When the Floods Change Nothing

The sloshing of murky water against the side of the six-inch mattress is what wakes him, the heat of it unnatural and unnerving. Or it was once unnerving, before they’d come to expect it. A hand slips off the side of the makeshift cot, tattered sleeve absorbing the threat and wetting his wrist. A groan comes before the shift, tired and tight muscles protesting as he moves. Synapses begin to fire, brain making piecemeal sense of the situation before the sense of panic presents itself and:

With urgency, Robin scrambles to sit. Shoulders scream in silent protest, ligaments pulling and pleading for gentleness. Heartrate spikes – from rest to peak in alarmingly quick time – and only considers settling again when he catches sight of Sylva and Cas perched safely in the old home’s rickety stairwell.

“You alright?” Robin gasps for breath. Gasps like the rising water around the bed has already found refuge in his lungs.

“Yeah, but,” Sylva is accepting the cans and clothes Cas passes her way and shoving them into the bottom of a disintegrating canvas pack. Her hair was once golden like the sun that streams through dirty windowpanes and cracks in the walls, but it’s dulled now. Dirt and grime and exhaustion weigh it down. Her gaze has dulled, too.

Cas is eleven years old and this is most of what he’s always known. He isn’t their son; he’s bright-eyed and angular and energetic, but in some ways that’s what he’s become.

When Sylva’s ‘but’ drifts off into the distance, Cas loses track of its heaviness and steps in to complete the thought, “We’re moving on again.”

Robin already knows this. He and Sylva had made the call the night before, while Cas lay curled into himself on a stack of muddied blankets atop creaking wood planks.

“It isn’t safe to keep moving. Every time we find a new place it lasts half the time as the one before,” she’d said.

“I know,” Robin had nodded. Brown eyes glassy as he tried to focus through the darkness, measuring from a distance the gentle rise and fall of the young boy’s breathing as he slept. He cleared his throat, shifted uncertainly and brought a hand up to scratch at a non-existent itch on the back of his neck. “I think maybe it’s time we head toward the safe zone.”

Even in the darkness, he could see the concern that bloomed in her chest and turned her stomach upside down and into tight knots.

The truth is that it’s well past time they head toward the safe zone.

She’s been more resistant to the idea than he’s been – and though he understands why, it’s a choice that has to be made for Cas’ sake, if not for Sylva’s.

Their things, few as they are, are packed before the meal they call breakfast is eaten out of a shared can. Robin watches Cas struggling with the rusted can opener for nearly a minute before reaching out; the boy shifts his body away with an insistence that he can do it. And he can, he proves, another ten seconds later. The kidney beans have no distinct flavour, there’s nothing aromatic to hit the air between them. The scent of damp wood and the sun beating down hot as the day breaks seep onto their tongues and convince them that even these beans taste like ruin and time running out.

They have no utensils, but it doesn’t matter that they eat with their hands when the whole of everything is flooded anyway. Robin barely remembers what it felt like to be dry, and certainly has no recollection of being clean. He remembers growing older and wondering if he would ever live in a neighbourhood that was different from the one he’d grown up in, if there would ever come a time when the wind didn’t blow through cracks in their walls and his mother didn’t have to work three jobs only to feed their four mouths. Now, that rickety apartment in the neighbourhood everyone called dangerous sounds like paradise.

Like redemption.

“I don’t really like when we move,” Cas says, picking at a loose rubber piece on the sole of his shoe. None of them do, and so the two adults can’t offer much comfort. The silence encourages the child further, “Sometimes the water is deep, you know? And sometimes it moves really quickly. And I’m not that good at swimming because even though I was in swimming lessons I was only little so... I don’t know.”

“Well,” Robin reaches out to put a hand over the boy’s fretful movements, mostly to stop him from destroying his footwear, “This should be the last time we have to move,” and he can’t look at Sylva as he says it or for a moment afterward. He can feel her watching him and waiting for the decision to be anything but final.

“We should get going. The sun’s only going to get hotter,” she says to neither of them directly.

