{i miss paper letters}

Ilsa stood on the banks of the river, watching the refuse flow by: whole trees and the limbs of others, sections of picket fence, aluminum siding; even a station-wagon was slowly making its way around the bend.  She had never seen anything like it.  Then again, there hadn’t been a tornado in this part of the state in the seventeen years she’d been alive, so that was no real surprise.  Her father came up behind her.  She hadn’t heard him approach, so lost in her thoughts, and his hand on her shoulder caused her to jump.

Hey, kid.  What’cha doin’ down here?  It’s still pretty dangerous by the water, they’re sayin’ on the radio that it hasn’t reached the high mark yet; the banks could give way right out from under you.  She nodded in agreement, but wasn’t really listening.  A tractor tire went by, a child’s sneaker; a hobby-horse just like the one she’d had as a little girl, plastic with four large springs that secured it to its metal framework.  The paint of its face had been washed away completely.

What are they going to do, all these people now without a home, without photo albums or clothes or cars?  He didn’t have an answer, but she hadn’t really expected one.  I’ll be up in a minute she said, moving back a bit to pacify his fears.  He recognized his cue to exit and did so without a word; when she spoke to him again and turned to where he’d been standing, he was gone.

She stood, still and quiet, for a long time just watching the river.  She recognized the McDonough brand on the hind-quarters of a bloated Holstein bobbing along on the surface just before it disappeared beneath.  It didn’t come back up.

What else has gone under, she wondered.  She imagined a sort of macabre parade marching in time along the riverbed, but stopped short of characterizing the participants.  Instead she turned and walked back up the hill to her family’s home, the only one left standing for miles.