Washed away

"Get out now! I'm telling you! Either you open that damned door, or I will knock it down!"

He was completely soaked. The rain had not stopped for days, and no one was on the streets but him, competing with the deafening noise of the droplets hitting the roofs and windows. His shouting and screaming, though, was nothing like the water's roar. People had been complaining for months about the lack of rain and the cuts in the water supply, but after a whole week of nothing but water around us, no one spoke about that anymore. The river level had risen, and the authorities had told us to leave the village, but only a few had done it.

"We'll manage," said one of the old men who had joined the village's general assembly the day before to the man in a suit before him.

"You're asking us to leave to take over our homes!" said another one.

"The dam will break, and you'll disappear together with your houses, you fools. No one wants your things; we are telling you to leave so you can live. You need to go!" he said, but people started to whistle and boo him, and shortly after, escorted by his bodyguards, he left the Town Hall, never to return.

"We need to go," said Elian, grabbing my arm as I was about to open my umbrella and defy the weather on my way home. "There's no point in staying here."

"I have nowhere to go," I replied, shaking his hand off me. I never thought I would do that, reject his touch, but his presence was worse for me than all the rain in the world. "You should leave. Forget about me. There's nothing for you here!"

A couple came close to us, and the lady asked me if I needed help. I knew her. She worked in the bakery I visited every day. She always smiled at me when she put my breakfast bread and pastries in the bag.

"I'm okay," I replied. "Everyone is nervous, right?" I said, as if any light talk could help how everyone in that room felt.

Our world was about to crumble, our little piece of heaven was about to be devoured by the water, and still, I was willing to stay right there because I could not face my cheating husband.

"I wanted to tell you," he said, lowering his voice this time. "I did not know it would happen. They called me, and I couldn't say no."

"You had promised. We would never return."

"It's a good job, a good life."

"You'll be selling yourself again. You'll waste your life making sure their pockets are full."

"It's not so bad."

"It was me who had to save you the last time. It was me you came to crying in the middle of the night. Where were they then? What did they promise? What did they give you? Pain! Only pain!"

"There's no point in arguing now; this is happening; we have to go!"

"To me, you are gone already."

"Don't be ridiculous!" he yelled, and that's when I turned and slapped his face. Ridiculous. Me. Ha!

I left the building, and the wind hit my face. Everything was dark, even though we were in the middle of the afternoon. At that time, our sky used to be blue, there were birds everywhere, and people walked the streets the same way many had done for hundreds of years.

That village at the top of the mountain had become our little piece of heaven two years before. Elian succumbed to a devastating burnout, and I took the reins of our lives as I had never done before. I packed the house, ended all our contracts, said goodbye to our friends and family, and drove the car with him by my side to a place so far away that our problems could not find us.

I worked remotely, sending my stories to whoever wanted to read them, and he walked around the village, made friends, and recovered that smile that had once convinced me to be with him forever.

Three days before the storm started, he got a phone call from an old friend. Someone from his past life asked for him:

"You would be the best here. It is your dream job. You will not regret it," said the man to Elias.

That night, during dinner, he told me what had happened and commanded his decision.

"We're leaving," he told me. I'm good now, and I can return. "

I couldn't believe it. I did not want to. I had saved him, and now we were done? What we had lived did not matter. What that place meant was not important anymore. We did not need, he said.

"I have a career. I have to come back. I have..." He had so many things to say that his words rapidly became nothing but noise.

"I'm not leaving," I told him. "That's not my life anymore."

"But you worked so much!"

"I don't want to."

"But you invested your life!"

"That does not matter."

"You will be nothing!"

"I will be me."

He stormed out of the room, out of the house. I waited the whole night, but he only returned the next day, ready to pack his things. The news forecast on the radio was grim. "Rain, a lot of rain," said one woman, but we never believed what was coming.

"Pick up your things; we need to leave! He said, kicking the door."

Despite the rain showering him, I could see he was crying. I walked down the stairs and opened the door.

"I cannot leave," I said. "I cannot move."

"I will carry you if necessary; I won't leave you here."

"They wait for you."

He held my hand and pulled me towards him. His body was cold, but I did not care. Below the rain, we locked in an embrace that could have heated half the globe but not our village. Then, it happened. We heard the sound, the noises, the cracks, the explosion.

We kissed, and as the water devoured our bodies, we promised to be together- until the very end.