Will the water, will the rain
To dry the sky and ground again.
Ask of angels, ask of God,
Save our cattle, save our sod.
Will the flesh and will the blood
To tell the story of this flood.
Avery and Anya stood on the roof and watched their Jersey cows drown in the flood. Anya’s black curls were straight and flat against her head and neck in the heavy rain. Neither of them spoke. The sun had appeared through the clouds in the west, sending seams of color into the grey storm but the downpour continued around them and eastward. In that intense light every tree shone brilliant, crisp green against the featureless steel backdrop of the ongoing disaster.
For nearly an hour they waited there with no emotion. Avery imagined that, below them, all of their belonging were getting calmly picked up by the rising water and drifting into some corner of the living room. His photographs, his banjo, Anya’s books, and all of their tools, floating around like so many lost boats pulling into a marina.
He was wearing rubber boots and could feel his socks bunched up and soaked inside them. He couldn’t believe how quickly the puddles had turned into lakes. At the peak of their roof, held up by the coarse shingles, Anya leaned into him and stared at the pasture, not quite focusing but unable to look anywhere else. She noticed that there was no field. The barn out there no longer had a floor. Members of their community were bobbing about in boats, bailing out rainwater, or else they were standing on high ground and other roofs, looking alternately awed, sorrowful, and patient. Ladder Creek was taking away their earth and animals in what would soon be the worst flood on record.
Avery wondered if he should just swim to St. Louis right that moment and never think about the Mason Jar community again.
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