Fragments From Floyd

A dead calm. An ominous nothingness that stirs no leaf or twig. So all we hear in our valley is the water, an unaccompanied solo--for another hour, perhaps, until the green and orange smears on the radar bring the leader-bands of Ivan to the Blue Ridge. We've been told to expect him to overstay his welcome. We're expecting to hear our trickling branch and bubbling creek become frothing torrents by morning, out of their banks, likely, by tomorrow afternoon.

We sat out in the lawn chairs with our dinner under motionless and faded maple leaves tonight. And afterward, we walked down the middle of the valley under a sky so devoid of detail it could have been an artist's gray backdrop thrown overhead from ridgetop to ridgetop. We both noticed it at once: that smell; the too-sweet honey in the air that is common in late spring; a fragrance that is, like a hologram, there, but not there. What could this aroma possibly be from--now, so late in the season when blooms have given way to fruits, and fruits are dying back to brown husks of autumn? It is thick like syrup. It settles in the valley calm.

Hard to imagine now what the morning might bring. But I do imagine. Ann will pack her overnight bag when she leaves in a driving rain in the pitch-black darkness. I'll watch her tail lights disappear up the road, hoping she doesn't come back in five minutes, because this would mean that the water is already over one or both of the low-water concrete bridges in that direction. The chances of flooding are greater the other road out, and she won't know if it is passable until she's driven 7 or 8 miles; and then, short of walking up the mountain 3/4 mile to the nearest hardtop and calling a cab, she won't get to work at all. Nor will I.

Or maybe she'll go, and stay gone. Then I'll have to decide for certain, if I leave, I can get back. Should I come back down in tomorrow afternoon and the concrete bridges are under a foot or more of churning brown water, I suppose I'd have to somehow turn the truck around and park a mile back in the wide place there by that house nobody lives in. I could walk from there, climbing up the ridge and across, above the swollen creek, and home. It wouldn't be easy, even if it weren't throwing down the rain so hard I could barely see my way. I won't be able to carry my bookbag, or my chainsaw. They'll have to stay til I can go back and fetch the truck home, maybe some time Saturday.

I hear it now--the first soft hiss of rain on the metal roof. By midnight, it will come down hard, and the gutter there nearest our bedroom, full of maple whirlygigs and now some maple leaves as well, will overflow and spatter down into the mulch. The creeks will rage and the wind will howl and seem impossible that it was so utterly still and silent at dinnertime. I'll likely sleep through all of the commotion. We'll see what kind of world there is to wake up to. If we have power, I'll be tickled. But I won't count on it. And so, if I am going to post this, best do it before bedtime. Which it is, now, at 9:00.

Now I lay me, down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
If I should die before I wake
I pray the Lord my soul to take

Good night, all