ferus rex

The young man came into the room where the three others were already seated. They put him at once under their appraising scrutiny in those first few moments before anything was said, before even the gestures of welcome were performed. The one with the salt and pepper beard, the one who seemed to occupy the summit of authority, peered up from over his glasses, smiled, and motioned toward the one empty chair in front of them. The young man took the chair and put an expression on his face that meant he was ready. When the silence in the room threatened to become something more meaningful than merely a prelude to conversation, Salt and Pepper Beard spoke.
“Thank you for coming up, Mr. Rivera. Your first time in England, I take it…”
“Yes sir.”
“Well, as it is here, we put a lot of credence in the value of a first impression, a first look, as it were.” His icy blue eyes sought out fear on the young man’s face, but found none. “There are those who would call it a mistake to place as much weight as we do on whatever can be demonstrated in the space of fifteen or twenty minutes. But as I see it, everyone knows judgments are sometimes made quickly. For better, for worse. To try to pretend it isn’t so, is simply naive. Yes? I’m as interested in what you think you ought to be, before us here today, as I am in what you actually are.”

Salt and Pepper Beard leaned back between his two colleagues, to study with some detachment what effect his words had had on the young man. The woman to his right, on the inquisitor’s side of the broad oak table, pushed her glasses higher on her nose and began to jot ferociously on a pad. To Salt and Pepper Beard’s left, a man with a black goatee and dark, avid eyes cleared his throat and began to speak.
“In other words Mr. Rivera,”said Black Goatee “we’re looking at you, you know we’re looking at you. We’re thinking our thoughts, making up our minds about things. That’s it.” he laughed. “That’s the face of things. It’s better not to waste too much energy trying to conquer your own nervousness though. We expect a certain amount, after all.”

The young man was unruffled.

Near 4AM, under the blinkless, blue regard of the moon:

All the lost and meandering waters of the earth began to pool together in one place. They came gently at first, as if possessed with the infinite restraint of geological workings. Inoffensive. Slow. Tiny trickles and rivulets emerged from unseen sources, tracing imperceptibly along the gutters, disturbing only the odd gum wrapper and popsicle stick. At first, it all made no more sound than the wind in the trees. A rasp, a gurgle, a low hiss, as dry became wet. But collectively, the noises of “flood�? gathered out of the relative silence, and began their steady climb to a roar.

The gutters swelled as they did after a flash Summer downpour, forming those small, localized lakes. The lakes deepened, molding along the tiny banks of the curbs, rising, joining with other swelling lakes, until a critical mass was reached and all the water flowed powerfully in a single direction, not with randomness but with purpose. Soon the streets became rivers, merging at the intersections, making deeper frothy, brownish rivers, which were finally more than the curbs could contain. Up and over they flowed, gurgling and surging, assailing the sidewalks. And now swept things became visible too, bobbing and tumbling along in the brown water, arrested long enough by some submerged obstacle for the eye to pick them out — there, a sneaker, over there, a woman’s brassiere.

As the curbs had succumbed, so did the porches and stoops in their turn. The flood penetrated into human dwellings. Stairways were surmounted, locked doors were wrested free of their hinges, and the waters began to assail them in their beds. They were all asleep, fat and heavy and sweating against July’s relentless nocturnal assault. Floor by floor the waters rose in the buildings, drowning them where they lay. Silent under the roar of the flood, mouths gasped and bubbled, limbs flailed briefly then were still. The water was darkly busy with them, as tiny hands stinging eyes, choking throats and muffling screams. The bodies quickly climbed in number, making temporary log jams that the mounting pressure forced through windows and doorways, out into the night.