Most of what they have to travel with fits into the singular pack and the spaces on their backs. It isn’t much. It hasn’t been much for as long as any of them can recall. Sylva passes the pack off to Robin, but it isn’t because she’s unwilling to carry it or because there’s an expectation of it being his turn. It’s heavier today than it has been before, despite there being less inside to trudge along with.

Cas doesn’t hesitate to reach out for Sylva’s hand. In another world, he’d be too old for such a gesture. In another world, he’d insist on independence and on his ability to be successful while free of such restraint.

In this world, the water is all the way up to his chest and the footing is always unsure. He’s witnessed Robin take the lead and step too quickly and be caught – quick as lightning and without the warning of thunder – in the threat of drowning. It isn’t how any of them want to die. Not after they’ve escaped it for this long, and certainly not after watching everyone else they ever loved take pitchers of water into their lungs.

Robin was there when Cas’ mother succumbed to flood. She’d held on for long enough, and she’d been sick even before the water overcame the world. Sometimes when the boy closes his eyes in search of sleep, the nightmares are made up of memories: her body disappears beneath the surface over and over and over again, and her face is an endless expression of apology.

It’s hard to think about what they’ve lost when there could still be so much left to lose.

“Rob,” Sylva’s tone of warning breaks through the rabbit hole of thought he was on the brink of slipping into. His dark eyes raise to follow her gaze toward a sight that would’ve made headlines in the old world: an alligator carcass bobs belly-up against the side of a nearby shack, its flesh streaming away from the skeleton in search of escape. Putrid and ugly, there’s a scent on the muggy air that’s mightily determined to grip garishly to the back of their throats. Unrelated to the animal, it’s a smell they’ve both come to associate with death.

They exchange a look of concern, an unspoken question as to whether or not this is something else they need to be concerned about. Once, before the floods, this place was known as suburbia in a city far from any swamps. The reptiles aren’t native to the area.

Then again, neither is Robin.

Overhead, hungry birds circle and caw. It’s easy enough to believe they’re after the dead animal. It’s smarter to consider that the three travelers might just as easily be on their radar for lunch.

Robin keeps one eye on the predators above. Sylva keeps one eye on the corpse, and she shouldn’t be condemned for misunderstanding the threat. She’d been raised in a suburb much like this one, with a white picket fence to match the colour of her skin and a front lawn made up of grass so green it couldn’t be natural.

When she came home with Robin, her father wouldn’t shake his hand and meet his eyes at the same time. Her mother was more subtle, more tactful. She’d phrased her judgements as concerns, pursing her lips and drawing her curated brows together as she asked, “Do you have front lawns in your neighbourhood?”

He hadn’t.

To the best of their ability, they’re following a path that runs parallel to what was once a freeway. And the sun is getting hotter, but they’d known that would happen. Sweat beads down their brows, barely noticeable in the humidity and the mud that sloshes around their knees and sometimes their waists.

“When we get to the gates, I think you should tell them—”

Robin is shaking his head before Sylva can even finish her thought, cutting her off before Cas has the chance to register the worry that punctuates her words, “I’ll be fine.”

Fine doesn’t have the same meaning it used to.

There’s a decrepit billboard looming overhead in the near distance, displaying words he can’t be sure weren’t written with blood. It reads:

DECREASE GLOBAL EMISSIONS!

When the floods began, the rich bastards they’d been yelling about eating moved toward the sky. That’s the thing about being rich, Robin figures—the money just keeps multiplying until you’re surviving so high above everyone else that your head is in the clouds.

There are scars on his knuckles from banging on the gates of the first billionaire they could find, a whole mass of hopelessness and innocence and he’d screamed, “Let us in! Let us in! We have a baby!” for days on end before losing track of his voice like a child loses track of a mother in a supermarket. The panic started slowly and grew and grew until he couldn’t breathe, but the man in the high tower never came down from his throne, and before Robin and Sylva had regained their voices they didn’t even have a daughter anymore.

Now they have Cas, but who knows how much longer he’d last in these conditions. They’ve been running low on supplies for as long as he can remember. Dented cans of dog food taste like steak, these days. There’s a part of Robin that’s convinced about living vicariously, convinced that if Cas and Sylva are sleeping fed and dry he’ll be equally satisfied.

