He thought
back, as he laid there in the darkness, to the decisions that he had made just
a few days earlier. It seemed natural to
him, his thought process and the way that he dealt with turmoil. He was after all part of a hardy breed, he
grew up on tough streets, faced the neighborhood bullies and he never ran from
anything. He knew that running only
caused you to get chased more often, but if you stood up and fought for
yourself and what you believed in that you would eventually be victorious and
stave off further attacks.
He thought
this case would be no different, he would win out, beat the odds and yet he now
felt invisible to the rest of the world.
He was cold; the dampness setting into the depths of his bones, and it
was darker than he had ever remembered it being. He wondered now, amidst all the darkness and
devastation he felt, if he had made the wrong decision. Forty years of standing up, of fighting and
protecting not only himself but those that he loved, and now he was going back
over those years, analyzing each decision he had ever made. He was truly invisible now; there was no one
to reach out to, no one to ask. He had
stood up for what he thought was right and now he laid there alone, cold and in
the dark.
Sure, he had
listened to the news, heard the stories and the warnings of the impending doom,
but he had reasoned it out in his mind.
He just kept telling himself that they always say it is going to be
worse than it is and that he had lived through the worst of things and done
just fine. He told himself that, at the
worst, it would be like camping out, an outdoor adventure that he loved to
partake in. He reassured himself that he
had lived through the turmoil of The Word Trade Center, that the entire city
had, and they survived. But now, camping
wasn’t so much fun and he saw no joy in his current predicament, nor did he see
any chance of rescue because he was powerless in many ways.
Having sent
his family away before the storm, just in case, was the smartest part of his
thought process over the last few days.
At least they were where it was warm, inland and out of the city. But he was stuck there, no power and just a
few blankets to keep him warm. He had
abandoned the first two floors of his home two days ago and he could still hear
the water from the Hudson River rushing below him as he huddled up under his
blankets. He had some food, but not much
and in his mad dash to escape the water that was closing in on him he hadn’t
grabbed a can opener so he laid there thinking about what he could have eaten
if he had planned better, if only he had reasoned out the possibilities and
paid attention when the Governor had told them to get out of harm’s way.
Now, without
any power he had no way to stay warm or even contact the outside world, he felt
lost and he worried about what his lack of communication was doing to his
family. His phone battery was gone, and
even if it did work, he had never had any signal in the part of the house which
he was now forced by water to occupy. He
knew that now he was isolated, like an island in the Pacific with no landing
strip and he chuckled just a bit as he saw himself as the character in that Tom
Hanks movie, “Castaway”. For just a
moment he wondered if there was a volley ball around him, or if there was
something else that could become his “Wilson”. He needed something that would sit there, quietly,
while he explained his reasons for staying and simply agree with his decision;
despite the dire warnings of officials that a super storm was approaching. He couldn’t tell his family for he couldn’t
contact them and even if he could they would still be angry because he didn’t
leave with them. So he just sat there,
waiting and wondering what would come next as he listened to the water beneath and
the wind around him.
He drifted
in and out of sleep, sometimes being awakened by the wind or the house creaking
inconsolably. He wasn’t sure if the
moaning coming from the walls, floors and foundation were emotions within him
or the house giving into the pressure of external forces; if his home was
tiring, just as he was, of weathering a storm neither of them should have been
in. But he knew that he couldn’t have
removed his home from the path of the storm though he could have removed
himself just as he knew that his being there wasn’t going to protect the old
house. But his time, after he has sent
his family packing towards safety has been spent as wisely as one man could
spend his time. This had been his family’s
home as a child, he grew up here and his own children were doing the same. For him the house was more than just sticks,
bricks and mortar, it was his history and his future; within its walls were
memories that could never be replaced and that was what he truly guarded before
he became invisible to the world outside his safety zone.
He had wanted to make sure that his memories did
not become invisible, that they were saved, for the future of his children and
hopefully, if he was lucky, himself. So
for the hours between the time that his family had left and the storm began to
drive itself ashore with reckless abandon, he had carried everything he could
to the upper levels of the old house.
Some of the things he managed to save he had stacked neatly in one of
the upper level rooms while the others were more haphazardly placed where ever
there was room. But the family photos,
his parents, grandparents and distant relatives had given him over the years lay
at the very highest point he could find in the house and they rested safely
above him, provided that the roof held they would survive for his family, even
if he did not. His past would never be
as invisible as he was at this moment in time.
