Tragically Saturated

With the sun glaring down and bouncing off the nearly glass-like water, I look towards the front of our aluminium canoe and see my younger brother with his arms crossed and eyes closed, and feel suddenly grateful for this moment of peace and absolute quiet.

I have slowly been treading along the flooded fields looking for some sign of elevated land to pull our canoe up to tonight. The second tsunami that hit last week hit hard, and even worse.. It came unexpectedly.

I take one more moment to appreciate the sight of Xavier sleeping for the first time in days, and make one more paddle stroke forward before I spot what looks like several half-submerged trees and some raised land popping through the water a few hundred yards away.

“Xavier, wake up! Get your paddle, I see something!”, I blurt out a little too loud, startling him.

I notice how Xavier immediately grabs the paddle and is ready to go instinctively. Before his 14th birthday he had never even heard the words ‘canoe’ or ‘tsunami’, and I’m not sure if it is pride I feel for his growth over these past few months, or if I feel sadness for his loss of childhood.

I point out the trees emerging from the water in the distance and we continue to push forward in unison without saying another word. We haven’t said much these days.

As we approach closer I can see what looks like a wooden shack cleverly disguised in green moss and surrounded by sycamore trees. Half of the ground holding the shack up was collapsed into the water below, and the waves were surely going to carve the rest of the land away in time. It seems that nothing could escape the second tsunami.

“Let’s see if we can find anything useful inside the shack, and then tie up our canoe to the tree and rest for the night”, I express to Xavier as he reaches out his arm to grab the nearby tree.

“Here”, I hand him the tattered rope to our canoe and he wraps it around the tree, and through the loop of our canoe.

We both jump into the water, which is nearly up to Xaviers neck... and slowly swim tree to tree until we reach the collapsed land near the shack. I’m not sure if the feeling of wet clothes and shoes is one I will ever get used to, but leaving anything on the boat, even for a second, is not an option. We learned that the hard way.

Luckily with the ground collapsed, getting up to the otherwise elevated shack didn’t look like too much of a tall task. I tell Xavier to stay back while I begin the trek up the dirt ledge towards the wooden shack and scope out the surrounding area more. Once I finally reach some stable ground, I can see that the front door of the shack is caved in due to the collapsed ground, and it will be a two person job to get in.

“I’ll need a hand up here, Xavier!”, I holler down from the ledge to my brother.

“Coming!”, he replies. I think that was the first time I heard him speak today.

I give him a hand on the last step up to flat ground and we both make our way over to the warped door frame and pause for a moment before grabbing hold of both sides of the frame and kicking the door through.

A flash of dust particles shot through the air, being illuminated by a single ray of sunlight peeking through a panel in the otherwise dark wooden shack. The first thing I notice to my right is a small side table knocked over with newspaper sprawled out on the floor with a thick layer of dust covering everything. I walk in further to investigate and Xavier hovers around the door keeping watch. I reach down and wipe off a layer of dust covering the front page of the newspaper. The date reads August 27th, 2022… a week before the first tsunami hit us.

I think back to how sudden it all happened. There were talks here and there for years about the effects of global warming... But no one was really taking it seriously, and some people even believed it didn’t exist. At least, not until it all happened at once.

It wasn’t until days after the first tsunami swept through the world and ocean levels began rapidly rising, that we found out giant icebergs in the ocean melted just enough for a massive piece of ice to slide off into the ocean... creating not only a giant shockwave that made its way inland wiping out everything in sight, but raised the water levels in the ocean so much that nearly all the smaller islands on Earth and its people became submerged completely underwater in merely hours. The first tsunami wiped out billions of homes..crops..people… in hours. They never had a chance.

Anyone that was lucky enough to survive the first tsunami had to adapt to the now nearly completely underwater world, and they had to adapt fast. Xavier and I were the lucky ones by today’s standards. Our mom was a meteorologist, who was studying the oceans and knew that something bad was coming... but not even she could have predicted a world-wide tsunami event. Our dad was an ex-marine who taught us everything he knew, and prepared us with our aluminum canoe which saved our lives.