The closer they get to the safe zone, the steeper the incline becomes. The sun is beginning to dip toward the horizon, and as the altitude increases the air feels less stagnant. Flies that buzzed and bothered across the surface of the brown water below become fewer and fewer, abandoning their missions to feed off of the salt of the party’s glistening skin.

Reaching a hand over to grasp Cas’ shoulder, Robin pulls the boy toward him as they continue their hike. “Listen, buddy,” he begins, clearing his throat, “when we get to the gate, if anyone asks, Sylva is your mom, okay?”

“And you’re my dad?” the child nods, bright eyes looking up to the man absent of any real question. He’s sure of himself, sure he’s figured out exactly how this works.

Air leaves the adult’s chest, deflating further than feels comfortable. The lack of confirmation comes with the smallest shake of his head and a sigh that’s difficult to hide, “No. Sylva’s your mom, if anyone asks. But we aren’t related.”

Not that anyone would believe they were, anyway. Not with the differences in their pigment.

“Okay...” Cas squints, brows furrowing in confusion. It’s clear he wants to ask another question, but the phrasing of it isn’t easy. He’s old enough to understand some of the nuance, has heard a number of things about the safe zone in his short life and can’t decipher which ones should hold any part of his attention. Aside from that, the walls of the safe zone are looming in the distance now and with every step that they get nearer his interest shifts and some excitement begins to brew.

Sylva’s anxieties grow to match the boy’s eagerness.

“Once they see us, we won’t be able to turn back. We should stop and talk about this for a minute, Rob, we should—”

“We already talked about this,” he tells her. Robin is sure with his response, somewhat stern. They’ve been talking about this since first hearing the rumours about the safe zone. Since before they had Cas with them, even.

A voice booms over unseen speakers as they get nearer, demanding they stop in their tracks behind a grey line painted haphazardly onto the decaying pavement. There are arrows on the ground as well, two paths leading in directions that contradict one another. White arrows lead toward the giant front gates, while messy red arrows direct somewhere else: to the left of the entrance, a tunnel that steepens and disappears into the underground.

“Have the woman step forward,” the disembodied voice demands.

Sylva breathes deeply. She hesitates only for Robin to lay a hand at the small of her back and push her forward.

“State your name and age.”

“Sylva Mercer. Thirty-two years old.” Mercer is her maiden name.

“State your relationship to the child.”

“I’m his mother,” Sylva calls out. And she’s more confident in that lie than she had been in her own name.

There’s a moment of silence. From inside the safe zone, sounds of survival can be heard. There’s whirring and shuffling and the faint sound of voices. Even more faintly, Robin convinces himself he can hear a bout of laughter. A hint of joyousness that is waning everywhere else in the world.

The voice over the intercom returns to ask, “How old is the child?”

“Eleven,” Sylva and Cas answer in unison.

“Does your companion agree to follow the red arrows?”

Cas’ attention shoots toward Robin, sudden fear in his features even if he doesn’t understand it.

“I do,” Robin answers for himself.

“Where do the red arrows lead?” Cas questions, something frantic in how quickly the words spill from his small mouth. It’s a whisper, something he’s begging Sylva or Robin to tell him the truth about. Something he already knows he can’t ask the man over the intercom and something he must learn before they walk through the gates.

“Shh,” is Robin’s answer. He shakes his head. There’s a solemness to it.

“I don’t want to do this,” Sylva interjects. Barely audible. But it’s too late now, because Robin has already begun the walk that’s been outlined for him. The destination isn’t something anyone talks about. It isn’t something that will be discussed inside the walls. It isn’t something that will be taught to Cas when he one day resumes his education.

“Rob,” Sylva whispers, caught in a fight between keeping her voice low and wanting to scream. Her knees begin to wobble even as Cas reaches for her hand again. Her eyes begin to well, but Robin does not turn back. This is the sort of challenge he was born for. Even before the floods, this is the fate he was destined to meet.

His frame disappears out of sight, and the gates creak and shift and open.

It’s an invitation given only to those deemed worthy.

An invitation written and signed and mailed by the same people who made it necessary to begin with.