The Rain

4.

4.

"Good morning, Starshine! The earth says hello!" River's voice called loudly as he banged on a pot with a wooden spoon. No, I remembered, Captain Underwood stole River Underwood's body again. Never confuse the two.

River himself was one to talk; he was still in his makeshift pajamas, and his hair was sticking up all over the place like a blonde Einstein.

Soon, Raider, excited by River's antics, joined in the fun and licked my face.

"What time is it?" I groaned as I tried to shove my dog off of me.

"It's seven o'clock in the morning," Captain Underwood said cheerfully. But it was cheerful in sick way, because he knew I hate mornings with fiery passion. "I wanted to start early, so we could make up the lost time. A glance at the weather station confirmed my suspicion that we're now right in the middle of Des Moines instead of between Des Moines and Dinky Nowhere."

"Give me a moment to get up first, Cap'n," I muttered sarcastically as I pushed myself up on my elbows, slowly but surely.

"Meet me out on the porch when you're ready," the Captain told me, then went out the door. Raider wagged his tail at me happily, then followed suit.

Great, I thought. My own dog has ditched me for Captain Underwood. Man's Best Friend, ha!

I freshened up as best as I could when you're on a nature-made house boat without water that was only run by a power generator that Mitch had insisted on getting in case the power ever went out because he was working on his "projects". Mitch liked to make little whimsical electrical doo-daas in his spare time that I'm at least 70% sure were illegal. He himself had always called it a dumb pass time, but he continued making them just the same. Mitch had, however, made me some very interesting lights for my desk at work.

I shook my head, as if that would rid the memory of his face from my mind, and went to join River on the porch. He was sitting on the steps again, with my dog at his side, Raider's head on his lap. At the minute, he looked like River Underwood instead of the Captain, but looks can be deceiving.

"Back at it, Captain?" I asked him. He turned to face me, and his face was River's. I instantly felt a little bad about treating him as the Captain when, looking back, it had been pretty obvious that he was still River.

River nodded, trying to summon the face of the Captain, but it wasn't coming. He just looked like River.

"Hey, River?" I asked, a thought coming to mind that hadn't before. It was a little disturbing, to be honest.

"Yeah?"

"Do you think the others escaped too?"

He was quiet for a long time. He had a thoughtful look on his face as he stared at the water, the raindrops making ripples. The possibility was one that he hadn't considered either, and from the look on his face, it disturbed him as well.

Finally, he said a sentence that I don't think will ever leave me. It was so simple, yet it had such a profound effect on me.

"I don't know."

We were both silent as we thought of all the people we once knew that were now lost forever under the water. It's funny to think of the things that were once important to me before, and the things that are important to me now. They're very different things.

I made the first move, "Well, we should get to it, shouldn't we?"

"Yeah," River said, and his conscious finally allowed him to be Captain Underwood. "As far as I can tell, we're going to be going straight for quite a while again. The wind's down, so there won't be much drifting. It'll be easier to take breaks."

"Heaven forbid we get to row in an interesting pattern."

As he said, we rowed straight for quite a long time. The only one who spoke was Raider, who was barking at birds who were flying to and fro. I noted this fact lazily, but then my mind awakened.

"River!" I shouted.

"What?!" he yelled irritably; my voice had ripped him from "the zone".

I pointed at the sky, "Look! Birds!"

He grinned at me excitedly, "That's good! We're close, Jules! We're close!"