Forgotten in Water

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the sun. It’s even been a long time since I’ve seen a person. I’ve begun to think I never will again. I stopped counting the years after I got to ten, it seemed silly to keep going when I stopped hoping.

The basement is damp; mold has long since set in, and grass has begun to sprout in the cracked cement. I remember there being a flood a long time ago. The man upstairs had said the flooding had been caused by tsunami. He and his wife scurried across the floor then, shouting to each other about being upstairs.

They’d left me to the cold, sharp sting of water slowly sloshing up my sides, soaking me through. It had been days before the water thinned enough for the man to come down again. I sat, damp and dejected in the corner as he waded into the knee high water. His frown palpable as he rooted through boxes on the other side of the basement. Never once did he look my way. I couldn’t move.

The woman shouted down at him, asking if anything was salvagable.

I heard a dejected sigh as he scanned the unfinished basement. The walls soggy, and the floor covered by murky brown water. He told her no as he ascended the stairs, and her crying could be heard plain as day through the slammed door.

A week later the silence set in. No more shuffling of feet on floor boards. No more dragging of furniture. The dog had stopped barking.

I stayed there, in the corner, sopping wet and ruined, waiting for someone, anyone to come find me.

But they never had come.

And now, I don’t know how long later, I still am here. As I suspect I always will be. My edges are wearing thin. The house is as broken as I know I must look, and nobody is brave enough to press their luck on the rotted boards of the basement steps.

I’m just a memory now to the man and his wife, left behind, but never really forgotten. Haunting their thoughts with the rest of the clutter they couldn’t save.

I’m okay with it, or at least I’ve grown to be. I always thought I’d be shown off somewhere upstairs. Presented to guests like a gift of gold.

They never got around to putting up their wedding pictures he’d said.

And now, he never will. At least not me. My only company is the other photos left to ruins, and the mouse that sometimes chews on the twine trapping us in our box.

But I guess there are worse things in the world.