Pasha Malla - People Park

Their mouths were close. He pressed his to hers, the blows upon his back and shoulders had to be of passion, he kissed her harder, everything in the universe had converged in this final moment and here it was, one big yes —

Something sharp and hard stabbed his lower back. Olpert crumpled, released Debbie, he reached for her, clawed only air. What was happening?

Standing above him the small woman and Pop brandished oars like truncheons. He was aware of Debbie shrinking behind them, wiping her mouth with the back of a hand. Olpert rose on shaky legs, offered a pacifying gesture, his spine ached.

Pop and the woman advanced. Her eyes were fierce, his manic, he was whispering, And so we see your truthful colour, evil one. They backed him up against the railing. The small woman was saying something, her lips moved, yet the words were drowned by Olpert’s booming heart.

Debbie went inside the cabin. She watched from a little round window. Olpert implored her with a desperate look. She pulled away.

Animal, the small woman said. You fuggin animal.

An oar came at him. Olpert dodged it, but he lost his balance and tumbled over the side, surfaced, grabbed for the first thing floating past: a grey shoe, the tongue lolled, it had no laces. Olpert looked at the shoe, dumbfounded, and then up at the houseboat, which was pulling away.

Gip, watching from the porthole, told Debbie, He fell overboard, that man fell overboard, and Debbie, sitting on the floor, released her face from her hands. What?

He’s in the water, said Gip, we’re leaving him —

Debbie rushed to the porthole. Adine and Pop rowed at opposite gunwales. She looked around the cabin, snatched up a lifepreserver from the wall, barrelled out onto the deck, and, though in the dark she couldn’t see the man — Olpert — flung it into the water, and watched with desperate hope as it floated off, almost idly, in the houseboat’s wake.

THE MAYOR DOZED shallowly, dreaming of the sky, being inside the sky, not flying but just existing there, with no earth below, all there was was sky. At the slop of water against the windows her eyes opened. At last the flood had reached her.

Gone was any impression of captaining a galleon to port, this was more akin to a periscoped glimpse of open water from a submarine. The lake stretched west, the moon carved a silver tunnel to the horizon, spectral and grand. Yet it was the stars that amazed the Mayor. The night was full of stars and stars.

She’d never seen a sky like this. Evenings thudded down upon the island in a dim curtain, waxy and purplish with the moon throbbing dully behind. But this night was a living thing, it seemed to pulse and breathe. The Mayor was in awe. Awe at the spectacle of it, at that immense luminescent fury, awe that such astronomy had always existed — she’d just never been able to see it.

This view, though, was shrinking. In a trembling line the lake bisected the viewing deck and crept higher up the glass. She was sure of it now: the island was sinking, the tower lowered (or was being lowered), the whole city swallowed into some subterranean layer amid the bottomfeeders and the lakefloor’s churning guck.

The water swelled muddily up the glass, opaque and blotting out the cosmos inch by encroaching inch, there was nothing to look at inside it, not even fish. It seemed to eat the sky. The Mayor had stayed expecting to feel noble and proud, possibly even martyred. Instead, as she watched the water swell up over the stars, she was consumed with longing and melancholy. She was alone, hopelessly alone. And soon there would be nothing left, nothing but water. Still, before it was gone, she relished that last visible band along the top of the window, a final jangling dazzle of that silken miracle of sky.

AMERALIGHTS LIT THE beach like intermittent signal fires. In each islanders gave enthusiastic accounts of their escapes for mainland TV. Survival conferred the status of hero, everyone was championed as brave, resilient. You’re an inspiration to our viewers at home, one of the reporters told a humbled family, and passing by Adine couldn’t help herself: Not like those sad fuggers who didn’t make it, and Debbie shushed and manoeuvred her down toward the water.

Hand in hand Debbie and Adine weaved through the crowds, between the medical tents and media and boats along the shoreline, calling, Sam? Sam? But they’d searched the entire beach twice, on each pass enviously eyeing reunited families and friends. Fellow searchers passed them wide-eyed or squinting, in their faces were both camaraderie and estrangement.

As the crowds thinned a figure materialized out of the dark, stumbling up from the water’s edge. They rushed to him: not Sam, this man was in NFLM khaki — and for a moment Debbie blanched that it might the strange man they’d flung from Pop’s boat. But it wasn’t him either, this guy was taller and sad-seeming, in his eyes was the same defeated look in Adine’s.

Sorry to run at you, he said, I thought you might be my daughters. It’s okay, said Debbie, we thought you were someone too.

We’re looking for my brother, said Adine, guy about my size, short hair, probably wearing a suit? The Helper shook his head. Adine continued: We’ve been up and down the whole beach and haven’t found him, so if he isn’t here then where the fug is he? And once again Debbie had to steer her away and on along the beach.

For the third time they reached the edge of the inlet where the pebbles swelled into boulders and still they hadn’t found him. Out here, the tinny smell of the lake drifted ashore with each crashing wave.

Let’s go out on those rocks, said Debbie, we’ll be able to see the whole beach. Yeah?

Pebbles and stones chiming beneath their feet, they moved out on a little promontory that sloped down from the cliffs into the Narrows — misnamed now that the lake sprawled unperturbed to the point it folded into the starry sky in a sort of crease.

From the outcropping Debbie surveyed the shore: the sporadic glow of cameras, TV vans in the parking lot of the airport motel, antennas blinking and jettisoning signals into the ether. It’s dark, she said, there are thousands of people, he could be anywhere, let’s wait for morning. I’m sure they’ll have a station set up to reunite people —

But Adine wasn’t listening. She watched the water. What’s that? she said.

Something floated out there in the moonlight. Debbie’s first instinct again was that it might be the man they’d turfed overboard, and at the sight of it she felt both relief and shame. Though it wasn’t a person, too boxy and bright. A little boat, maybe a raft, carrying the flood’s last survivors? But it wasn’t really boat-shaped, and no one rode aboard — a coffin?

Whatever it was, riding a crest and ducking down, vanishing, then reappearing on the peak of the next wave, it was coming ashore.

What is that? said Debbie.

Adine shook her head, looped her arm through Debbie’s.

The white box lifted on a swell, dipped into the trough, came up again. It was the size of a coffee table and advanced with the resolve of something driven or steered.

The night was cool, the surf hissed. The lakebreeze smelled of pennies. They waited, watching the odd little craft bob and dip. Thirty feet out it caught on a fallen tree, the branches held it fast — as a gift, thought Debbie, dangled tantalizingly before a child.

What do we do? said Adine.

We go see what it is, said Debbie.

She kicked off her shoes, hitched her pants, and waded out, the icy water stinging her shins, sand swirling with each step.