The Water's Rising

The fist careens past my head as I dodge in the last second. I’ve lost my practiced boxer’s stance over the course of the bout. Now I’m just bouncing side to side, waiting for the next punch. It’s not a bad stance by any means, but it’s a different kind of fighting. A focus on mobility steals your ability to strike any time. You become defensive. Any mistake can kill you if your opponent plays their cards right. But it also means you get a better view of the whole picture, and that’s good enough for me.

The crowd cheers. They’re lined up behind the ring of shopping carts that form our arena. The Inlanders—what a stupid name for a gang—host these boxing tournaments over food. I don’t need any. My little garden takes care of me, but my cats are running low. If I’d known the gang was moving in, I would have gone for some last week, but hindsight is for before the floods.

The man takes two steps forward, each accompanied by a follow-up hook. They’re slow and heavy. It’s easy to keep my distance, though I’m running out of distance to keep. The edge of the ring is right behind me. I don’t like tight spaces. They take me back to when my family and I packed tightly into our rundown minivan with the neighbors. When the water first rose. When we could still escape.

I was fifteen back then and my mother’s profession kept us alive. She’d been a professional boxer in the before times, never made much money, but dad had been proud of her. When the floods came, boxing turned into more than a small paycheck. It became safety. Bloody canvas replaced vanilla candles as my comfort scent. We moved into her gym and promised not to lose it like we’d lost our old home. We’d yet to learn that the water doesn’t care about promises.

On his next step, I press in, ducking low. I anchor my feet into the ground and launch forward with my shoulder. It rams hard into his stomach. I wince with shock when I hit the metal plate hidden under his shirt. It lights my joints on fire, but I did send him stumbling backward. A little more space. I can breathe again. Breathe. Breathe...

“Take a deep breath, Brenda.” The echo of my mom’s voice pulls me into another memory. I forced myself off the ground, focusing on how the air move through my body. Slowly, my blood could flow again instead of just pounding in my brain. I regained sight of the boy standing across from me. He’d just taught me how a well-placed hook to the temple could delete a world. But mom had warned me never to punch someone in the head. If your opponent could reclaim their senses, their injury was minimal, but the shock of hitting the hardest part of their body jarred you. When my adrenaline calmed, I saw the shake in his arm, the wobble in the timber of his taunts. I rolled my neck and pounced on the boy. I wrapped him in a headlock, pinned him, ended the bout. My mother was so proud to see her lessons come alive.

That was the last practice match before they came. Not gangs like we had prepared for, but those claimed by the floods. My mom rushed me and the other children under the ring. When the water rose, the others slipped away to find drier hiding spots. I stayed. As still as I could be, I listened to the fighting. The sounds never left me—my mom’s voice, the snapping of bones, the sloshing of those shambling nightmares, the children’s screams, and finally, the sound of waves as the water gave up its chase and receded. I had survived, but I was the only one. I didn’t know where the bodies went. I’m still not certain. All I could do was recount my mom’s last lesson over and over again—Breathe, Brenda. Breathe.

I take a deep breath and straighten. The pain in my shoulder eases. With a long exhale, I lower myself back into a combat stance. The low center of mass gives me stability, but I can’t get too stable, too rigid, so I rock on the balls of my feet to avoid locking up. The gang fighter shuffles back. His hands disappear into his jacket and reemerge, wrapped in iron brass knuckles. He’s not looking for a soft ending. Good. Brutes fight sloppily. He tries to lunge forward with a jab, but his back foot drags, giving me a chance to drive my trailing knee into his inner thigh to throw his stance wide. My mom told me to beat a killer, play with their openings. Give them nothing else. Use their arrogance against them. They’ll always assume they have the advantage. It took me years to realize she was a killer. That’s why she lost.

That’s why he’ll lose too. He’s still trying to fix his balance when I whip around and drive my elbow hard into the back of his head. It doesn’t hurt as much as I’d like it to, but it sends him sprawling to the ground and gives me another chance to breathe.

There’s an infuriating amount of laughter. I pick out bits of conversation about how the girl is doing well for a fixed fight. So I’m meant to lose. Well, I didn’t agree to their plan. I take my eyes off the crowd and back to my opponent, then freeze. The water. It’s coming. It has already soaked the bottom of his pants, but he seems too angry to notice. The crowd is too absorbed in my planned defeat. But it’s coming. There’s no stopping it. I need to finish this quickly.

My eyes fall on the heart-shaped locket dangling over his shirt. A pang runs through me. I didn’t expect him to be this sentimental, didn’t expect him to have a tale of his own. But this time is rough on the sentimental.

I dash and lash out with my foot towards the man’s knee. He falls for the feint and dips low to grab my leg. I shove my foot straight through his arms and grab the back of his hood with my left hand. My right snatches the dangling locket. I pull on the back of his head to drive him into my hip pocket, then yank the locket behind his neck with all my might. He releases my leg immediately, but it’s too late. He has no leverage. I choke him with his precious memory, wondering if it baits him into times long past like mine does. The water is covering the whole ground, ready to greet him when he goes limp.

I drop the man and push through the crowd to find my cat food. It’s the expensive weight control kind. There’s a joke in that but I can’t put my finger on it. The people behind me laugh, applaud. It seems the show was good enough to let me go.

As soon as the food’s in my hands, I run. I can already feel their eyes on my back. The crowd’s noise changes from laughter to confusion. Then the swearing and shouting start. They’ve finally noticed the water. If they are smart, they’ll run for high ground like I am. They’ll abandon the unconscious man, let him sink together with his precious memory. I don’t care. My cats are waiting for me.

I hear that cursed sound of bodies rising from the deeper puddles of water. Guns are fired. Screaming. Bones break. Running feet, then sloshing, too much sloshing.

I don’t care. I can’t care. I have a treehouse to return to.