He knew, if no one ever understood why he had stayed that he knew and
someday, as his family looked through their past in pictures that they would
also get it. He felt a sense of relief in
that, a calm that allowed him to once again close his eyes and snuggle into the
warmth of his blankets, his stomach growling to lull him to sleep.
When he
awoke the next time the wind had finally died down, though he could still hear
water rushing outside, he scanned the ceiling above him, the walls the floor
around him; the touched his blankets and himself to ensure he was dry, that the
water had not reached him and the roof above him and held strong. Satisfied that he in fact was through the
worst of things he decided to venture out of the confines of his security zone. He
stood and stretched, hoping that by forcing oxygen into his lungs that he could
wash away the sleepless night and the lack of the black coffee that had become
a morning ritual for him, the sounds of his children scampering from their beds
and ready to start the day. It was
quiet, too quiet and he felt more alone than he had ever felt, but still he
needed to take this day, this moment to survey his situation.
He moved
first to the window that had been boarded up from the outside prior to the
storm and tried to peer through the small crack, he laughed at himself,
realizing that only a fly would be able to accomplish what he was trying to do,
and at over six feet tall a fly he was not.
He couldn’t hear any rain or wind so he decided to knock the plywood off
from the inside, he felt it would be safe to do so now and so he raised the
window in its old frame; struggling against the moisture that had caused the
wooden frame to swell. Finally, when the
window broke loose and upward he smelled the ocean, closer than it had been
since he felt sand in between his toes earlier in the summer. He knew, before he got the board off that the
dream of ocean front property had come true, but not in the way he had imagined
it for all those years. Finally, with
one hard a tenuous kick the plywood gave way, partially from having been soaked
with moisture, but in his mind it had broken free solely on the basis of the
strength he had shown it and the storm he had lived through. He knew that this same strength would be
required of him to move forward towards the window and look out into the world,
into the light that now seemed to blind him with its brightness.
He stood
there for a moment, steading himself to face what lay outside the window, to
see the new world that awaited him and isolated him on his island, to see the
damage that the storm had done and just how invisible he was. Taking one final look at what surrounded him
in the room, the comfort of his home; he moved closer to the window and looked
out. He stood there for a moment,
overwhelmed with emotion, and grateful for his existence, unable to understand
the magnitude of his situation until that moment. He could see smoke in the distance, unsure of
where it was coming from but more than the smoke, more devastating was the
water. It seemed to surround everything
as far as he can see and it filled his nostrils with the smell of the beach,
salt water. He could tell, by what he
saw out the window that the lower floors of his home contained water and that
the water inside would recede with the water outside, but only time would cure
that issue. There were no humans outside;
it was quiet a weird sort of quiet, the sound one would expect to hear after a
nuclear bomb had detonated. He wondered
how long it would take for the sounds to return, the buzz of the cars passing
by, children playing stick ball in the street, the delivery trucks making their
rounds.
He walked to
the top of the stairs and peered down them, there it was, in all its salty, erosive
glory, the ocean in his home. A few more
steps down the stairs he would walk, peering around the corner of the
staircase, and then a few more to look into the living room. It was wet, all of it but to him amazement it
wasn’t that deep, just coming up to cover the first step of the stairway. This was good, and it was bad, for he knew
that the water being this high meant that his basement was completely
flooded. The furnace would be gone,
along with the washer and dryer and there would be repairs to make, but he measured
the damage not by what he lost, but by what he saved. His memories, his past and the future legacy
for his children and that moment it hit him, maybe he wasn’t as invisible as he
had thought.
He began to
run, up the stairs into the room that his teenage daughter occupied; he knew
what he was looking for, but he didn’t know where it might be. But his gut told
him he was right and he began to pull down boxes off the shelves, emptying them
and dumping drawers to the floor, he was panicked that he might be wrong, and
they he saw it. It lay there in the
night stand drawer, in all of its pink bedazzled glory, that old cell
phone. He held it in his hands for a
moment as if by doing so he could charge the battery and ensure it had signal.
He then went to his own room, grabbed his phone and exchanged the SIM that was
in his daughter’s phone with his own and powered it up, hoping that his hunch
was right.
The boot
seemed to take forever but it came on and the battery was charged, as he
suspected and a smile washed across his face for this was a sign that all would
be right with the world. He opened his
contact list and realized that the population of his island had just grown; he
was no longer invisible as he dialed his wife’s phone number.
“The darkness
of the storm lasts for as long as we believe we hear the wind, to open your
heart to the possibility of tomorrow and your belief in the sun you will be
your own umbrella.” (me 2012)
Thanks to Chris Pierce for the Musical Inspiration for this blog
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