People Park

by Pasha Malla

  And here she discovered the island’s artist laureate, slumped against a wall. Debbie stopped. Loopy regarded her idly, beret twisted in her hands.

  Hi, said Debbie.

  No, said Loopy, low. I’m feeling very low.

  Oh yeah?

  All my work, said Loopy, with a sweeping gesture toward the adjoining galleries, is going to be destroyed. And then what will I have? What’s an artist robbed of her work?

  I’m actually looking for someone, said Debbie, inching past.

  Wait.

  Debbie froze.

  Listen to me, said Loopy. All of you, you thought I was serious. The whole time, you never knew. This, all of this — none of you ever saw what it was.

  What was that? said Debbie.

  You think I didn’t know how absurd I seemed? I mean, Loopy? This ridiculous outfit? Paintings of people on TV? Not that it matters now. It’s all amounted to nothing, anyway.

  Yeah, said Debbie, edging up the spiral staircase, that sucks, good luck.

  Nothing. Nothing! NO-THING . . .

  Debbie climbed, Loopy’s squawking faded as she curled up and up, the tap of her sneakers, the swish of the banister under her hand, spiralling all the way to the towertop gallery. She tried the handle: locked. Her legs weakened, her spirits felt punctured —

  A voice called, Who is it?

  And Debbie said, It’s me.

  Silence. A whispering of feet. A pause.

  The catch clattered, the door opened, and standing there was Adine.

  It’s you, she said.

  Hi, said Debbie.

  They stared at each other for a moment.

  You’re not wearing the goggles, said Debbie.

  No, said Adine. I took them off.

  From somewhere in the Museum came a feeble, plaintive keening.

  I guess you saw Loopy? said Adine.

  Debbie grinned. Nothing, nothing.

  No-thing! laughed Adine. And they kissed.

  You found me, Adine said, pulling away. You came.

  Of course, said Debbie. Of course I did. I’m sorry.

  It’s good to see you, Deb.

  Yeah. It’s good to see you too.

  Check it out, said Adine, Sand City’s finally getting its due.

  The model had melted into sludge inside the glass cabinet. The city’s topography endured in two lumps — the Mews and Mount Mustela — and a divot where People Park had been. Everything else was mud.

  Magic, said Debbie.

  Oh well, said Adine. I suppose it was always meant to be like this, wasn’t it? Before you stopped me, I mean.

  Yeah. Debbie watched her. I knew you’d be here.

  Adine moved to the window. Not much sense making up stories now, with all that’s happening. Was it him, all this ridiculousness, do you think? Or just nature?

  Whose nature? said Debbie.

  Adine laughed thinly.

  Hey, we should probably go, said Debbie. The water’s coming up.

  Go? Go where?

  Onto the roof?

  And then?

  And then, I don’t know, wait to be rescued.

  By?

  By whoever! Why does it matter?

  Where will this whoever take us? To wherever, right?

  Adine’s hair drooped, gone was its usual ecstatic frizz. The sunset highlighted the puckered flesh across her forehead and around her eyes, those scars from a lifetime ago, her half-buried life, preserved in wounds.

  Debbie said, Are you worried about Sam?

  A pause. A slow blink. A swift sharp dip of her chin.

  You shouldn’t, I’m sure he’s fine. They got all the people off the Islet, I heard. And over on the mainland I’m sure they’ll reunite people with one another —

  Who’s this they? The NFLM?

  No, not just them. The rescue people. Other people. Everyone.

  That’s this mysterious whoever, right? They is just whoever, to take us wherever. Well they might as well take us nowhere. We might as well stay.

  Hey, no, come on. Debbie moved beside her. But Adine pointed her face at the setting sun, which lowered blithely, almost obstinately, into the swollen lake.

  Come on, said Debbie again. We’ll find Sam on the other side.

  Deb, can we just not, for a second? Can we just wait here? I’ll go, I’ll go. I’ll go when we have to. But for now can we stay, just for a minute? And watch the sun go down?

  Okay.

  Will you stay with me?

  Yes.

  Say it.

  I’ll stay with you.

