“Help me,” he moaned, thrashing in his sleep. “Save me! Save us! Take them too! Don’t leave them! No!” He ended with a high pitched wail that set all of the neighborhood dogs to barking.

His eyes flew open, but he didn’t move. He stared at the ceiling for a moment, but didn’t really see it. His mind was lovingly caressing two dear, wonderful faces. Faces he would never see again. He began to sob.

Then, swiftly, he got out of bed and began to dress. Black pants, shirt, socks, and shoes– he didn’t even think about the color he was choosing. It just seemed right.

Two months. Two horrible, excruciatingly painful months had gone by. The city was dry again. It was even in the middle of a drought. People were beginning to forget. But he would never forget the water.

No one thought the dam would break. It’s been there for years, they said. Why would it break now? But the torrents kept falling, and break it did.

He walked alongside the river, trying not to remember its killing power as it bore down on the riverside houses. His had been one of the first hit when the walls of water came. He had just arrived home from work; he was, in fact, just getting out of the car. They were coming out to greet him, running and smiling. And then the water came.

He remembered the screaming, the thrashing, the wailing, and the fighting. He had managed to catch hold of a log and was trying desperately to catch sight of them when he was rescued. The rescue team tried to calm his incessant raving. They would do their best, they told him, but no one else had been near when he was pulled out. The likelihood of survival was slim.

Their bodies were found a week later. Identifying them was the cruelest torture he had ever been through. They had been his life. Now they were gone.

He stood in the middle of the bridge and forced himself to look down into the water. It had sucked his life away in less than an hour. Now it could have him, too.

He jumped.