Beatus Ille
by beadlety

Yellow rain thundered out of the sky in heavy droplets like tears and acid, rippling and shredding the surface of the water around a small, heavily worn boat adrift in the storm. Green paint had flaked from its sides until almost none remained and its name had long been forgotten. A man sat still, an immobile, shadowy crane, underneath a small makeshift roof that covered the length of the boat. The sinister, insistent, croaking whispers of the torrents around him were the only sounds.

Very slowly, he reached into his pocket, drew out a crumpled cigarette, and lit it with a cheap plastic lighter that he had been lucky enough to find a couple weeks ago.

The rain hadn’t stopped yet. Hadn’t stopped in two months. He took a long draw on his cigarette and leaned back on his heels, arms draped over his knees, his hands limp. His cigarette hung between two sooty fingers, burning faintly, a glowing ember in the bruised darkness around him. From a lone burlap sack near the back of his boat he pulled out a small chocolate bar, and crunched on it in silence, watching the rushing water around him and the tops of buildings, close enough to touch.

The cold crush of the air licked at his skin, at his damp clothes, at his fingers and his hair. Far beneath the surface of the water, cars lay frozen, unmoving like inanimate toys. He peered over the edge of his boat, eyes searching. If he was lucky, he might find some food, some surfaced cellophane-wrapped food that had missed the swirling streams of gasoline in the poisonous water. Food was becoming scarce.

He wondered how many people were dead and how few were alive. How very few, if any. This nightmare, this poisoned, putrid flood, the water so full of the dead and their garbage…

He put his cigarette to his lips and froze, eyes unblinkingly focused on something in the distance. For a moment he didn’t move, suspended in animation like a bug in amber.

A woman was in the water, struggling, clinging to a piece of rotted wood in the filth around her. A trash bag swirled by her head. All that remained of her boat was the crushed hull, smashed up against the side of a building where a vicious current, created by a heavy, funneling concentration of water, had hurtled it.

His cigarette hung between numb lips as he watched her struggling.

She wailed, calling plaintively into the cold air as her arms reached for nothing. Anything. He found himself at the bow of his boat, yelling back. She turned her head and saw him, eyes wide with panic and exhaustion. Struggling toward the boat, she called weakly, helplessly. He was too far away and paddle-less. If he hadn’t run out of gasoline for his boat a month ago, he wouldn’t be this useless, passive observer. He wouldn’t be-

A pale hand reached toward him and sank beneath the surface.

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Word Count: 500, exactly.

Interesting information to give the work more depth:

Flash fiction: establish a scene, have something happen that's profound, use very few words. The limit given to me was 500 words of deliciousness. I went apocalyspe on it.

'Beatus Ille,' the title, is from literary categorizing. Beatus ille has to do with the ideal of the pastoral, away from the madness of city life and humanity. Yay for evil.

Constructive criticism is always welcome!