Water Damage

A story I wrote a while ago.

Water Damage

 

 

 

My pants are soaked halfway up the calf and my socks are pushed into little wet balls on the steps. If you’re wondering why that is, then it’s possible that your basement has never been flooded, and if your basement has never been flooded, then good for you. However, my basement is quickly filling with disgusting muck.

            Ellen’s footsteps tread quickly down the stairs. “Honey?” she says, “Are you okay?”

            Ellen. Since I first met her, she showed that the little things never got to her, and before anything else, she worried about others. Perhaps that was why I fell in love with her fifteen years ago.

            “Yeah, I’m fine, but I think the coffee table and the computer desk are going to have to go. The armchair, too.” The basement wasn’t exactly the most furnished room in the house, but it did possess a few odd relics from our early years of marriage. The coffee table, my grandma’s from when she passed away a few years ago was now floating slightly in the foot of water that now arose from the carpeted floor of the basement. It had been too old when we got it to be of much use to us, so we stashed it downstairs where it would sit the remainder of its days in uninterrupted solitude. The desk had alredy been in our possession when we bought the house. We got it cheap at a yard sale back when we were just dating. That seemed like forever ago. And the armchair, well, the armchair had a very strange past of being of being my cousin’s. He had given it to us because for some reason, he was under the impression it was possessed by a poltergeist.

            “Is the T.V. okay?” She called from her place on the third step, the one right above the water level. I looked around the room quickly and realized what she meant. The T.V. sat on a short home entertainment system in the corner of the room. It was one of those gargantuan sets that weighed a ton and wasn’t really that great anyways. For a moment I wanted to say that the television was gone just so I wouldn’t have to carry it up the stairs.

            “No, the T.V.’s fine, I’ll grab it,” I called back. I waded over to the T.V. and sized it up then pulled out the plug and draped it over the top. Being careful not to stumble, I hoisted it carefully into my arms and lugged it up the stairs. Ellen helped as best she could, guiding me up the narrow flight and telling me to watch the walls. When that was safely set in the kitchen, I dove back in for more.

  

            Three hours later, I had brought back everything there was to salvage. The random articles were sorted loosely into a bunch of white plastic bags quickly labeled and set into piles. The bags contained anything from old V.H.S.’s to Christmas decorations. The water in the basement was nearing a foot and a half so I decided that pretty much everything else was lost and I would go through it all when the water had finally settled. I collapsed onto the living room couch, exhausted and freezing from my salvaging mission.

            I thought about changing my pants since they were dark with water halfway up my leg, but I was too tired and quite honestly didn’t feel like moving.

            On the floor around me was a junk pile of some things that hadn’t been sorted yet. Ellen came in with a cup of hot chocolate on a plate, set it down on my chest, and gave me one of those charming smiles she would give that made me remember why I married her.

            I leaned up and blew delicately on the hot drink as Ellen sat down on the floor below me. She started picking through some of the things there with the tenderness of a mother with her child. I watched her as she sat there holding up a few of the priceless things from our past.

            She handed me a black box from over her shoulder. I took it with one hand and carefully balanced the hot chocolate on my chest with the other.

            “What’s this?” I asked her, frowning.

            “Read it,” She said in a soft voice.

            I turned it over in my hand to the side and on a thin strip of tape, it read “Wedding, April 21, 1986.” I looked down at her and smiled.

            “Remember when Uncle Jeff threw up because he too much champagne?” I asked.

            “And it went all over my sister,” She said, “yeah, I remember that.”

            “And our niece, what was her name?”

            “Jackie.”

            “Right, Jackie. She danced on my feet and --"“

            “You tripped on the chair and both of you fell over. Yeah I remember that too.” She laughed.

            I put the video case down and sipped lightly on the hot cocoa. It was just right. Ellen always knew how to make the best hot cocoa. She held up a snow globe so that I could see it. I looked at it, then took a casual sip. When I finished I said, “Your grandmother gave us that for our third anniversary.” The snow globe was large and contained a picture of our house in the winter time. It was strange because our anniversary was in late April.

            “Good job.” She smiled.

            It took a while, but we managed to sort through most of the stuff on the floor. I finished the cocoa, savoring every last drop and watching the remaining puddle of liquid swirl and mix with tiny clots of chocolate at the bottom of the still-warm mug.

            “Could you tie up that one for me?” Ellen pointed to one of the plastic bags that looked full to the bursting with old videos of various vacations and holiday events.

            I heard Ellen swiftly tie up another bag as I did mine. My mind drifted to her delicate hands.

            I stood after I had adorned the plastic bag in front of me with a random series of knots. I had never been good at tying knots, especially balloons. . . Man, did I hate balloons. . .

            Ellen stood up as well. She wiped her brow with the back of her hand, then turned around to face me. She smiled and held out some pictures.