  They stood together at the window and watched the last dim shreds of daylight wane. People Park was gone. Cinecity was gone. A few buildingtops resisted the water, boats whizzed among them collecting survivors, and Podesta Tower rose defiantly above it all, a fist holding aloft a single finger — exultant maybe, or a last act of dissent before the end.

  The dipping sun striated the sky: a pink ribbon upon the lake, up to deeper reds, then blues, before everything dissolved in blackness.

  They waited.

  The colours drained.

  Everything darkened.

  The sun was a wound replicated in the lake — then a slice, then a nick. At last its final sliver and reflected double swallowed each other. But before darkness fell completely, a vein of green light flashed across the horizon, sudden and blazing, then instantly gone. Did you see that, said Debbie, and Adine said, Yeah, a comet or something, and they pressed close and peered hard at the skyline. But the miracle was over: a brilliant, ethereal shiver, vanished, and all it left behind was night.

  WAVES SWILLED into the tenement’s upper floors, Kellogg and Elsie-Anne were pushed to a corner of the roof of Laing Tower South. He held his daughter, she let herself be held, though her eyes fixed upon the IFC billboard ten blocks north, the top of a mainsail lifting from the shipwreck of the Golden Barrel Taverne. Walkie-talkie held high, Dack strode all over the roof, flipping through static to find a signal, while the lake came up and up and the crowd waited, hushed and helpless.

  WATER CASCADED into People Park in syrupy chutes. Crocker Pond topped its banks, gushed into the common, sending the empty rowboat, floating there since midday, out with it. Screams were silenced as it bowled three people under, they came up spluttering and bloodied, the park’s basin filled rapidly, there was nowhere to go. Helpers in rubber dinghies and canoes and kayaks offered rescue at the hilltops. But how could anyone swim up waterfalls?

  The only high ground was the gazebo, toward it the crowd moved through the churning current, Pearl among them. A girl struggled along beside her — and a sudden swell took her out at the knees in a flailing of limbs. The Grammar was swept away too, but Pearl kept going, reached the stage, climbed up.

  A man was trying vainly to open, dislodge, or destroy Raven’s trunk. He hammered his fists on the lid, kicked its sides, the metal dented but the thing didn’t budge. Fug you, fug this, he screamed, a hopeless character with HOPE tattooed on his knuckles, then flung himself into the water and started swimming — where? Pearl took his place upon the ducktaped X. She tried the lid. No luck, shut tight.

  Past everything, up the northern hillock, the Thunder Wheel arced out of the flood. From its highest seat Griggs watched the Institute swimteam coming for him, one Thundercloud to the next, teeth gritted. They’d formed a human ladder, leapfrogging their way up. And now others were chasing them: a middle-aged woman in workout attire reached the lowest student and savaged him with a chop to the kidneys, he dropped into the water. Resurfacing he clambered after the woman, grabbed her by the ankles, her face smacked a rung as she fell, and when her body hit the water it didn’t come back up.

  Meanwhile escapees fled to the mainland by the dozens. The haphazard armada included bodyboards and buoyed shopping cart
s and a group of fours in a racing shell (the coxswain’s chants — S-troke! S-troke! — variously interpreted by his rowers), inflatable rafts with the Municipal Works logo on their helms, some brave swimmers plowed into the Narrows, frontcrawl devolved to breaststroke, then to doggypaddle.

  Above it all the sky seemed indifferent, the night’s first stars perversely sublime in the face of the chaos below. For a moment Griggs allowed himself to enjoy the evening: up there things were vast and beautiful, perfect and serene — and shattered by newscopters training spotlights on scenes of drama: a heroic windsurfer rescue of an infant from the branches of a poplar, a half-dozen families trapped in a rooftop garden, with their own clothes they’d spelled out HELP and waited shivering and half-naked to be saved.

  And still People Park filled with water, pouring down from the surrounding streets in torrents. From the gazebo Pearl watched Helpers lower ropes, but even the heartiest citizens couldn’t traverse the churning currents. Out on the common surfaced the girl who’d been knocked off her feet, slogging toward the gazebo. Pearl lay on her stomach, extended a hand, hauled her onto the stage. Before Pearl could ask if she was okay, the girl cried, You’re alive! and rushed into the arms of another girl who was weeping.

