Ali+Vignette

//Day 36. Salvaged some carrots floating by for breakfast this morning. My cardboard box is slowly deteriorating because of the humidity. I’m still floating hopelessly about. My kingdom is still underwater. And worst of all, I hear them shouting in the distance as I sleep.//

I stepped out of my temporary home floating on the overflowing Mississippi, and look at my town. All I can see is the very top of the Clark Tower and some other drifters in the distance. I can never be sure. I know their watching me. They probably think this is all my fault, and that I have I some plan in store. But they’re the ones in with the plans. They’ve got plans to capture me, I know it. But what kind of information can they get out of me, ex the mayor? They sit on their rafts with their fishing lines or trying to make a fire, but I know it is all just a front.

There’s one now! I race inside my fort, and ready my makeshift slingshot. I see them float by through my peephole. No fire this time. They probably knew I was ready to attack, but you can never be safe nowadays. Times like these remind me of my time in Vietnam. It’s a war field out there. Crooks everywhere. All staring at me.

“You, in the box!”

There are the shouts again. This means war this time. I brace myself and leave my fortress.

“You’ll have to take me alive, you hoodlums!”

I look about and see no one. They must be behind me. I can’t turn around now. I can’t give my enemy the pleasure of looking at them in the eye. I do the only thing I can think of. I jump.

I plunged into the bitter water. I’ve really tricked them now. They’re probably scrambling above the surface, trying to gather some plan. I look below me. There are houses and buildings completely untouched, and bodies floating by.

They’ll be after me soon. Where can I go? The only place to go is deeper, so I swim down to the soaked grass, and along the streets I used to walk. Farther and farther, Until…