Elizabeth+Vignette

I see the squeaky wheels of the shopping cart making its way towards my cash register, with a bright, smiling young lady walking behind.

“How are you today ma’am?” I ask.

She replied with a big smile, “I am doing great today.”

I begin to check out her items, and I slide a can of soup across the shiny sheet of glass. I watch the nice lady watching the news on the T.V. screen hanging above my head, when I see her facial expressions grow stiff.

“Everything all right?” I ask as I watch her face grow whiter and whiter.

As soon as the question came out, everybody in the store became frantic. People begin running around, grabbing all of the food their arms can carry, and racing out of the store. I grab the first person that runs by me.

“What is going on?” I ask.

The stranger quickly yanks his arm away and runs out of the store. Feeling confused and frustrated, I try my hardest to muster out an answer from any stranger passing by. Finally, I am able to grab a tight grip on a short man racing past me.

“Sir, what is going on?” I ask in a frantic voice.

The man quickly replies, “The river is over flowing and flooding most of the city!”

I immediately feel my face go white. As soon as I process the news, I begin attempting to direct the people to safety, when all of a sudden; a stranger whips past me and pushes me to the floor. I hear the loud crack of my skull hitting the hard, tiled ground, and the loud screams and the sound of frantic footsteps become muffled and slowly begin to fade. The running people become blurry, and look as though they are blobs of color racing throughout the store. I feel some hands grab onto me and I begin praying that they take me to safety. I fight hard to stay awake and alert, but I feel my brain and body beginning to fall asleep.

I awake to rough gray shingles scraping my skin and water rushing right below my feet. Looking at how high the water has risen, I immediately know that I have been asleep for more than two days. My stomach feels pinched, my forehead feels hot, and I know that I must have a high fever. I use all of my energy to lift my achy muscles and sit up. I look around and see a man sitting in the far corner of the roof.

“Any news on when we get rescued from this place?” I ask.

The man takes a deep sigh and replies, “Never, only the richest people in the city have been saved and protected on dry land.”

As soon as I hear those words come out of his mouth, I feel my face go white, and I begin to feel dizzy. I feel my fever starting to take over my body, and I can’t seem to catch my breath as I picture myself dying on this roof. //Will I ever see my family again? Will I ever get to sit at home and laugh with my friends again?// So many thoughts are running through my head, and my mind can no longer bear it.

“You don’t look so good,” the man said in a casual tone.

I don’t feel all that great either”, I say as beads of sweat form on my forehead.

“You probably have the fever, but you are out of luck. They aren’t giving medication to the lower class people”, the man said with a pitiful voice.

The man hesitated and said, “The upper class people seem to have all of the control now a days.”

I don’t even want to begin to think about what the man just told me. The feeling in my stomach only gets worse, and there is nothing that either the man or myself can do about it. My head hits the floor, my mind goes blank, and there is nothing left to see but the darkness piercing into my eyes and a place where the world is filled with dreams. Will I ever wake up? Maybe it would be better if I didn’t.