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UER Forum > Journal Index > Straight snailin' > Concrete, pt. 2 (Viewed 1275 times)
Concrete, pt. 2
entry by AnAppleSnail 
1/8/2011 4:27 AM

Rising Flood
Another short fiction

This is one of those storms that turn the afternoon dark and wake the streetlights up before any civil suppertime. The Carolina saw about 'You don't like the weather? Wait a few minutes and it'll change' prove again to be true – and catch me without an umbrella for the second time this week. The project presentation today went well at least – getting rained on now won't matter much, except that my Dockers take ages to dry. And peeling them off once they're wet is like shedding a cold and wet snake skin. I set off for home, watching the sky. It’s quiet out except for a rising breeze. Most people have headed out of town for the weekend already.

My project has something to do with storms. More particularly, with the rainwater. When the rain falls on campus, nobody wants inch-deep puddles. Instead of having the entire grounds slope like a roof, there are drains and gutters taking the water to the river. Our project is a design for improving the city's drainage. Most of the project has been calculating grades and flood rates for the city. A surprising amount of water falls every time it rains. For example, an inch of rain on an acre of land is 27000 gallons of water to dispose of. Since downtown and the campus have about 250 acres of paved land, quite a lot of water has to be removed to keep the sidewalks dry after a storm. This inch of water on 250 acres requires a pair of 16-foot concrete pipes to reduce back pressure, which stops water flow through the system. Most of the year these are quiet, but the drains are built for days like today that threaten immense rainfall.

It's a long way home and I'm curious if I'll make it before the sky follows up on its threats. Even if I won't meet much of that 270000 gallons of water per inch-acre, I'd like to get home dry. One thing I won't miss when I graduate is a lack of a parking spot – with what they charge for 'em on campus it'd be cheaper taking a taxi ever other day. The wind’s picking up, raising a rattle from the dead leaves on the ground. On the way up the hill I hear –

“Meow! Meowr!”

It’s coming from under a grate in the gutter by the sidewalk.

“Meooooooooooooow?”

It doesn’t really sound like a cat. I step up to the grate and peer in. The failing daylight doesn’t reach very far into the darkness below the grate.

“Mew Meooooowww hee hee heee.”

Definitely not a cat! I see a face in there staring up at me. A young face, looking about twelve, standing next to the ladder rungs jammed into the wall of the small chamber he’s in.

“Mew, mew! Haha, I fooled you! What would a cat be doing in here?”

“Hey, uh. What are you doing in there, kid?” He’s in a tunnel, one of the campus drains. The grate will let rainwater spill in from the road when it rains.

“Don’t call me kid! And I’m hiding in here.”

“Oh, hide and seek,” I ask? I look up at the looming sky.

“No, just hiding. I’m Jeffrey. Want a balloon kid? Haha, I saw that in a movie.”

He shouldn’t be in the drains with a storm coming. I haven’t heard what happens to people who are in them, but it can’t be healthy to be in a pipe half-full of racing water! “Hi Jeffrey. Listen, do you know what happens in the drain when it rains?”

“This isn’t a train, it’s a secret tunnel, silly!”

“Uh, Jeffrey, did you come in there from a ditch?”

“Yeah, how’dya know?”

“That tunnel is a drain, for rainwater, and it’s about to rain.”

“So?”

“Well a whole bunch of water will be coming through really fast.”

“Like a water slide? Neat!”

No, not like a water slide. The kid could be badly hurt in there. “Nope, not like a water slide. You should go home. It’s about to rain and you could get hurt badly in there.”

“Like, now? But…”

“What? I’m not kidding, you shouldn’t play in floodwaters. They’re bad news.”

“Uh, ok. Hey, it’s almost dinnertime aint’ it? Bye!”

I watch him scurry away from the beam of weak light coming in the grate. I keep on down the hill towards home. That storm’s not going to wait for anything. I hope he hurries too.

