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Old 10-16-2005, 04:32 PM   #1
MalReynolds
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Default The Flood (A Story)

I know this is a story and not a haiku, but step off my nuts and give it a read, K?

--
Deluge would have been an appropriate word to describe the rainfall if it wasn’t such an understatement. The rain fell in sheets across Broadway, and there wasn’t a citizen on the island that could make it from one corner to the next without getting a chill to the bone. The wind blew viciously, breaking umbrellas and rendering those that went unbroken obsolete. The torrent was almost falling side to side instead of up and down.

Within the first few hours, Central Park had gotten over four inches of rain. Pools began to form, and the small ponds scattered throughout rose, flooding the freshly planted grass. 42nd street began to flood, setting car engines ablaze as they tried to make their way through the rising waters.

Michael saw all of this on the news from his apartment, the rain beating against his window like an unrelenting fist. His flat-mate Matt was in the bathroom, heating back up. Matt tried to pay his Sprint bill, but the building was closed due to flooding. Matt waded back to the apartment soaked and freezing. Rivulets of water ran off of his chin as he entered the apartment, and without a word he had entered the bathroom and started the shower.

Michael wondered if he had even taken the time to strip out of his wet clothes before hopping the warm blanket of hot water.

The news station was spouting more bad than good. The rain was looking to continue for a long while, through the weekend and into the middle of next week. A state of emergency was being declared in the New York area, as well as other coastal cities. It was almost like a global monsoon was sweeping through the world, but all Michael could see was the Trinity Church out the window, and the waterfall that was cascading from the roof.

Matt stepped out of the bathroom wearing his blue robe, and looked at Michael through fogged glasses. Michael looked up, and without a word, Matt stepped into his room, slamming the door.

It was cold in the flat simply because they had stopped running the heat. The electricity bill was more than they had anticipated. Michael being unemployed and Matt being a college student had decided that it would be best if they conserved electricity whenever possible.

Michael knocked on the bedroom door.

“Matt?”

“Go away.”

“I’m just going to say that next time you take a shower, don’t run the water so long. You know they lump the water bill with the electric.”

“Fuck you.”

“Alright, but if the bill is in the north again, you’re going to be paying for more than half this time.”

The door swung open, and Matt stood in the frame.

“No, fuck you. It’s cold as hell out there, and you run your computer ALL THE TIME. You think that doesn’t contribute at all to the fact that are bill is ‘in the north’?”

“Alright. Just… Never mind.”

Matt once again slammed the door and Michael made his way to the sofa. He fell asleep to the soothing sounds of the news and weather, and the soft rhythm of the rain against the windows.

Matt was the first one to notice, only because he was awake at the time. He had casually glanced out the window and looked into the cemetery next door, but couldn’t make out the headstones. They were covered with murky rainwater, constantly exploding at the penetration of new drops.

“Fuck… What the fuck is going on?”

Michael was asleep on the sofa when he came in. The gears in his head began to turn, and filled a cup with warm water, dipping Michael’s hand in it. He waited. Michael did not urinated. He poured the water onto his groin and shook him awake.

“What, Matt?”

“Not only did you piss yourself, take a look out the window.”

He drew the Venetian blinds and gazed down at the street. It wasn’t really a street anymore, it was a canal.

“Oh, shit.”

Michael turned the news up.

“…Five or six inches within the last hour, flooding the streets. The bad news, Jim, is that the excess water is now running into the subway system, wreaking havoc on the electrical configuration. All I can tell you is that the Subway will not be operational anytime soon. Back to you, Jim.”

Matt turned the news off. He sat down on the sofa next to Michael, and they both began to worry.

It was an interesting game, watching the rain fall. The water level continued to rise, and with it, the level of desperation. Water was running into the lobby of the building when Matt and Michael stepped in. The front desk was deserted, the security center eerily quiet. The only sound resonating through the cavernous room was their footfalls splashing in the thin layer of water.

They stepped through the foyer and looked out the front door. Michael tried pushing on the door, but the water leaking in pushed back.

Matt ran to the back of the lobby and looked down the stairs that led to the hair salon, but they were slowly filling as well. There was no safe way out of the building.

Michael hit the call button on the elevator and waited, the water now rising above his ankles. He heard a loud popping noise, pushed Matt to the ground, narrowly avoiding the doors blowing out from the falling elevator car. The thin wooden doors splintered against the wall, and large pieces floated by. The cable fell into a coil on top of the compressed lift, making a clanging sound.

“Oh, shit. I hate stairs,” Michael said, half smiling.

Matt did not think the joke was funny.

By the time they had reached their floor, the water was creeping up the stairs. They decided it would be best not to stop at their apartment, and continue to head up. As they reached the high-rise staircase, they noticed other people in exodus to the roof as well, bringing blankets and food up the lime green staircase. They filed in.

