When we emerge from the arc we hardly recognize ourselves. We are saggy and stooped, pale or overly tanned, our eyes listless, crinkled around the edges. 

It’s been a year since the rain began and the waters rose. For a year we fed animals and cleaned pens, sailed the flooded valleys, lounged in the sunlight on deck. For a year our lives were this ship and its smells and creaks and the way when the wind blew it rocked us to sleep. We learned to tar up its holes and mop its decks and sleep inside its bunks. We hate it and are grateful to it all at once.

For a year we stood on the deck and looked out for dry land. We passed other arcs and scanned them, hoping our friends were aboard. Perhaps you haven’t heard the whole story, the arcs that sent lifeboats out to rescue all they could find, the teams of skilled divers who battled the flood and pulled survivors from beneath the water to safety, how those who couldn’t swim stayed aboard and made whole meals appear out of almost nothing, warm soup and thick bread that couldn’t bring back friends but could at least make you feel like there might be something left for you here after all. 

Those early flood days filled us with pride. The tragedy brought out the best of us, as tragedies so often do right at the beginning. But the flood dragged on month-by-month, and hope diminished, and we fell into routine, kept to our own set of people, bickered more and more, forgot what it was like to be off the arc. We needed space. We needed to stretch our legs and feel the grass on our bare feet. 

           
When we first heard the warnings of the flood we’d laughed, but not out of arrogance. What kind of father destroys his children? Believes they are evil, their hearts wicked since infancy? We found our own children magnificent. Our own children were all that gave us hope. They’d spent a year confined but still laughed, still planted flowers, believed the world would come back. Their birds lived in cages, and their lupine grew in flower pots, but they still danced, their bowed legs braced against the waves. We clung to their joy.

And then, when we thought we couldn’t take one more day, the doves returned with olive branches. The waters were receding, if we could just hang on a few more weeks. The end was so close we could practically smell the buds in the trees. 

Now the animals pile out – cats and rabbits and guinea pigs who have been mating and multiplying on board for a year now. They scurry to land and scatter. 

We hold our hands out to our children and help them off the arc. “Come on,” we say. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.” We hope they don’t remember the waters rising, our fear then. Their feet squelch in the mud.

We walk alongside them, legs wobbly on solid ground. The other arcs are unloading, filled with neighbors we haven’t seen in a year. They look older than they should. There’s something in their eyes we recognize in our own. We should say hello, but then what? Where to begin? How was your year of confinement? What hobbies did you take up while the world drowned? Did you lose anyone you loved more than life? 

           
Our children pull us through the mud in search of their old friends. There should be so many more of us. We take stock of all who are missing. The neighbor who always waved to us when we passed his home. The one who brought us a meal that one time we were sick. The one who yelled at the children to stay off his grass. We always wondered what pain he was hiding. Now we feel it too. 

           
That night we build campfires. We stretch out on the grass to sleep, and the dampness seeps into our clothes. We toss and we turn. The memories are coming fast. We want to be back on the arc, hoping for land. Not here where we once were in the before, where the blueprint of our old lives feels buried somewhere in the soggy ground beneath us. Someone opens a barrel of wine. We cup our hands in it and take drink after drink like it’s water in the desert. We drink like we can outpace the memories. We remember, and we drink. We remember, and we drink. Our friends. The animals. The music. The noise. The laughter and the fighting and the singing and the dancing and the earth filled to bursting with life where now it is only us. A mother is wailing. For a year she hoped her son was aboard another arc, but now she realizes the truth. We drink to drown her out. We circle the fires and hold hands. We dance and wail until we fall asleep naked in the grass. 

           
In the morning the sun rises. Our heads pound from the wine. The sunlight burns spots in our retinas. Our children have covered our bodies with robes. They turn away in embarrassment. We have to do better for them. They deserve so much more from us. They deserve so much more from this world. Someone somewhere is playing music. Iris shoots sprout beneath our feet. A songbird sings. 

Our children pull our hands to get up and explore. “We can build our house there,” they point. There’s a spot on the hillside, overlooking the valley that’s still releasing its water. We wonder if they remember the last time we built – the assembly lines and shared labor that went into each arc, how it all felt silly and unnecessary but we did it just in case. In the end it saved us, and it buried us. We’re not sure we have what it takes to build again. We’re not sure we even know how to begin.

Mist evaporates off the ground in steamy waves. The sun pierces through. A flock of geese fly low against the mountains. And look, there’s a rainbow to the east. 

Our children cheer. They call it a promise, and their faith is strong. We want to be just like them, our magnificent children. Around our feet new litters of rabbits hop. The river we used to fish is roaring with the receding flood. We are here, and so are you. We will grab hold of each other’s hands and chase the rainbow down. Run until our sea legs become strong again and we stand beneath its prismacolored arch. We will yank hold of it, dig our fingers in and refuse to let go, climb it and say, from here on out you belong to us, to all of us.  

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Courtney Craggett is the author of the story collection Tornado Season (Black Lawrence Press, 2019). Her short stories appear or are forthcoming in The Pinch, Image, Mid-American Review, Baltimore Review, Washington Square Review, CutBank, and Monkeybicycle, among other journals. She holds a PhD in creative writing from the University of North Texas and teaches at Weber State University.

Featured Art:
Claudio Parentela
PAINTING 1565
Mixed media on cardboard, 2024