We were more prepared than most… but still not enough. After the first shockwave finally settled some hours later, all four of us who were huddled up together in the covered balcony of my parents' third floor bedroom, set out in our canoe in search of any other survivors. I looked around at how unrecognizable everything was, the tips of the street lamps were poking through the water and only a few shingles on otherwise completely submerged rooftops could be seen. The panic and ear piercing sound of water crashing against buildings and screams that filled the streets hours ago... was hauntingly replaced by an almost unnatural silence that sent shivers up my spine. If I thought too hard about what that silence truly meant, that not a single other family survived on our street… It became too much and I would begin to tremble.

Once my father realized that there were no other survivors.. He fell into his marine ways and it was now a life or death survival situation. While our mom held Xavier’s shivering body in the back of the canoe, I sat in the middle and followed my father’s lead until the sun began to set and we were forced to duck down in the canoe and rest for the night… not knowing what tomorrow or the future at all would hold.

My family and I quickly adapted to a nomadic lifestyle and would paddle 10 hours a day sometimes, in search of food, supplies, and just any sign of elevated land. Before the second tsunami hit, I think we really believed we would be okay.

All I remember the morning of the second tsunami, was the bright sun reflecting off the water and bouncing into my eyes waking me up. I peered over at my parents who looked peacefully asleep on the small patch of elevated land tied up to the canoe Xavier and I were sleeping in. I smiled, knowing how much rest they both deserved, and decided to let them sleep a little longer before waking Xavier up. I unhooked the canoe and set out to do a quick loop around the small piece of land with Xavier in the front still fast asleep. One moment everything seemed peaceful for the first time in a while… and then it wasn’t. I only made it halfway around the side of the small island before a huge shockwave hurtled through the water tearing up the small island and casting a huge shadow of water crashing down on top of our canoe. The sheer sound and force of the wave crashing into the island and cascading towards us woke Xavier up in a panic and he instinctively covered his head with his hands. We both ducked into the canoe as the overflow of water from the now destroyed and crumbled island crashed down onto us like a brick wall. Just like that, it was over. Neither of us wanted to move or lift our heads back up… that haunting unnatural silence set in again and I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed to hear the voice of either of my parents break the silence. I heard Xavier whimpering and lifted my head up to embrace him. No words were exchanged, not for hours, but we both knew we were alone for good now.

The brief reflection of something in the water caught my eye and I grabbed my paddle to propel us towards the shiny object. I felt a lump in my throat as we approached the object, and the silver flash of my mother’s heart shaped locket caught on a rock underneath the water hit my eyes. My mother never once took that necklace off since my father gave it to her on their 20th wedding anniversary. I knew that I had to do anything I could to get that necklace, and I dove straight into the water managing to wrap a finger around the silver chain of the locket and enclose it in my fist. After making my way back up to the surface for air, I realized that this locket was now the only thing I had left of my parents. I took one last big breath with my eyes closed and calmly made my way back to Xavier in the canoe. From the moment I re-entered the canoe, I stepped into my father’s role as protector and never looked back.

I suddenly snap back into reality hearing the sound of Xavier’s boot hit the wooden door frame behind me.

“Did you find anything?”, I hear Xavier shyly ask.

The smell of the dusty wooden shack re-enters my nose and I remember where I am again. I put down the newspaper in my hand, and turn back around to face Xavier.

“Looks like nothing, let’s just pack up for the night”, I reply.

I walk past him out of the wooden shack and take a seat on the grassy overhang, letting my feet dangle over the edge. With water as far as the eye can see in all directions, and the sun setting and reflecting an almost perfect mirror image... I pause for a moment while Xavier takes a seat next to me. As usual, no words are spoken… but we know that we at least have each other in this ravaged world, and that is enough.