I guess I got up to similar trouble as a kid. Probably none of the dogs in my neighborhood were the same after I would yodel at them from the little culverts. The mongrels would yelp, sniff closer, and run away. Most of the other kids were afraid of the tunnels going under the road, but me and another kid liked them. Everyone would tell us not to use them for hide and seek, but we still would. I don’t know if my dad ever found out why I carried that Mag Lite with me everywhere, but it sure came in handy.

There’s a line of grates in the gutter next to the sidewalk I’m walking down. Soon they’ll fill with water and kids could race paper boats in the gutter like in that movie, It. In the movie, a group of kids travel through the town sewers to fight a demon thing. All I ever found were spiders and slugs.

Maybe that’s why I’m designing them now. I could have chosen some other projects for my capstone. Even though I hardly ever think of those old tunnels I felt drawn to this project. I wonder what it’d be like to walk down those huge tunnels called for in the downtown project? When it’s not about to pour like this. The clouds are bunching up, looking more like angry gray wool than clouds. Only about a mile left.

“Hey,” says a small, echoing voice. From another grate, the last one in sight.

“Jeffrey?”

“Yeah. Uh. My flashlight broke and I can’t see past here. It’s dark!”

I go to get my little clicky light from my keys, the kind you squeeze hard to turn on – but I left the big tangle of stuff at home for the presentation, along with my phone and Leatherman. “Jeff, I’m gonna try to lift this grate. Duck into the tunnel, because it wouldn’t make a good hat if I drop it.”

“Okay. Is that thunder?”

The thunder rumbled ominously, still distant. But the wind would bring it closer. I kneel in the gutter (Oh well, Dockers can be cleaned) and wrap my hands around the middle bars of the grate. It’s a big chunk of cast iron – about two feet wide and three feet long. I pull. Harder! Nothing. I wrap my hands around one end – and lift as hard as I can. Nothing. I remember when I was a kid, I managed to lift one of these, but it fell right back and knocked me silly. But I could use my legs from under there. “Jeffrey, go back uphill to the next grate. We’ll try from there.”

“But you said the rain was bad, can’t you open it here? It’s a long way back to the last one!”

“I know, but this one’s not moving. C’mon, this should be quick.” I jog uphill, but he’s already there on top of the ladder, looking around for me. Flash! The lightning is closer. I count, one, two, three, four, five, six, se- rrrrrmmble comes the thunder. Just over a mile away. No time at all with this wind.

“Maybe I can help, I can push from here.”

“Uh, ok. Put your feet on the rung there so you can lift with your back. If this thing falls, tuck your head and hang on, okay?”

“Yeah. C’mon!”

I pull. He pushes, straining to stand against the heavy grate. I stare at the DRAINS TO RIVER stamp and try my hardest. I pull at one side – it lifts a bit, but it stops. I can’t get the leverage to lift with my legs here.

“Jeffrey, these are bolted shut. Can you go back out to the ditch? I know it’s dark, but you just did it.”

“But I’m scared. What if there’s a… a…” He trails off about what is lurking, knowing it’s silly but unable to go into the dark.

I hear the thunder, closer behind the flashes that I can now see while talking to Jeffrey. “Jeffrey, it’s the quickest way for you to get out.”

“I, I can’t.”

“Jeffrey, are there any pipes going into the room there from up high?”

“No, just the one onto the road.”

“Jeff, you’re going to have to be brave. I’ll come get you. Stay up high on the ladder, ok? If the rain starts you should be safe there.”

“Okay. Thanks, mister.”

I jog down the hill, hoping I can find the tunnel, and go the right way, and… The road goes downhill then uphill, like a valley. Water goes downhill. At the bottom of the little valley I see a thicket of unmowed grass and trees, the best place to start looking. I hope Jeffrey stays put. He'll be nearly safe there. As for me... I've jogged over what must be the drain with no grates for half a mile now. I can't not want to help him though. It's like the search parties that get hurt or die looking for a missing person. It's inhuman to ignore someone who is lost and alone – especially a kid.

