River Road to his driveway. He had his hip waders but no hiking boots. River Road seemed like the better choice. He gathered his gear and trudged down that path.

When he reached River Road, he wondered if he’d made the wrong choice. He was standing in thirty centimetres of muddy water. If he wandered off the pavement, it would get rapidly deeper, and the current was quite strong.

He was gazing about, trying to get his bearings for his walk along an invisible road in a wide expanse of water, when he noticed a tiny figure perhaps fifty to seventy-five metres away. He or she was standing, waving furiously, on a tree stump. The roadside stump would provide a good guidepost, and the person who appeared to be a child obviously needed help.

As he got closer, Ben recognized the little girl by the bright blue frames of her thick-lensed glasses. They identified her as Emily, the seven- or eight-year-old daughter of Hannah Savage, a single mother living in an illegal granny suite attached to a riverside house.

Emily began jumping up and down, pointing ahead along the river as Ben approached. “I can hear her,” she wailed. “She’s up that way. We must find her.”

“Who?” he asked when he reached the stump.

“Missy. We have to find her. She’ll be really scared.” Emily was soaking wet and shivering, but it was obvious nothing but Missy mattered.

“Missy, a little black and white terrier?” Ben asked.

“Alone in all that water. She’ll be so scared.”

“You sure she’s out there?”

“I can hear her barking.”

“Okay. Hang on. Call her, then wait quietly. We need a sense of the direction.”

“Missy!” she yelled, then clamped her mouth shut.

A few seconds later, they heard high-pitched barking, and she pointed again. Ben nodded before turning so she could climb on his shoulders.

They set off slowly because he had to locate solid footing. They soon came to some forlorn-looking bushes sticking out of the water. Past them, they could see the place where his driveway emerged from the water. The black and white dog was scampering back and forth at the water’s edge, her tail wagging furiously.

They reached dry land, and Emily slithered off Ben’s shoulders. She picked up the bedraggled Jack Russell terrier and hugged her. Ben was by choice a solitary individual who always kept his distance from others, but the reunion of Missy and Emily brought a tear to his eye.

A few minutes later, out of the rain inside his house, Ben found an adult T-shirt for Emily and his largest, fluffiest towel. He chased her into his bathroom. Missy was right on her heels.

“Take off your wet clothes and throw them in the tub. Get nice and dry, including your hair,” he called from the hallway. “Then put on the T-shirt and come out. We’ll wrap you in a nice soft blanket and get a fire started. You’ll be warm and toasty in no time. I’ll contact your mum. She’ll be worried about you. We must let her know you’re safe.”

“And Missy. Tell her Missy’s safe, too.”

Ben retreated to his living room to get a fire started. It was the only way he could quickly warm his solar heated house. Emily was shivering and her lips were blue. He knew nothing about children, but those couldn’t be good signs. Getting her warm was his obvious priority, but the longer-term implications of his serendipitous rescue of the little girl and her dog were already weighing on his mind.

Hannah Savage was a friendly young woman. She was always upbeat despite having a minimum wage job, few prospects, and responsibility for her eight-year-old daughter. At twenty-four, she was a year younger than him, and she’d done a little flirting he didn’t respond to.

She and Emily must now be homeless. The floor of her glorified shed was at ground level. The muddy water inside must be fifty centimetres deep and the municipality was certain to condemn it. He’d have to offer them temporary refuge if she had nowhere else for them to live, but he wasn’t happy about it. A relationship was not in his plans. Not now, and probably at no time in the foreseeable future.

 

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The Spot Writers—Our Members:

Val Muller: http://www.valmuller.com/blog/

Catherine A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com/wicker-chitter/

Phil Yeats: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com/

Chiara De Giorgi: https://chiaradegiorgi.blogspot.com/