Shira Musicant
Deluge, Surging River, Flooded House
What James wanted most when the storm eased up, after all the weathering, was comfort food. A bowl of Cheerios. The box, yellow but swollen, floated through the kitchen. He thought maybe it was still dry on the inside. Those plastic-y bags, he was thinking.
The river was no longer rising—but neither was it receding. Water covered his knees as he traversed his living room—above and inside the boots he’d had the foresight to bring upstairs with him. His socks squished with each step. A smell assaulted him—a wet dog smell, then something sour underneath. He could practically hear mold growing.
He navigated through the living room, pushing through the water. The current he created sent the Cheerios box bobbing away, toward the dining room. The box taunted him, laughing. He lunged for it, and it danced further away. It was like his wife. Here one minute, then not.
Though she wasn’t gone-gone. Just out-of-his-life gone.
Loss is like that, always just around the corner, underneath everything. You see something you want. Maybe you have it for one small minute, then poof. Friends, jobs, children, good looks and health. Gone.
Now his house. Walls swelling with river water, pieces of furniture floating about, cupboard doors off and the contents of his life spilled out. Not a fancy house, he granted the Unseeing Universe, but still, it was his.
There were things to do. Real things. Insurance and calling people and checking on neighbors. That’s what he should do, instead of chasing this cereal box around his house, fielding the remnants of his life. Soon he would put these remnants, and the sodden chairs and sofa, along the roadside and the City or County or FEMA or someone would come to pick things up and toss them into the landfill. But the road hadn’t yet emerged for him to put anything alongside.
The box lodged itself between a dining room chair and the table. There would be no milk, the power having gone out days ago, and any milk he had now souring in the fridge. Food was already going bad. That might be what he smelled. A partial loaf of bread bloated with water bumped him, then moved on, as if on a mission to somewhere. Cupboards and drawers had emptied. He might find a bowl somewhere in the floating debris, if he wanted to search through garbage.
It swirled around him as he worked his way over to the cereal box. Something nudged his knee. It was his wedding picture—the one he had stuffed in the back closet because he and Annie had looked so happy and painfully unaware of the fissure yet to plague their marriage. Still in the frame, the photo was now soggy and discolored. He threw it across the living room where it splashed and sank.
He waded through the dining room and grabbed the yellow box. Ripped open the water-logged cardboard, dropping pieces of it into his dining room lake. Yep. The waxy plastic-paper innards seemed intact. Dry O’s. He was glad. He was hungry. Wife gone, house destroyed, but cereal bags still intact. All over the world, cereal bags piling up in landfills and oceans.
Some of his neighbors on the river were probably drinking from their coolers in their upstairs while their wives entertained babies. Wives and babies. He was further along in the nothing-left-to-lose slide than many of them.
He took the Cheerios bag with him as he waded back to his stairs, climbing until he reached the dry landing. Dry-ish. Not covered in water. He sat and opened the bag, took a handful of cereal in his mouth and crunched.
Pieces of his house drifted below him in his living-room lake, little boats holding his past life. He’d have to take the walls down to the studs to rebuild. Or maybe it would all have to go, framing, studs, swollen dry wall, roof. Clear the sucker out. There would be some comfort in that. Not comfort. Maybe satisfaction was the word. Finishing what the Universe had started for him.
James reached into his cereal bag and grabbed another handful. He’d need to find a water bottle soon, but now he just sat and chewed, as the oaty crumble in his mouth turned to paste.
Shira Musicant lives in the foothills of Southern California. Her current and forthcoming stories can be found in Vestal Review, Santa Barbara Literary Journal, Blue Earth Review, Fourth Genre, and BULL. Twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Shira has recently won the "People's Prize" in the Welkin Mini Competition and has placed second in the Smokelong Quarterly Workshop Prize. Find her @shiramusicant.bsky.social
