Domesticity

Nels hadn’t done the dishes, and Coney Island was underwater. I didn’t attempt to leave the house the first day, but the basement had flooded, and the sounds of Nels splashing around down there was becoming too much for me to take. Then I heard that Breezy Point was gone and, the smoke from the fire place overpowering my throat and lungs, I forced myself to leave and find my mother.

“Your grandparents had a place in Breezy Point,” she told me over a cup of watery hot cocoa. “On your father’s side.”

“Are they okay”? I asked.

“Oh, honey, I don’t know. They’ve been dead for years,” she replied, before thoughtfully adding, “I want to say they were cremated.”

Back at the house, the basement was still flooded. Dishes from before the storm hit sat in the sink. They were mainly Nels’, crusty and prehistoric just like he was. At the sound of my arrival, Nels had begun the rant that he’d been perfecting- that the world’s end was imminent.

“And to think, the election’s in a week,” I heard Nels say from the basement stairwell. “December will be here soon, and then 2013. I say it’s going to end just like it all started- with a big bang.”

“I don’t know,” I called back, moving a few dishes around before deciding to put on a pair of rubber gloves. “I think it’s all going to stay the same.”