The Day The Tide Came In Too High

Aryan Kaganof

One day the tide came in too high.
Higher than expected.
Higher than it had ever come in before.
Fast too. Sweeping in like a shark.
A tide of vengeance in search of prey.
There were no warning signs.
Within seconds the beach had disappeared.
People running. Running everywhere.
Children screaming for their mothers.
Hen-like mothers clucking. Scattter scatter.
I lost a shoe running towards the steps leading up
to the parking lot. Panic. Too many people.
Too few steps. And narrow. Narrow steps.
Built for calm. One at a time. But now the crush.
Fighting. Headbutts. Arms used like clubs. Frenzy.
I broke a thumb. The left one.
A large screaming man fell back, eye bleeding.
I stepped into the gap, escaped the melee. Breathless to the top.
The water kept on rising, spreading across the horizon
like a grey umbrella. At the top of the stairs one last look
backwards. Below me ants screaming. A distant sound,
as if from the past.
I ran towards the spot where the Fiat was parked.
No more parking lot. No road. Grey water everywhere.
Rising. Gulls getting larger.
Attacking the children. Attacking the mothers.
I took off my shirt, set off swimming away from it all.
From the drowning spectacle. From the screams.
Now the gulls and the children and the mothers all made the same sounds.
First I did breastroke, then crawl, then I simply floated.
Let the grey tide take me. Effortless floating.
I was lighter than bark,
I bobbed like a cork in search of an ark.
The drowning continued.
Eventually it became clear that the flood was here to stay.
In due course only the highest mountains remained;
a few small pockets of land. Great territorial battles between the survivors.
I watched it all with a mixture of bemusement and glee.
The end happened so fast. It turned out nothing after all was built to last.
Hungrier than I’d ever been I started eating my dreams.
Then the nightmares. Ended up staying awake. Floating consumed me.
Vague time drifted me from day into night and back again.
Then less of me floated and more of me drowned
and I became aware that I was the tide
and it was my time that had come
when the end had begun.




LitNet: 14 January 2005

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