FLOOD
The girl left her nest and walked down the dry creek, the one with fossils and shells and sometimes lizards, and she found a pond, a green pond, and beside the green pond, she found bushes with berries, red berries. The girl shoved the red berries into her pockets and took them back to her nest, to the mother, because the mother made wonderful pies. But the mother came home from the church in her stiff clothes and said to the girl, do not eat the berries, do not, do not. So, naturally, the next day, the girl visited the pond, and she plucked the red berries from the twisted branches, and she peeled off their skin with her fingernails, and the flesh burst between her teeth, and she thought, here is the blue sky, and here are the red berries, and that's all there is, just the red berries and the blue sky. But then the mother said, do not swim in the pond, do not, do not. So, naturally, the next day, the girl ate the red berries, and she undressed and swam in the green pond. Oh it was so nice, oh it was so sweet. The red berries on the tongue, the water on the skin. She floated with the leaves, and her red hands placed red berries into her red mouth. And she wondered, how could it be so good, how could something as simple as green pond red berries blue sky be so good? The girl didn’t know. The blue sky was so big that she fell into it, and the girl liked the feeling of falling upward, she liked the feeling of the leaves floating beside her in the green pond. The leaves never once touched her. She thought, here is the green pond, and here are the red berries, and here is the blue sky, and that’s all there is. The water swelled and lifted her, lifted her like she was a leaf. Her flesh burst, she laughed, she thought, my body, here is my body, I forgot about that old thing, and the girl laughed again, because she wasn’t old at all, no, she was a girl.
The boy who lived in a nest beside the girl’s nest met her in the dry creek one day, the creek with fossils and shells and sometimes lizards. The boy looked under the rocks, and the girl shoved shells into her pockets. She thought, he looks so brave, he looks so peaceful as he chases around those lizards, even when their tails fall off and wriggle around, he looks peaceful. She shoved more shells into her pockets and wondered if the boy would swim in the pond, the green pond with the red berries and the blue sky. But the girl didn’t say anything about that. She visited the pond alone, she floated naked, and she thought, my body, here is my body, yes, this is my body.
When the girl and the boy met in the dry creek again, and the boy was looking under a rock, she undressed and said, my body, here is my body. The boy looked up, and there she was, naked in the sun. The boy thought, wow, I have seen a naked girl before but never a naked girl in the sun. He thought, that girl is not a girl, she is something-else. He worked up the courage to look the girl in the eyes, and he said to her, you are something-else. The girl smiled, because she had always felt like something-else, but not in a good way, no, in a bad way. She had never known being something-else could be good. The way he’d said it though, something-else must be good, but she didn’t say anything about that, instead, she said, I have a place to show you some time, it is a green pond with red berries and a blue sky. The boy said, I want to see it, I want to see it more than anything, even more than a naked girl in the sun.
It rained for a week. The girl sat in her nest thinking about the boy, thinking about green pond red berries blue sky. The girl sat in her nest thinking and thinking until she met the boy in the creek again. It was still raining. The boy said, I wonder if the creek will have water in it after all this rain has passed through, he said, obviously there’s water in it now, but I wonder if it will stay. The girl said, I hope so, because then there will be little minnows and trickling waterfalls, but the boy said, no, little minnows and trickling waterfalls, that’d be too-much, I like lizards, and you like shells, remember? The girl said nothing. The boy said, it’s kind of funny that you could forget how much you like shells. But the girl still said nothing, because she was wondering, what was too-much? She’d never heard of such a thing. Suddenly, she didn’t want to take him to the pond anymore, no, she could never show him the green pond with the red berries and the blue sky.
It rained another week, and when they met in the creek, the boy asked, have you ever been naked in the rain? The girl said nothing. The boy took off his clothes. He looked good standing naked in the creek in the rain, but she couldn’t look him in the eyes, not since he’d said that little minnows and trickling waterfalls would be too-much. The girl thought, well, maybe if I am naked, then I could look him in the eyes. But when the girl undressed, she still couldn’t look the boy in the eyes. And when they kissed, she couldn’t look him in the eyes. And when they touched, she couldn’t look him in the eyes. No, she definitely wouldn’t take him to the green pond with the red berries and the blue sky. She decided that place was only for her.