  The water came in, the water came up. When it began to wash onto the gazebo people shrank to the middle of the stage, from the shadows they cursed the airborne newscasters. They’re just watching us drown, someone said, and someone else suggested, You think it’s just them watching us? and a third person said, Wouldn’t you?

  Yet Pearl, sitting amid puddles by Raven’s trunk, felt a sudden calm.

  Water swam warmly up to her hips, stroked her kneecap through the hole in her jeans. Some people threw themselves past her, screaming, Save yourself! and frontcrawled to the bottoms of the hills, rebuffed by whirlpools like mismatched magnets. Helpers up top threw down lifevests — not donned but shared, two people to each one.

  The gazebo had become a trap, people climbed onto the roof only to find themselves marooned, while Pearl rubbed her knee and waited, as Griggs, watching the dozen-strong crowd scale the Wheel, waited: she for magic, he with the defenceless surrender of a web-trapped fly, and here come the spiders, scrambling and famished.

  FROM AHEAD, murmuring. The current tugged, the door slipped over the water, Sam didn’t need to paddle, it carried him along. The noise amplified, a hundred voices begging one another for quiet. Sam’s breath came easy. He was close, he knew it. With his ducktaped hand he held the remote ready. The door slid toward that rushing, shushing sound, a television on channel 0, the surf of static, a screen sparkling with a nonsense of nothing. This became rumbling, his ears filled with thunder. And Sam was lifted, he seemed to hover for a moment, everything stopped, a clear cool wind hit his face. And then the door angled down sharply and was falling. With his thumb he hit POWER, and held it, and the raft was gone and the water hurtled him down, and he was inside the roaring, and all he could see was white, and he fell and fell and at last Sam crashed grinning into —

  THE YACHT POWERED through the Zone, The Know calligraphied on its hull, engines trailing yellow froth. Its single headlight illuminated the hundreds of people stranded atop Laing Towers, they responded with cheers of joy and relief.

  Iθa Lanyeθθ, cried Dack, and a chant went up: Lan-yess, Lan-yess, Lan-yess!

  Kellogg squeezed Elsie-Anne’s shoulders. There, Annie, you see? Just in time. We’ll be okay. They’ll take us to Mummy and Gibbles, don’t worry.

  Edie Lanyess stood at the boat’s prow, hands on her hips, looking every part her mother’s daughter. She spoke in a matronly singsong: We’ve got room for everyone, don’t worry, just stay calm. We’re here! We’re going to get you all out safely!

  This inspired a reprise of the Lan-yess chant.

  Kellogg went to join the movement shipward, but was held back.

  Elsie-Anne pointed in the direction of the IFC billboard, a ridge in the water swallowed even as they watched. There, she said.

  Annie, he said, no, the boat’s here. They’re here to rescue us. We’re going to be okay.

  But she wouldn’t look.

  The first few people were helped onto the yacht’s deck. Boisterous cheers!

  Annie, said Kellogg, look, everyone’s leaving, we have to go.

  Plenty of room, called the girl, joined now by her mother, beaming, whose beauty, despite the chaos, remained undisturbed. Listen to Edie, whinnied Isa Lanyess, no need to push! Helpers too, Mr. Dack, easy now, there’s room for everyone.

  Kellogg reached for Elsie-Anne, caught her arm. Come on, Annie, he said.

  But the girl stood fixedly in place. She seemed apart from everything, facing north, almost hypnotized.

  What’s out there, Annie? said Kellogg. If you’re looking for Mummy —

  With a surprising burst of strength she squirmed from his grasp, stepped into the eavestroughs, and dove off the roof. A frothy channel furrowed the water as she zipped away into the flood.

  Annie! Help! Someone, help!

  Heads turned, Kellogg was regarded with mild confusion, but the line pressed forward as more folks were rescued. Kellogg peered into the dark. His daughter’s trail was fading. What could he do? He jumped in after her, swallowed a great gulp of bitter water, came up gargling.

  His daughter’s purse appeared with a plop.

