Diane Cook: Man V. Nature: Stories

I am not ready for this. But I’ve been told that someday I’ll barely remember that I ever knew my first husband. I’ll picture him standing a long way down a crowded beach. Everyone will look happy to be on the beach. Something about him will catch my eye, but it won’t be his wave, or his smile, or the particular curl of his hair. It will be something I wouldn’t associate with him. It will be the pattern on his bathing shorts; bright stripes, red floral or maybe plaid. I’ll think something like, “What a nice color for bathing shorts. How bright they look against the beige sand.” And then I’ll turn my attention to the crashing waves or to some children building a sand castle, and I’ll never think of him again. I’m not looking forward to this day. But I won’t turn my back on it. As the manual often states, this is my future. And it’s the only one I get.

A dead man twists around one of my Doric columns. I chose these columns for their plainness, their strength. I liked imagining people looking up at my home, its smoky leaded windows reflecting their city back at them, the classic Greek proportions held up by simple, democratic design. Tasteful. No frills. I loathe Ionic columns. I don’t even acknowledge Corinthians.

The dead man’s arm trembles oddly in the water, out of rhythm with the rest of his body. It’s most likely dislocated. Perhaps more than dislocated, but I won’t investigate. A brown gull does a number on his eye socket.

The man doesn’t look familiar, so I don’t believe him to be one I’ve already turned away.

When the world first flooded, the men who came to my door asking for handouts respectfully left when I said no. They’d survived once before and would do it again. There were other options still. Colonies remained above water with homes to take refuge in. They speckled the rising sea. Now those colonies are underwater, most of the inhabitants drowned. Any survivors are desperate.

The other day a man in what looked to have once been a pretty fine suit knocked on my door. The suit was now in ruins, the arms shredded like party streamers from his shoulders. Sea salt ghosted his face. Some sand, or maybe a barnacle, clung to his neck. A blue crab scuttled under his hand-stitched lapel. But I mostly noticed his loosened tie because it was definitely designer — it was a kind of damask pattern, but nontraditional. Of course, only designers change designs. It’s why we used to pay so much for them. We paid for innovation.

This man in the nice suit asked for food and water, then tried to strangle me, choked back tears, apologized, asked to be let in, and when I refused, tried to strangle me again. When I managed to close the door on him, he sat on my veranda and cried.

I’ve gotten used to these interruptions, of course. Though the strangling is new.

I don’t blame them. If I’d been one of the unprepared, I’d be desperate too. They come to my door, see that I am clean, are dazzled by the generator-fed lights. They sense I have rooms full of provisions, that my maid’s quarters are filled with bottled water, cords of wood in the exercise annex, and gas in the garage. They ogle my well-fed gut. I am dry. They are embarrassed, filthy, smell of fish. They get back on their driftwood, or whatever they use to keep their heads above water, and paddle next door to my neighbor’s. If I were them, I would overtake someone standing dry in the doorway of a fine home. I wouldn’t give up so easily. But these men are not me. For starters, they’re awfully weak due to not eating. But still. I don’t like the change. I miss the old days when, though they happened to be begging, they were still gentlemen who understood that hard work was their ticket to success. I’ll need to carry a knife to the door next time.

It was happening just like they said it would. Things never happen like they say they will. That I was living to see it felt kind of special, truth be told. Like a headline. HISTORY IN THE MAKING!

My neighbor’s house still stands, and across a new tiny sea roiling from trapped fish and unprepared people, one additional cluster of houses remains, perhaps four in all. Day and night, people hang out the windows waving flags of white bedsheets and shouting. What kind of message is that? Surrender? To whom? I’ll bet they have no food and water. My neighbor’s house shakes from the extra people crammed inside. Each of the ten bedrooms probably holds a small village of newly homeless vagrants he’s rescued. I told him to prepare. “I know this sounds crazy,” I said. We haven’t always gotten along, but I thought it the neighborly thing to do. You’d think he’d be grateful. But instead he just crowds our last parcel of heavenly land with bums. If I open the windows I will smell the house, its burdened toilets and piss-soaked corners. The shallow but rising sea moat between our homes is rank with sewage. The tide takes it away, but more always comes.

In the old days, I would have left a letter in his mailbox about this or that neighborly issue. One time, the mail carrier warned me that it was illegal for non — mail carriers to put things into mailboxes. “It’s just a note,” I reasoned when she tried to give it back to me. “See how overgrown his hedges are?” She stared unbudgeably hard, held the letter steady between us. “Why can’t you just leave it there for him?” I snarled. I slammed the door in her face, and the next morning I found it stuffed in with my own mail, in my own mailbox. On it she had scrawled petulantly, Only I can put this in the mailbox and I won’t do it!

Through my great-room window, I can see that his grand staircase, with its audacious pineapple-carved finials, is littered with men, women, and children. The way they lie about, it looks as though there’s one whole family to a stair. A boy dangles from a dusty crystal chandelier. I watch an old woman topple over a railing while maneuvering through the immense spiral shantytown. What a shame. But you can’t let everyone in. There would be no end to it.

I run a finger over the great-room mantel. Dead skin, infiltrated ash. Too bad the housekeeper has most likely perished.

Someone knocks on my door — insistent and angry rather than timid and begging. I grab that kitchen knife.

On my veranda stands a man holding himself up by the door knocker, his wiry muscles about to tense themselves off his bones. His face is unshaven, neglected. He has the skinny corpse and fat face of a drunk, and when I pull the door open he attempts to keep hold of the knocker and falls in, face-plants on my entryway Oriental.

“Whiskey,” he moans, reaching for some imaginary tumbler.

I think about swiping his open palm with my blade, but there is something about him that I like. His request is original. At least he’s trying.

Where my driveway used to curve into a grand circular turnaround, the waves are mincing: they hiss, churn up crud and fish parts. But the ones in the distance are large and smooth; they conceal the city I used to look out at. They roll long like bedsheets drying in the wind, and I can feel their break.

I didn’t think I could tire of the sound of crashing waves, but it never ends. It holds your attention like someone who can’t stop coughing. It grates. It might be nice to listen to something else for a change. Plus, I’m tired of my music.

I know I probably shouldn’t, but I kick his feet toward an ornamental umbrella stand, get him full-bodied into the house, and close and lock the door. He wants whiskey? I don’t care for it, and I have too much as it is. Besides, I’ve always liked having drinkers around. They often surprise.

The man — he grumbles that his name is Gary — doesn’t even take the stack of crackers I offer him. He flings them like dice and messily pours another glass.