The boy felt embarrassed after they kissed and touched, and he didn’t know why. He said he couldn’t meet the girl at the creek again, at least not while the water was flowing. The girl said nothing, and the boy said, well, actually, maybe it’s best if we don’t see or kiss or touch each other anymore, maybe it’s best if we forget about the creek, because the lizards are gone, and you don’t like getting naked in the rain, and you stopped liking shells, even though you used to really like them, so, yes, it’s obvious, said the boy, it’d be best if we let each other go now. And the girl agreed that not seeing, not kissing, not touching was for the best.
The rain poured. The creek was gone, the pond was gone. Or rather, the creek was everywhere, the pond was everywhere, the town was flooded. And the girl sat on the roof of her nest and worried about the berries, because surely the berries were all plucked from the limbs now, and they were bobbing up and down in the flooded town, up and down, up and down.
The water ripped the trees from the earth. The water tossed the street signs into peculiar places, and the girl remembered when the mother had said, do not eat the berries, do not swim in the pond, and families huddled together on rooftops, and children were crying, and parents had mountains and valleys of concern across their faces, and they had a feeling that they should do something, but what could they do, what could anyone do, only the mother could do something, and the mother had said, do not eat the berries, do not swim in the pond, yes, the mother had said it, and that’s all anyone could do, and the girl cried and remembered when the mother had said that, and the girl heard the other mothers whispering amongst themselves, who ate the berries, who swam in the pond, they asked, and this made the girl rage against her sadness, and she thought, no, no, no, it was not me who did this, but, really, she knew it, she knew it was her fault, because the mother had said, don’t eat the berries, don’t swim in the pond, but the girl never wanted this, the girl never wanted her world to escape, her world of green pond red berries blue sky, she had eaten the berries, she had swum in the pond, and green pond red berries blue sky had been all there was, and now, all that had been within the girl, was outside of her, and it was destroying everything familiar, everything real.
The boy quietly left. The girl called for him, but he could not hear her, he could not see her. He had only been able to see her when she was naked in the sun, naked in the sun in the dry creek, where he had first met her, the creek, the one with fossils and shells and sometimes lizards, and the boy hadn’t seen her since that day, no, not really, so he’d never gotten to see green pond red berries blue sky. But the girl didn’t worry, the girl knew the boy moved to a different town, he was not at the bottom of the flood, the boy was probably smiling and catching lizards, no, he couldn’t be at the bottom of the flood. But then more people quietly left, and it was strange to the girl. Why was everyone leaving? Did they not like the creek? Did they not like the pond?
The mother said, I think we should leave now, I think it’s time, but the girl didn’t want to leave because she knew when the rain stopped and the water receded, the green pond would be waiting, the red berries and the blue sky would be waiting, but she couldn’t tell the mother that, so instead, she said to the mother, we should stay, because the creek will have silver minnows and trickling waterfalls, you’ll see. Then the mother said, no, that’d be too-much, it’s already too-much, how can you not see that this is too-much, when it is so obviously too-much? The mother was kind of yelling at the girl, so the girl said, okay, we can leave whenever you want, and so they left their nest right then.
The girl would not return to the creek to see the silver minnows and the trickling waterfalls. The girl would not stand naked in the sun. The girl would not look into the eyes of the boy. And, when a different boy came along, the girl would not look into his eyes either, but luckily the different boy wouldn’t be embarrassed. The girl would not eat the berries. The girl would not swim in the pond. The girl would become a woman. The woman, the woman who was once the girl, would bake pies. The woman would wear stiff clothes. The woman would predict the rain. The woman would remove her stiff clothes when the rain came, and the woman would lay on her back naked. The woman would sense disaster. The rain would trail down her flesh, and the woman would close her eyes and say to a person, a person who was not there, oh, there is my body, I almost forgot about that old thing, it really is something-else, and a sudden sadness would come over her that was too-much. So the woman would close her eyes tighter, the darkness would shimmer, and she would see the pond, and she would float on those familiar fragments of light, and she would swallow the water until her stomach was big, until her eyes looked like green pond red berries blue sky, and her belly would be stretched so tight, it looked like a girl might be inside of it.
Remington Smith, 27, USA ✯ remingtonkaylyn@gmail.com
“Remington is a writer, a bookseller, a gardener, a beekeeper, and a seamstress. She likes dancing to Funkadelic in the kitchen. She likes lying in the grass.”