  He splashed toward it. Behind him the yacht’s engines chugged, the stranded became passengers, celebrations abounded. The purse bobbed just beyond reach, the flood’s oily sheen pocked with reflected stars.

  A ripple, a pause — and the purse was sucked under.

  Annie?

  Something brushed his feet. Down in the depths the purse whisked by. Sucking in a lungful of air he dove, swam, saw nothing, surfaced, wheezed, dove again. A shaft of light from the rising moon illuminated the IFC billboard: the screen in some subaquatic drive-in. Beyond it the water was bottomless.

  Kellogg swam deeper down, lungs tightening. Far below something wriggled in the gloom, thick and serpentine, and released — what? A jellyfish maybe, which fluttered past. No: an Islandwear sweatshirt. Kellogg snatched it — empty — screamed his daughter’s name, three syllables the water muddied to bubbles. His face and throat had gone taut, his lungs burned. He looked down and up and around and everywhere was the same vast void.

  And now the snakish thing appeared again, uncoiling. Was it summoning him? Kellogg’s head tingled, the blood fizzed through his veins, he felt limp and not quite there. Something ropy and thick tightened around his ankle and began almost tenderly towing him down, and the blackness opened up, it was ravenous, he had nothing left, he’d forgotten everything, why was he here, for whom, his vision blurred, and the last thing Kellogg saw, hauled down toward it, were parallel white bands aglow in the darkness. The lights of a bridge maybe. Or were they teeth.

  ONE OF THE newscopters flew low over the Museum’s roof, nosing down for a spotlit shot of the two women waving at whoever might be watching, so whoever was watching might wish them saved. The water slavered between the turrets in a black skim, wetting their feet. The camera rolled. One of the women flipped an obscene gesture and the chopper whirled away into the milky night.

  Fuggers, said Adine. They’re not going to help us. We have to get higher.

  The Grand Saloon, Debbie said, pointing across the street. The clocktower.

  Do we swim?

  Can you make it?

  Stay close to me, said Adine.

  I will.

  The building dropped into the water, reeflike. Somewhere down there was Orchard Parkway. But now it was a river. The flood had reached the terrace of the Grand Saloon Hotel’s penthouse, emptied into the suite. Copper gables sloped into the old cathedral’s spire, and the bare clockface resembled a tired moon lapsing into the sea.

  Hurry, said Adine.

  They jumped, twin s
plashes, neither’s head went under.

  Okay? said Debbie

  Adine said, Okay.

  The current swirled. The flood felt unsure of itself, directionless, waves buffeted them from all sides as they doggypaddled across. The only sounds other than the gurgle and plop of their strokes were the newscopters overhead — though these were fading, heading to the mainland to shoot the escapees as they washed up on the pebbly beach.

  THE PIG APPEARED just as Pearl was beginning to slip under. Her knee had failed her, the flood had filled the common, she’d been forced into it with everyone else. All around her people struggled to stay afloat, calling to one another, Keep paddling — Head up — Stay with us now. As the water reached streetlevel some swam off, Pearl wasn’t sure where or why, past small boats loading survivors, kids first, which then shuttled off with promises of a swift return.

  But they didn’t come back, and treading water among the abandoned hopefuls she felt her soaked clothes grow heavy. She kicked off her shoes, yet still some invisible weight dragged her down. She wouldn’t last, she was weak.

  And then bobbing along: the pig.

  It was a hollow thing of pink plastic. Pearl caught it, slung an arm around its neck, clung there with closed eyes, opened them to discover animals all around: a matching pig, two sheep, donkeys, cattle, lions, a whole zoo’s worth of creatures swimming up in pairs.

  The Friendly Farm! someone cried, wrangling a goat.

  They’ve come to save us!

  There’s room on my rhino, come on!

  Nearby a family climbed aboard an elephant, a kid to each leg and the parents on either side of its trunk. Its mate was mounted and claimed as an explorer might some new planet, a woman knelt upon it, arms raised, howling at the moon. More people found floatables, a fleet of them bobbed in the water. Pearl held on, waves buffeted her from all sides. It’s a miracle, someone cried. A miracle is what it is!