l a p s e

the candles

I awoke to the sound of rain.

The world had finally, it seemed, given us what we most feared, but only after we were safe from it. I slipped downstairs, my soft footsteps erased by the torrent outside, and into the living room, where the lawyer and the professor greeted me over their game of poker and candlelight.

I found you in the kitchen battling a can of vanilla pudding. The can opener was rusted and old, barely any help at all, and you leaned so far over the counter trying to push it in I was afraid you'd hit your head on the wall.

Together we used a knife and a rust-bitten hammer to crack the can open, and the instant we did the air was layered with the scent of vanilla and cream. We stuck our fingers in at once, scooping out the pudding – thick, waxy, but delicious – and shoving it in our mouths. In our hunger appearances were forgotten, and you and I ended up with pudding smeared on our lips and cheeks and arms.

I reached up and swiped a large dollop off your nose, scraping my fingers clean on the side of the sink, and experimentally opening the tap to see if there was any water.

I let out a cry of delight. From the tap gurgled a small amount of brown, murky liquid that slowly began to run clear. The cleaning forgotten, I stuck my head under the tap and began to drink, long heavy gulps that solidified in my stomach. The water was metallic and flat, different from the round and earthy taste of the river, but it was cool and it was water.

When I stepped away you took the same position, drinking longer than me, and when you were done we both washed our arms and faces. Then I left you to the can of pudding and dashed upstairs, into the bathroom attached to the bedroom I'd claimed for myself. I ran the taps, which all spluttered cheerfully, and then I proceeded to empty the contents of my stomach into the sepia-filled toilet, which flushed cleanly and completely.

I scurried downstairs again to tell the others of this news, but was distracted by a second can – this one of chicken soup – that you were hammering open. You placed the can on the stove and smiled proudly at me.

There was no gas but we piled some old newspapers on the range and lit it. The soup took too long to boil, but at last it was done, and from somewhere was produced a set of weary china. The other three entered the kitchen and waited patiently as you and I served them soup and briny green beans and crackers.

My stomach, only recently upturned, protested the first few bites, but by some miracle I managed to keep the dinner down. The sound of rain followed us long into the night, and we wrapped ourselves in the sheets from the beds and played cards until we dripped from sleep.

I retreated to my room with a tall candle and a contented smile. The windows had been left open and the lace curtains billowed in the cool wind that now blew inside. I pushed them aside and watched, suddenly so very awake, as the world I'd been forced to live in became a different realm entirely.

The rain didn't stop for a long, long while. Come morning the land still sluiced and shivered and drenched, and when the five of us went downstairs again, we found the entire floor three feet underwater.

I thought of the flimsy exterior of the house, the gaps in the sideboards, the irregularly-sized door, thought of the water marching and invading the beige carpet and the parquet floors, and shuddered. I hurried back to the room while the rest fought over the cans we had left upstairs.

Out the window was a different universe. The grounds were gone, erased by grey muck six feet high. The cherry-trees treaded water in their neat rows, the red fruits all but invisible from where I stood.

The plan had been to stay here for only two days at most and then to continue on through the forest in search of civilization. It seemed, then, as if we'd be trapped there until the flood left us, or the food did.

Whichever came first.