Raserei's Journal

Year Twelve; eight days before exodus.


Our land was sinking. Water had risen from the sea, noticed first in the east, where the land was shallow and wide. Docks and harbors became overwhelmed, then cities and farms. Rivers backed up for miles, filling lowlands and gorges and flushing out people from their nooks and crannies, forced them from the crevices they niched into the land. Everyone moved west, where the cliffs on the Far Sea were high and rigid. Cities burgeoned and swelled with people, many running up and down the streets in crazy masses, shouting the end of days. Living became cramped, friends taking in friends until the rooms smelled of overliving.

I've been secluded to my bedroom, sequestered, cloistered, whathaveyou, for close to four days. I've been frequently picking up items, remembering where they come from, who I got them from, knick-knacks and brick-a-brack, art works and books.

I'm purging as much as I can.

The water's been rising steadily, and many people have spoken only of ever advancing tides, with short, silent ebbs. The cliffs were getting shorter, the sea coming to meet us on the other side, to suck us up in its mouth with foaming lips. But in eight days, at the given rate, I'll be finished. I should be anyway.



Year 12, three days before exodus

Sawdust filled the room, at three in the morning. Six floors down, at the base of my tower water already streamed through the street, clogged with rafts and boats, therein clogged with people and chests of clothing or silverware.

My preparations had been completed the night before, but now I was scavenging the buildings, jumping from rooftops and crashing into windows to seek out more food, water, or remnants of things left behind. He'd found four dolls, a canteen, seventeen torn out pages of poetry, ten armchairs covered in blankets and moved to the center of the room. Some apartments were speckless, while others were disheveled, either left to fester or ransacked already.

Tonight I hadn't found much of anything, not even many people. Everyone was amassing off the coast in large flotillas, congregations collecting resources and installing rations. They didn't know how long they would be off land, but feared that forever wouldn't be as likely as certain death within days.

I jumped from a roof and landed on a fourth floor balcony and passed through a broken window. Exiting the room, I entered the hallway and hurried up the steps. Taking the keys, I unlock the eight bolts and close the door behind me. Habit makes me lock them all quickly and scan the room. Nothing disturbed.

I turned in for bed and waited for the water, listening to the shouting, watching the bouncing shadows from torchlight spatter across my ceiling.


Year 12, four hours before exodus

The water below my window is yards below me. Around the room are my things boxed and secured into cabinets screwed into the wall. Below the window and all about the tower were planks warped around the sides, and at just below, a large metal plate. On the table is a yellow and black striped button, waiting to be pushed. I reviewed every calculation, every piston, every lever and hinge. I go back to the window and look down, then out. Spires break above the water, and ships cast shadows across them, their masts and rigging new and wet, their decks littered with people. Looking up the road, he found no traffic coming down canal, and figured this was as good as any time.

I walk to the table and press the button. Twelve feet below me, a bellow begins to inflate in a living room, lifting a large metal plate. The room tilts and slips across the plate, first a centimeter, then an inch, then three, seven, further out and further, until I was on the other side of the room, grasping the sill as the bellow below expands. Finally, as it reached beyond halfway, the room slips with spriteliness into the water, bobbing violently for a moment, then evening.

The current pushed him down the channel. Higher buildings still dry and rising above him. My room began to speed up, and pulling a lever, I engaged the rotor twelve and a half feet below me, which started the propeller.

Using the makeshift rigging, I engaged the wheel and began weaving down the street.

Out at sea, I could see dinghies, submarines, skiffs, catamarans, cargo ships, even a deep-sea diver. They collected at the horizon, where the sun was beginning to set. With aggregated effort, they traveled west, hoping against near anything they'd find dry land. High, dry lands.