A sheet of viscous rain flowed across
the skyscrape of Portland, clutching at windows and door frames with a
living tenacity. It flooded the silent streets, only slowly
disappearing down street drains. The city parks were underwater, the
harbor an extension of the sea, and the nowhere could a body be seen.
By now the sewers had overflowed, mixing detritus with something
more dangerous.
Huddled by himself in a single bedroom
apartment, George considered the solution creeping in through the
sill. He need to see his parents. He needed to for their sake. But
three blocks south and two east seemed like going to the Moon right
now. Possible for someone, perhaps, but deadly, if not impossible
for him. Yet, he couldn't leave them to suffer like this. For two
weeks he had remained in communication as their hope ebbed, but then
the phones had failed. His phone at least, he couldn't be sure of
theirs. He pictured them carrying on a pleasant conversation with
someone in California, or anywhere rain was scarce. Leaving the
apartment, searching for another soul meant little to George. He
would gladly assist, but in his room he felt sufficient for himself.
The roof creaked, and he leaned over
from his armchair to make a mark in a small notebook. Then he
returned to the novel in hand. Even though he had lost his page
while shifting, he found it in a few seconds and resumed where he'd
been interrupted. But no matter how much he enjoyed Greenleaf, he
couldn't resist looking at the notebook. He studied the fifteen
marks and tried to remember how many there had been before he began
to record them. It was fruitless. He couldn't know, he would never
know. And the writing was pointless. He couldn't know, he would
never know. If the rain didn't end, and that was starting to look
like a possibility, it would break through. But he couldn't predict
it in advance.
Another creak, and reflexively, another
mark. This reminded him again and again of his parents, living in
their ancient two-family, which just at the end of May had suffered
from leaks, and they said they'd fix it in September. The unending
rain had arrived early, and George worried. He moved around the
room, both it and him mildly disheveled by his extended captivity.
Company had visited the day before the storm began, and he'd cleaned
in advance of their arrival. In spite of the visitors the room had
remained orderly and his sentence was begun in contemplative
solitude.
Searching around for items with which
to build an impervious suit he again considered how futile his
attempt would be. Here, he could remain another two weeks with the
food in his cabinet, but water, that was the problem. George cursed
the well meaning environmentalists who had convinced the state to
pass a ban on water bottles. He was sure he would have had a few.
Because there had been no notice, he was lucky enough, and in many
ways impossibly lucky, that he already had three gallon containers of
water. There wasn't much left.
Before the TV stopped receiving, it
warned not to use water from any faucet. George had seen what had
happened to people on the street. He saw no reason to disobey.
With a mixture of tape, zip-lock bags,
glassware, rain gear, trash bags, and metal pans, he managed to
construct a suit. He felt it gave him something better than a slug's
chance on a wet sidewalk, but not much. He considered trying it in
the shower, but realized that would not be a trial run as much as a
horrendous mistake. With a final look around the apartment he
prepared himself, and stepped out the door.
Into the hallway. An awkward moment of
relief followed, replaced by a renewed sense of doom. After
descending the stairs, he stood at the front door. It had a glass
pane and it seemed to George that the water was like malevolent
fingers searching for entrance in the grains of wood. He opened the
door, and walked out into the rain.
His heart wanted his feet to hurry, but
George practiced his plan as he had devised it in the apartment.
Stand straight, walk slowly and a bit stiffly. Otherwise he couldn't
count on any protection. He reached a canvas awning of a grocery he
used to shop at. It had a glass window front, but only one of the
five massive panes was shattered. He wondered if anyone was still
inside. It looked as if nothing had been taken. Staring out into
the street he was struck by how it looked as if a bomb had gone off,
except for the lack of destruction or bodies. Yet, through the rain
he believed the storm, unlikely as this was, formed itself into the
shape of a mushroom cloud. It was the lack of bodies that continued
to interrupt his thought. Hearing a noise in the store, he turned
back only to see a few rats scavenging among the rotted produce.
He took a step toward the window and
they scattered underneath his legs, into the street. He reached out
to grab one, but missed. He'd failed to save it. But, they seemed
unconcerned with the rain, and George watched them go.
Impossibly, inexplicably, he kept on
avoiding any contact of wetness upon his skin. He saw no one. He
heard nothing except the fall on the rain. Occasionally glancing
over his shoulder, he'd expected the apartment he had vacated to come
crumbling down dramatically behind him as he left it. It was still
there.
A block away from his parents he heard
a muffled scream. He wanted to run. He didn't dare run. He strode
as he was, until rounding the corner he saw a man in a car. The car
wasn't moving, and he water was rising about it. It already appeared
as if it were leaking in from one place or another. George knew he
couldn't do anything but he moved closer, which helped him to see
what happened next.
In desperation, the man opened the door
and dashed from the car. He had on a rain coat and boots, but he was
drenched within two seconds, and then, he wasn't a man anymore but a
swiftly disintegrating blob of flesh. The skin seemed to fall away
in white clumps, but as quickly as it did the white glop dissipated
into the flowing water. All the tissue, muscle, and bone of the man
suffered the same transformation, and in five seconds nothing
remained.
George almost stumbled, but he had seen
it before and he managed to stand as straight as anyone can.
Opening the door of his childhood
house, he yelled into the still air,
“Mom? Dad?”
“It's George! I knew he would come,”
he heard his mother say. They were coming, he could hear the
footsteps. They came down the stairs, and he, his father, and his
mother were just about to embrace when it struck them.
How would he remove the wet clothing?
….
A
News Service in a Foreign Country. A Robot stands in the rain in
downtown Portland, OR.
Week five of the accidental disturbance of the state of Oregon began
today. The President of the United States has demanded an apology
for the incident. Our prime minister responded that no apology would
be forthcoming for the test of a weapon designed to demonstrate our
nation's power and determination. He suggested that the United
States should be thankful it wasn't accidentally used on a major city
such as Washington or New York. When asked for assistance in
repairing the damage, our Minister responded that there was no
infrastructural damage, thereby making the weapon truly humanistic
compared to the crude nuclear bombs of the past. He also admitted,
that as of this moment, no country has any method by which to end the
effects of the biological weapon. As a final note, the Minister
declared the test successful, as it succeeded in eliminating three
quarters of the population, and with no loses of our patriot
soldiers.
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