            I walked over to her and took the pictures from her outstretched hand. “What are these?” I asked her.

            “Just look at them, will you?” She said.

            I looked down at them. They were mismatched and different sizes and it was clear they were not from the same album. The first was very old and the color was that sort of yellowish tint that often happened with old photographs. It was of three young boys and a beagle. Without looking closely, I could tell that the boy in the middle; leaning over the dog lovingly was my grandfather. He was young and handsome. He always stuck out in photographs because his looks were so classically Hollywood that nobody had any doubts he could have been the next John Wayne.

            I smiled as it brought back memories of my grandfather. I looked up as Ellen stood beside me and held my arm at the elbow and she too looked upon the photos.

            I placed that picture at the back and cycled to the next one. It was me and Ellen when we were just dating. “Man, we were such dorks back then.” I laughed. Ellen smiled too as she looked at my comb over, tight high wasted jeans, and a multicolored sweater. Ellen wore pink blouse over black leather tights. She had sunglasses on, but her smile was unmistakable.

            We were at a bar somewhere in Pittsburg. A neon sign in the background over my shoulder read “Smokey’s.” It was an old bar that had great steaks and burgers. Back then it was a pretty big hangout for us and our friends. We heard years later that the owner had sold the place to a man who had a gambling problem, and the place closed down some odd years later.

            I tossed that picture into the back of the pile. The next one was a Polaroid of Niagara Falls. The falls were in the background as I held Ellen around the waist next to the railing.

            “Who took this picture?” I asked her.

            “It was Ted, honey.”

            “Oh yeah, that’s right.” I flipped to the next photo. This one was of me as a kid. It was somewhere up in the mountains. I was maybe four years old. I sat on my father’s shoulders as he laughed and gave the camera a thumbs up.

            I didn’t really remember this picture being taken. It was one of those really old memories that was good, but for some reason never stuck in your mind.

            The next was another old photograph. It was an old black and white of an old women sitting at the edge of a beaten up wooden deck. A young girl with pigtails sat pouting in the window behind her.

            I was sure that the little girl in the background was my grandmother, but I didn’t have time to give the picture a closer look because at that moment the lights went out.

            Outside, thunder clapped loudly and rain pelted hard against the window pane. The room had gone swiftly and utterly dark, except for the quiet blue moonlight that washed in through raindrop studded windows.

            “Oh great, I’ll get the candles honey, can you just check the basement real quick?” Ellen said as she jogged up the stairs.

            “Sure, babe.” I walked casually into the kitchen and then into the foyer to the basement steps. I ducked my head down and gazed down the flight of stairs to the rising water. It was now at the fifth step.

            I walked back into the living room to see Ellen standing over the coffee table lighting a few candles. The soft orange glow they emitted gave a little bit of warmth to the room. I walked in and plopped myself down on the floor and leaned my back against the couch.

            After Ellen had lit more candles, she sat down next to me and rested her head against my chest. We sat like that for a while. I looked down at her as she felt my chest rise and fall. I tried to breathe slower to lull her to sleep.

            The rain patted gently against the window and was getting lighter. Ellen hadn’t moved in a while, and I was beginning to assume she had gone to sleep. However, without stirring, she said, “You know, I really love you.” I looked down at her and didn’t respond for a while. She didn’t move after that. She was asleep. I could tell by her slow deep breathing.

            I thought about saying I loved her back, but then again, I thought I would be lying. The thing was, Ellen didn’t know everything about me. And unfortunately, she never would.

Author's Note

It's kind of old, but I think it's a pretty good example for some of my courses.

Reviews

[Albatross]

Beautiful style and flow. I love how simple and elegant this is. I couldn't help but fall in love with your characters almost instantly. They seemed so real. I like how you formulated the ending. There was a hint of doubt in the voice of the main protagonist, almost as if he had to come up with excuses as to why he married Ellen.
Still, the ending surprised me. I'm dying to know the rest of the story.
Great write:)

[Aven]

I like your writing style. The little things, how he sips the hot chocolate, or the photo reminiscent of a lost childhood memory. I found it very enjoyable. :)

[the-One-with-the-Darkne..]

That is not fair. Now, I dont know how it ends! Does he kill her? How does he kill her? Does he drown her in the water in the basment? Is he the ghost? What is HE! The questions that shall never be answered! You are an incredible writer. You are very good!

[Miss Coral]

Why did you end it?!
Ahh.. I didn't want it to stop. Another wonderful story.. I completely got wrapped up in the characters and their delving into simple memories and then the ending!
I AM really glad that you ended it there.. abrupt endings like that always make me happy, when I'm grabbing the last period and shaking it by it's figurative throat. But at the same time, it makes me sad. c:

Excellent piece.. the character development was amazing, the dialog super natural. Great piece.

100/100 from me.
More people need to review this and tell you how amazing it is.