At the scrubby trees, I nearly fall into the ditch. It's one of the urban type, running open for about 50 feet from the uphill concrete pipe and into a corrugated metal one downstream. The trickle of water below me rides over jagged metal, debris strained from some construction site upstream. The trickle flows into darkness downstream into the tar-coated metal pipe. This valley is permeated by a bad petroleum smell, along with a wet musk of something dead. Kids will play in the strangest places sometimes. I hope this is the right one. I haven't heard thunder in a while, but the ditch is probably just blocking the sound.

I work my way over to the concrete pipe. It's about five feet high, with no solid ground around it. Squish squosh, then I have the rough concrete in my hands. In I go, in a half-duck my body remembers from when it was a foot smaller. The tunnel ahead appears completely dark, and the daylight behind me fades quickly. The trickle of the water flowing is currently calm and quiet.

Left right left on the left side of the water in the middle of the pipe, right left right on the right side. Walking this way keeps your feet out of the worst slime and lets you go fast without twisting your ankle, and brings cheerful marches to the head in the gloom. One and a two and a one and a two! The tar smell fades, just leaving the damp smell in the air. Whatever died, died in the other tunnel. The one I could be washed into if the rain goes. A distant rumble penetrates the tunnel – not so distant anymore, for me to hear it in here. The lightning is probably hitting all around aboveground, I hope the rain is running late! I continue in the dark. It takes a special kind of conviction to move forward when you can't see, and all the balance I can manage to leave my hands free to grope in front of me for things in the way. Everything is farther apart underground except the floor and ceiling.

Ahead I see a bit of light – the first grate we tried! I yell ahead “JEFFREY.”

Echoes return “EFFREY, Effry effry.”

I hear “-at” up ahead.

But the trickle is rising, quickly. Now it sounds like a distant waterfall, but coming closer quickly. I shout “STAY THERE” and speed up. The dim light ahead is a taunting reminder of how far I have to go. The shine of light on water shows that it's swelling. Soaked leaves start drifting past, but they're speeding up. I scrape my hand on the wall, drawing blood but I have no time to stop. Now I'm using my hands for balance against the rising water – it's ankledeep now and going fast enough to catch my feet. The rushing water is louder now, all around me. I pass the first grate and race towards the next one where Jeffrey is. It's hard to stand now, like being on shifting sand at the beach as the waves go out. But the concrete is just rough enough to keep pushing, pushing. Just twenty feet! The roar is too loud for me to hear myself, but I shout for Jeffrey again.

My right foot slips and I go down on one knee. Being lower puts more of me in the water, and I barely avoid tumbling. I press my hands on the walls of the pipe. That lets me make it the last few feet into the chamber where I left Jeffrey. He is high on the ladder, clinging with white knuckles, watching me struggle. The grate is still dry. I shout “SEE, WHEN IT RAINS DO NO DRAINS!” I think he nods.

Using my hands to keep my balance, I can't grab the ladder to climb to safety. I inch my feet higher, doing a sort of split to get above more of the rising water. As I get my hand on the rung, water pours down from above. It's cold and grungy, carrying leaves and road trash. But I have the ladder! I pull myself towards it with all my might. If I can make it, we can wait out the storm and walk out. Or maybe I can lift the grate from underneath. But first I have to make aching muscles pull against the pressing water. Almost there, but I won't last long enough this way.

I wildly lunge for the rung with my other hand, losing grip with the loss of downward force. I lock all ten fingers around that rung and feel my feet pulled into the downstream tunnel. Now the current helps me, because I can put my feet on the wall and 'walk' against the current. I make the ladder and climb up next to Jeffrey. I don't have the strength in my arms or legs to try the grate above us. He huddles against me, and I watch the water rushing into the downstream pipe. If it fills up, the water will pile into this chamber and it will flood. But it's designed not to. I trust the engineers, and anyway and there's nothing I can do if that happens.


[last edit 1/15/2011 10:42 PM by AnAppleSnail - edited 1 times]
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UER Forum > Journal Index > Straight snailin' > Concrete, pt. 2 (Viewed 1275 times)


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