There was no sense of community near the top, with every family huddled together, concerted for their own well being. The hallway was crowded, looking less like a Wall Street apartment and more like a refugee camp.

They had no food; they had left it in their apartment in the haste to get away from the rising water. No one was looking to share. A broken business man, sleeves torn and tie askew was begging for food, but no one relented. The last anyone saw of him, he was heading to the roof, crying, asking where his wife was to no one in particular.

Within the day, the water began to creep onto their floor, being absorbed by the carpet at first, but soon beginning the run in through the stairwell door in a thin sheet.

The only place left to go was the roof. It was still raining, and the water level was raising at an impossible rate. People were beginning to jump from the roof, down four feet into the water and beginning to swim anywhere but where they were now.

Twenty one floors, and the water was still rising.

By the time the water began to come up over the lip of the building, it was just Matt, Michael and a woman who looked lost. She was sitting under a sun umbrella at one of the tables, furiously rubbing suntan oil into her skin, making it raw.

“Ma’am, you have to come with us,” Matt pleaded.

“But… It’s such a nice day.”

“Leave her, Matt.”

Matt couldn’t. Michael had to pull him away before he finally realized that she wouldn’t be joining them.

“We have to pick a place. We have to find somewhere to swim to.”

“Where do you suggest? Hawaii? I mean, look at it! The water is as tall as MOST BUILDINGS. What’s going on, Michael?”

“I don’t know. All I know is that we have to get out of here. Do you want to end up like her?”

Her skin was bloody, mixing with the rising water creating a cloud of red in the murk. Newspapers cluttered the water, soaked pretzels, hats, broken umbrella fabric… Everything.

“No. You’re right. We have to get somewhere.”

In the distance, a radio tower faintly blinked.

“That’s less than three miles away. We can swim it, can’t we?”

Matt didn’t say a word. They exchanged a glance, jumped over the ledge and into the water.

“Wait… Wait for me,” the woman began to cry.

Michael swam on, pulling Matt’s collar. The water finally began to cascade in waves over the lip of the roof, knocking her feet out from under her. Her head slammed to the patio floor with a sickening thud, but they swam on.

It took a little over three hours to get to their new safe haven. The water had continued to rise, and Michael feared hypothermia would set in before they could get dry.

The building was staggered, creating a grotesque staircase that was never meant to be tread upon.

All the windows were shut, and the power was off. The antennae had stopped blinking about an hour into the passage, and the rain was so blinding that they almost lost sight of the building.

The windows were shut, and locked. Matt stood, and began to cry.

“We’ll find something to bust the window in. I mean, look around. There’s wood planks… Things we can use.”

Matt wasn’t listening. He turned to face the building.

“I can’t even jump off of here and end it. I can’t control what’s going to happen to me, all I can do is run and pray.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Michael said, reaching into the water for something to smash the window. He grasped a piece of fabric that felt like it was attached to a weight and swung it at the glass. The glass shattered and water began to leak in. Michael jumped in, and pulled Matt with him.

“What did you break the window with?”

They looked at the shattered glass. A corpse was resting on the floor, beginning to float once again, with glass embedded in the skin as a sick decoration. The sleeves of his jacket were in tatters, his belly empty. Where was his wife?

They didn’t have time to stop or think, the water was running in faster. The stairwell was cold, but they got a lead on the water, climbing higher. The top floor was littered with bodies of people who couldn’t face what was going to come. Bullet wounds, arterial spray… The floor was an ode to suicide. It used to be white, the carpet, but one could have guessed after seeing it now.

Rain was running in through the head office, a bullet-hole in the window and a bullet hole in the CEO’s temple. Matt and Michael could do nothing but sit amongst the dead and think about the inevitable.

“It could stop. The water could stop.”

“It’s not going to,” Michael snapped.

“It could. You don’t know that it won’t.”

Michael sat silently, contemplating where he would get food. There was nothing around to eat, nothing to drink. The rising water was so contaminated that it would be foolish to swallow any if you wanted to survive… And right now, that wasn’t looking like such a bad thing.

“Matt, we have to eat something.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Nothing.”

Michael began to eye the corpse nearest Matt.

“No, you can’t.”

“I think we have to. We have to at least build a fire. We’ll cross the bridge of… Consumption after we get warm.”

Matt didn’t take his eyes off of Michael as they broke apart desks. The idea of eating the dead was turning Matt’s stomach, making him sick. Why would he have to eat these people? They were going to die anyway. It was only a matter of time…

Matt took the leg of a desk and bashed it into Michael’s skull, knocking him to the ground. He swung again making sure Michael couldn’t get up, and dragged the body to the stairwell. The water was only 2 floors lower now, but Michael’s body still made a splash as it hit.

“I’m not eating them,” Matt thought, grinning to himself.

