The storm is chaos.
Flashes of light streak sporadically through the creases of your blinds – shining the tiny shoebox of a bedroom ivory. In between beams of light, the thumping and pounding of thunder force you awake. Every fragment of your flesh bumps up in a shiver at the noises and sights you can only barely make out as you attempt to cover it up with your bedsheets and pillows over your ears.
“Don’t be scared. Don’t be scared.” You hear yourself mutter under the covers of the heavily weighted doona. “You’re safe here.”
The doona was heavy on your body, but you never felt claustrophobic in it. In your mind it felt like a safe little universe of its own, where you were the only occupant, and nothing could hurt you. Not even the swinging of the poorly bolted windows could scare you as they open at its hinges. You know the windows and blinds are open now, but you don’t – living in a comfort of ignorance and bliss, just hoping your ma or pa would instinctively come to check up on you.
Minutes come, minutes go, and no wood panels creak outside your room and nor are any footsteps heard. Only then does the fear start to sink in. A fear that no hiding spot could really ward off as inevitably the warmth and comfort would dissipate with time. So you peek your eye out of the edges of your universe amidst the sounds of your sniffling.
There’s no one there to save you, you believe. The only thing there was the horrifying visual – the repetitive white portal of thunder outside the window. Pressing the print of your finger against the eye sockets, now dripping in a slight drizzle of rain of their own, you try to cancel the tears. Dabbing and rubbing and pressing so that any sense of weakness is gone from your face..
You’re 10. A big kid now. Strong, too. At least that’s what your mother had told you before you went to bed.
Up from your bed you sit; holding on the tightest you possibly can to your favourite stuffed animal, clutching it to your heart. It means a lot to you. The little toy holds a lot of purpose, a silent protector watching you sleep making sure you’re safe and sound when you’re vulnerable. Vulnerability- it’s what stuffed animals were created for. In an orchestra of booms and crashes and slams from the sky above, a little squeak from your foot on the wooden floor releases itself, somehow sounding just as loud. Louder than a bullet, with each further step you take to the window crescendoing.
You dab your hands out of the window only to pull it back indoors immediately when you feel the dripping downpour of raindrops aggressively attack your skin. The intense outburst of rain leaves a glistening layer on your skin, reflecting all the lights from above on the facade of your flesh. Outside of your windowsill the world around your house is flooded: water rising up the sides of your home. It looks unnatural. The thrashing waves overlapping on each other slamming against the wooden foundations.
“Ma?” You cry out, realising the severity of the situation, though no one calls back. You’re alone.
So you run from your room to theirs, teddy bear in hand, in an attempt to wake anyone up. Running down the staircase and through the halls, passing the kitchen and the lounge. Each creak on the floor matched the sound of your thudding heart, echoing loudly with each thump. Each thud sounds as loud as humanly possible until a louder noise surfaces – a ripping sort of sound.
Your world begins to shake causing you to stumble on the floor. The four walls surrounding you start to spin and twirl in circles around you. Dazed and confused you try to stand back on your feet: a task only made easy by putting your weight on the couch for stability.
Like a boat on raucous seas your home’s floorboards rock until they begin to rip apart in shreds. Some floorboards begin to create sharply-pointed splinters aimed like missiles to the sky while others seem to fall down slowly in chunks, leaving a view of a flooded earth underneath. Hopscotching your way through the debris in the loungeroom you manage to find a window with a view of the destruction. It wasn’t a smart idea to jump bare-footed across the lounge, with any bad luck you could have tripped and fallen in one of the holes or injured yourself in the spikes – but you’d never been one to make good choices.
The sight you see outdoors leaves you shocked – houses that were once halfway down the street were now inches aways from your own. Only rooftops of buildings could now be seen; with some people visibly attempting to stay above the flooded water with rafts or floating planks of wood. The sight is an anomaly to anything you’d grown accustomed to. It was almost as if your home was torn from its foundation and floating adrift with the flood, carried around by the ferocious beast of the tidal waves to a place like Oz. Like sheets of deep navy blankets they roar as each wave launches onto your house. It was an anomaly, but it looked real.
