Windows

         “Don’t go near the windows!”
Those fated words swam around her, floating through an infinite darkness. Shards of broken glass grazed her skin though she felt no pain. Don’t go near the windows, the words called to her faintly like a cry swept away on the wicked winds. A tiny hole of light penetrated the blackness and instinctively, Mavis moved towards it. She abandoned all fear and doubt and committed to the air of finality in the ebony abyss. The windows had burst; there was no turning back now.


         St. Rita’s Retirement home was empty and hollow like a ghost town. Most of the facilities 395 residents had been evacuated before the storm crammed onto tiny busses and shuttled away only to overheat and break down on the jam-packed expressway. 75 year-old Mavis Boudreaux however, refused to leave. She watched her neighbors be carried away through the window, some crying and screaming and others so medicated they knew no better. So Mavis, one doctor, two nurses and five orderlies along with fifteen other elderly residents huddled together in the cafeteria when the power went out, turning the dials on a battery powered radio. The signal faded in and out with the whoops and whines of the wind outside.
         Joe Landry began to cry when drops of rain fell on him from the hole in the roof. The frightful scraping sounds of the shingles as they were ripped from the roof and sent skipping away scared Mavis more than the threat of the invading water that plummeted towards them from the ashen clouds and oozed in from the crack under the door. She asked Nurse Joann to place her chair by the window but Joann refused.
         “Don’t go near the windows, Miss. Mavis” Nurse Joanne declared. “Those things could explode when the pressure drops.” And although she tried bravely to hide it, Mavis could hear the trembling of the young nurses’ breath. So, when everyone was busy sopping up the water with bed sheets and towels, with trembling hands and deteriorated muscles she dragged the heavy chair over to the window and planted herself in it.
         Outside was a dismal, leaden scene. The sky was a weak shade of coal green and the water had risen to cover the porch of the house across the street. The vicious 160 mph winds lashed at the sodden trees and tore some up from the roots. It drove the rain in sideways and spiraled it up and down. Mavis saw a drenched dog treading down the river that was once a street, whimpering with exhaustion and desperation.
         Something cold and wet kissed her toes. She looked down and saw brown water lapping at the white baseboard. Behind her the shouting grew louder,
         “You have to ring it out first James!”
         “I’m doing the best I can!”
         “Quit arguing and keep working”
         “These towels aren’t cutting it anymore. Lou, go get some pots from the kitchen!”
         She could hear Joe whimpering again, and now someone else began to moan anxiously. Mavis turned her attention back to the window and plucked her hearing aid earpiece out with graceless, throbbing fingers. She didn’t care to hear anymore. Her eardrums were beginning to ache.
         Watching the rain outside kind of hypnotized her, it always did. She often let her mind wander, unfettered by the everyday worries of life that had plagued her in her younger years. It was meditation, a calmness she found in the spotted vertical pattern of the raindrops and the soothing emptiness of the blurry tree leaves as they convulsed on their branches. She had no more plans to make, no husband to care for, no children to provide for and no time to worry about any of it anymore. Who knew how many more storms she would live to see? It was in the sweet release, she found the most gratification. In her new found ability to just let go, to relinquish control, and surrender to the inherent nature of the world.
         Perhaps that’s why she had little reaction when the water that had once encircled her heels, now lapped at her knees. The sweet, musky fragrance of the Indian summer rain invaded her nostrils, enchanted her brain and carried her away. She was seven years old, sitting with her father on the porch swing of her childhood home. His tobacco and whiskey saturated breath shrouded her like a warm, woolen blanket. She could always find him on the porch, watching the rain, content for hours at a time.
         In July of 1938, the air was always pregnant with heat and humidity. The water broke around noon everyday, in a heavy shower of summer rain. Her Mother was scared the rain would infect her with a cold, and so she spent nearly every lunch hour not catching lizards with her friends or swimming in the creek out back, but imprisoned inside. The rain was magical and soothing to her. She remembered vividly that day when her Daddy scooped her in his arms and sat her on his lap in his chair on the porch. They both fell asleep that day, watching the rain skate down the surface of the screen.
         A clanging of metal from behind her ripped the memory away from her and sent it floating away on the surface of the water that surrounded her thighs. She turned her head and saw the orderlies tearing the doors open to escape. Mavis frowned and looked down at her wet lap, the water level was rising more rapidly now. There had been a levee breach outside somewhere, she was sure of it. She wondered how long it would take before nurse Joanne and the others came to get them and rescue them to the roof, where they would inevitably be left and forgotten.
         Outside the droplets hit the flooded streets and formed concentric circles on the waters surface. Mavis’s eyes fell on these circles and quickly unfocused. Mavis let her mind wander off again, back to that eternal summer. Camilla Marsolan held her hand and told her not to be afraid of the beehives. The muddy, icy water of the creek soaked her shoes and splashed up her legs.
         Her view turned into a veritable aquarium scene as the murky water rippled and the glass began to creak. Back she went, deep within the avenues of her memory. How handsome and proud her Nathaniel looked in his tuxedo as she tiptoed down the aisle, a groom fit for a princess. How he laughed wholeheartedly, with his whole being so that not a soul could resist the urge to join in. How peaceful he looked as he lay in his coffin. The smell of the bayou in the morning, the softness of the air that blew in from lands unknown the impressionist strokes of sun across the undulating river.
         “Mavis!” faintly the call came from behind her. “Get away from that window. We have to get out of here”
Mavis heard and did not hear. She felt the water around her chest, but felt no fear. She regarded the world around her with the detached eye of her mind, saw but did not care. It was too late to care now. Time had played its last cruel trick on her. Time had lured her with a bait of memories and moments and then drowned her in the pool of its belly.
         The velvety steel of her Fathers cheek as he nuzzled her. Mothers’ sweetly dripping honey coated voice as she sang lullabies. The light tickle of lizard feet pattering over her forearm. Nathaniel’s natural scent, a wonderful mixed aroma of sweet and musk like a sweaty peach. A tiny crack in the window began to spread like a spider stretching its legs. Cascades of water beat against the tenuous glass like a wronged lover. The crack of an electric charge across the sky, the ground trembling in its wake, and then the loud hush of the divine water falling from the heavens themselves.
         From far away she felt a strong hold, a pulling sensation and she was powerless against it. It was the sound, the shattering of the glass, that made her tear her eyes open. The last earthly sight her eyes would behold: an explosion of water racing in to carry her off.
         The next few moments lasted an eternity. A fresh burst of release as the heavy tugging let her go. An exotic weightlessness caught her and wrapped her tightly. The darkness overwhelmed her and spun her. There was a light sensation of burning in her lungs. The monstrous whale of time freed her body from the aches and pains of old age, loosening the knotted joints and erasing her wrinkles. She saw a pinhole of light looming in the distance, rippling through the ocean of time that lay before her. Mavis heard a voice calling from a distant land, the windows... Far behind, Nurse Joanne frantically treading water, her eyes searching wildly. Forward, the light was growing, calling, beckoning and Mavis, eager to reach the end of all the pain and worry, set off to meet it.