The words of the people spoke to Matt. They didn’t want to be eaten… Who would want to be eaten? When the water arrived on the floor, Matt broke out a window with his fist, bleeding profusely into the rising tide. He grabbed onto the antenna, and waited. The water kept rising, up to his chin, but he couldn’t stop smiling. He was warm again.

The water passed over his eyes, but he did not shut them.

The last thing he saw before the pollutants rendered him blind was the large wooden boat that drifted by.

Water filled his lungs as the ark slid past, but he was finally at peace.

--

Mal
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Old 10-16-2005, 05:08 PM   #2
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Default RE: The Flood (A Story)

*-*

This reminds me of a book I have read. Is this got to do with the hurricanes?
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Old 10-16-2005, 05:37 PM   #3
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Default RE: The Flood (A Story)

It reads like a missing scene out of The Day After Tomorrow, which sucked really hard.
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Old 10-16-2005, 05:55 PM   #4
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Default RE: The Flood (A Story)

I'm not sure how that
comment bodes for the story...
Seven syllables.

Mal
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Old 10-16-2005, 06:05 PM   #5
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Default RE: The Flood (A Story)

Funny, it's been raining around the New England area for about ten days now, and NH and MA have declared state of emergencies due to flooding. It finally stopped today, and I got a look at the sun for about three hours before it clouded over again in the afternoon.
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Old 10-17-2005, 12:08 AM   #6
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Default RE: The Flood (A Story)

lol yea very interesting read, nothing really to discuss just meditate on I guess.
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Old 10-17-2005, 12:37 PM   #7
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Default RE: The Flood (A Story)

The main problem I have with your stories is that they are extremely unrealistic. A good story works in much of fact with a little bit of fiction. Your stories are just thrown together quickly with no researching behind it.

So there is 200 FEET of rain that builds up in a matter of hours? So they are supposedly swimming in water that is rising at something to the effect of 100 feet an hour, maybe more....

Besides the fact that there are multiple paragraphs that appear to be in the wrong order. You talk about something in a paragraph, then move on, then mention something that appears to contradict or repeat it 2-3 paragraphs later.

Not to mention your grammar still isn't all there.
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Old 10-17-2005, 03:58 PM   #8
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Default RE: The Flood (A Story)

I see... So, the biblical flood that happened took months and months. I got the wrong impression from the bible. The story spans more than twenty hours, considering they go from hungry to not hungry. Also, I didn't really see any problem with the order fo my paragraphs; I mean, this one wasn't meant to be deep seated in reality. It's pretty much science-fiction/fantasy.

Mal

PS: That's a lot of haikus strung together. So was this.
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Old 10-17-2005, 04:36 PM   #9
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Default RE: The Flood (A Story)

Noah's flood was 40 days and 40 nights... and even then, I doubt it was 200 feet of water. Doesn't take nearly that much to flood the shit out of the planet. There were no skyscrapers back then.

I'll point out some exact examples of the paragraph thing if you'd like. And, thats part of the problem... you're saying they go from not hungry to hungry. That happens to me in less than 20 hours... not sure about you. AND, in the timeframe told by you in the story, its clearly under 24 hours. By the fact that they get home, sleep for a bit, then swim like fuck.

No matter how you cut it, NYC gets like 1 foot of rain a month, tops... and you're going out at 100 feet in an hour. So, ok... Sci-Fi, but, like Whorli said... its like Day After Tomorrow. Which was a movie that tried to take real scientific data and then take a few minor deviations into the not possible to create their situation. If that is what you're suggesting here as well.... maybe some background into the 1 in a million years scenario that is leaning to these world destroying rains.

Like I said, it needs to be based in truth and stray from there for it to be a good story... IMO, and I'd imagine in most others as well.
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Old 10-17-2005, 04:40 PM   #10
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Default RE: The Flood (A Story)

Alright, well, I've come to realize that although you may only criticize, you also enjoy them on some level, you cheeky minx.

IM me some of the paragraph things, but I like the way the story went. I really like the fact that it was completley unbeleivible...

And as for the food thing, I've been eating off of a severley limited budget (Sometimes under a meal a day) so I've gotten pretty accustomed to not eating so much. PS: The charachter of Michael is me. Matt is my roomate.

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"Readers who prefer tension and romance, Maledictions: The Offering, delivers... As serious YA fiction, Ill give it five stars out of five. As a novel? Four and a half." - Liz Ellor


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Old 10-17-2005, 09:34 PM   #11
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Default RE: The Flood (A Story)

Double Post, no I don't care.

I need to get more exposure for my work, and this is an open call for help. If anyone knows what it takes to get work looked at, tell me.

Mal
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"Readers who prefer tension and romance, Maledictions: The Offering, delivers... As serious YA fiction, Ill give it five stars out of five. As a novel? Four and a half." - Liz Ellor


My new novel:

Maledictions: The Offering.

Now in Paperback!
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