“MA! PA!” You scream out in fear, hoping you’ll hear anything back.
A muffled noise cries out in exclamation, followed by a stream of faint footsteps against the cacophony of terrifying noises outside.
“Pa?!”
Your father, toppling over himself with each footstep like a drunken sailor from the big party the night prior, steps into the room trying to survey the area. A pungent stench of beer can be smelt from him as he calls out “Where is that lil’ bitch? I’m trying to sleep.”
The word was hurtful and direct, but you aren’t aware of his aggression. Not at 10 did you know the intensity of the word.
“Pa. Look outside!” You say, trying to direct him to the window.
He continues surveying the lounge, trying to find you until his feet give weight under the bumpy pressure and collapses on the floor. The concern of if he’s alive sets in, ultimately relieved by the sound of his aggressively loud snoring.
Tip toeing around the spikes in the flooring, you try to hopscotch back to your dad; only for torn out walls to seperate the rooms. The roof begins to cave in on itself and as debris falls down and tears even more chunks break the flooring.
You scream, and try to huddle your stuffed animal and you away – but bits of roofing and the floor above smacks you as you run back, knocking you off your feet and into one of the abyssal pits of water below.
“You can make it. You’re strong… right?” You mumble to yourself, holding one-handed onto a plank of wood now being intensively thrust with the ocean’s movements. The stuffed animal, nestled in your arms, is now soggy from the waist down. You try to lift your hand up in order to rest the little toy of yours on the ground, however, your arm is stuck. It’s beginning to ache under the pain of the intense weight of the water.
“Please… please…” you begin to mumble, trying to keep him safe but the inability to twist your arm without smacking any of the floorboards was starting to feel inevitable.
“PA! MA!! PA!!! MA!!!”
Your tears start to fall down your cheeks as you look behind to see the lopsided back of your drunken father floating further and further away from you. Sights of building roofs you should recognise seem to pass you: a ripped up sign of your primary school – torn by the soil somehow half laid on top of the flat rooftop and mailboxes of houses on different streets on the cusp of sinking.
It seemed like some figures had managed to survive, but they were only faceless in the pitch black to you. You couldn’t make out anyone, as they sat, stood and struggled for safety in distress.
THUD.
The storm starts up again, with the noises of thunder sending goosebumps down your spine. Its loud re-emergence brought a feeling of dread for anyone who would’ve still been above the surface.
Twisting and turning you try to wrap your arm up in a way to get your now drowning stuffed animal onto the planks of your lounge room. But… it’s impossible.
You’re 10. You’re not smart, and you’re not brave and you’re not strong. You don’t know how to make it work or to save anyone’s life – even if just a stuffed animal.
An animal you loved.
One that’d been there for you.
Your fingers start to numb from the grip on the floorboards; the knuckles need to crack from the overwhelming sense of stiffness. All of this would go away if you let go of the toy and held onto it with your other hand.
THUD.
Everywhere around you turns white for a split second. It seemed like an ethereal, holy shade clouding the world, but the feeling was no more ethereal than it was terrifying.
The toy had been there for you- watching over you to make sure you were safe- though even now you sensed a feeling that safety was impossible.
‘I’m gonna miss you.’ You tearfully work up the courage to say, as you let go of the toy – feeling it fall from your grasp and into the abyss below. You lift yourself up from the heavy surfaces of the flood and lay your body faintly onto the floor. Face up, gasping for air.
You watch the sun start to rise and the stormy clouds disappearing. The rising sun allowed for a lot more silhouettes of survivors from the beast below to show. You saw neighbours and friends and strangers you’d pass on the walk home from school – faces all smothered with the same open-mouthed sorrow you found yourself making.
Full of rubble; you walk precariously to your couch and lay on the havoc rested on it.
‘Ma… Pa…You..’ You whimper to yourself.
You can’t finish the sentence… Unsure as to what to say, as the dawn rises through the gloom..
Feature Image: Johannes Plenio