Alone on a Deserted Island
Book Review | Organism | Mermaid | Bother | Decrease | Echo | Grimace | Inch | March | Pump
Don’t bother with the West Side Highway. Thousands Andretti’d towards the tunnels because maybe Jersey City or Hoboken would be mint, but most ended up broiled in a Lambo or Benz alongside the commuters on their 10-speeds. Tunnels wouldn’t have helped regardless, not unless you were a mermaid, because every damn pump was shut down before things even got cooking. So to speak.
Inch by inch it pushed towards the Hudson, every organism in its path transformed from a sobbing, terrified mess into a much smaller, much quieter, pile of ash. Kids finishing their book review for ELA. Day traders angling to buy low and sell high. Junkies scratching their skin raw. None of it mattered. Not that afternoon. Everything, burned to nothing.
From in here, if the wind was right I’d sometimes hear the screams echo down Vesey or Fulton before they got swallowed by the blare of horns and gunshots. Plenty of them jumped into the river only to learn high school swim team was a long time ago and that water doesn’t look like much, but it’s moving and it’s full of things you don’t want to swallow. Especially not with what was happening upstream. I expect most of them pinwheeled facedown in the current for a few days before sliding under the Verrazzano and getting snagged by Sandy Hook, or drifting into the Atlantic.
It was 47 days before the heat from the rocks said the temperature outside had started to decrease, though I didn’t dare risk opening the doors. Not until the storms of March and April could pull the grime and soot from the air.
And it’s May 13th now. Bees and pollen and the scent of wisteria waft through the empty avenues. Warblers and thrushes dart about, seeking out tender buds sprouting from charred sidewalks and blistered streets. I grimace at the sight of the gulls returning. Damn the flames for not claiming them all.
The walls of this church survived the Great Fire in 1776. They stood on September 11th, even as steel and concrete tumbled. And they endured November 28th. The day that doesn’t have a name. But I could name it whatever I want, I suppose.