The Survivors
This is the morning after the Storm of the Century. I know, it’s only 16 years old, the century, but 100 year floods come about every ten years now so 16 years, it’s amazing we haven’t had at least two storms of the century so far. Maybe we did and I just don’t remember well anymore.
Many of the neighbors, especially those newly arrived to the monsoonal South End, were wandering around their yards in total shock. If we had had counselors, we would’ve sent them into the debris fields to round up these flummoxed victims, take them to Red Cross evacuation centers or at least to the storeroom of Tyee Store, offer them hot coffee and consoling grief interventions. Some had lost patio umbrellas, garbage can lids, prized bird feeders — the damage was beyond their ability to comprehend. Those of us who had seen storms like this before tried to comfort them, but they were inconsolable. If this could happen once, it could certainly happen again, maybe next week.
No doubt ours wasn’t the only neighborhood trying to make sense of Mother Nature’s fury. Up and down the island, folks were probably wandering the length of their lawns, searching for a prized dahlia or an overturned planter, muttering incoherently, questioning God and their useless religion. Who, really, could blame them? Their world had been turned upside down, shaken and dropped like a ragdoll back to earth but off its foundations. The world, not the doll … pardon these mixed metaphors, but I guess I’m a little shaken too and I’ve been through these catastrophes before.
We’re all picking up the pieces now. It won’t be easy. All those batteries we bought in a panic, all those flashlights that we no longer need, a pantry full of Vienna sausages and tomato soup. It’s as if the Mormons learned their year of supplies stocked in the fallout shelter is useless now, just food going past its expiration date, same as those poor yahoos who stocked up for Y2K, expecting digital Armageddon.
We’ll survive. South End Strong! South End Strong! What doesn’t kill us is, well … well, geez, I don’t know, maybe it just weakens us. Those patio umbrellas, did it make them tough? Those bird feeders, will they be the same? It will take time to recover, I guess. Sure, we can buy another garbage can lid, but how do you restore our faith? How do you learn to sleep at night knowing the wind or the rain or the news crews can come howling at any time? South End Strong! We survived this, maybe we can survive the next storm of the century! Sure got plenty of tomato soup and enough batteries to last until 2200. We should be okay. You readers out there, take inspiration from us. And if you need any D size batteries, let me know, I’ll make you a helluva deal.
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