Delaney+Vignette

As I open my eyes to my dark room, I think it is still night. I forget what happened, and even though it was only for a moment, I relax. Then, as always, I tense back up. I remember what my life is now and how it has changed all because of a little bit of water. Actually, it was a lot of water, tons and tons of water streaming down the Mississippi towards our city on the river. The entire downtown area was flooded, and as if that wasn’t enough, we were quarantined by the government because of a disease that came with the water. Crushed. That is the only word I can think of that describes our city of Memphis now.

I realize how much time I wasted reminiscing, and how I was due at the pyramid in an hour. I go through my morning routines, and pull my hair up in a tight ponytail on the top of my head. As I walk out the door, I grab my rain boots and my raincoat. The streets are soiled and the air is muggy. The forecast is still one hundred percent chance of rain, just the same as it has been for the past month and a half. I haven’t seen the sun since that sad day the water came down.\

I thank and pay the boat driver who brought me down to the pyramid in the downtown area. There is no sign of life except for the few others wearing the same red raincoats as me. We, as the red coats or the salvagers, ride around boats, and explore the upper levels of flooded building to see if anything valuable was left behind. Our jobs may be the lowest of the low, but I am thankful for something to do during a disastrous time like this. It would kill me to sit and twiddle my thumbs all day long. My partner, Buzz, sees me coming. He runs over to see what caused me to be so late.

“Where have you been? We should have started ten minutes ago! I could just see the patrol coming and searching us,” Buzz spits out in a hurry. “It took longer than I thought to get down here. Just chill out,” I said.

We get back to work as always, and it seems that life won’t change. It seems that we will never go back to the way things were, and then I realize, we probably won’t.