From Our Bones Will Blossom Coral Reef Kingdoms

by Timothy Boudreau

Dmytro Bukhantsov

The day the oceans were supposed to overflow the repairman finally arrived to fix Pearl’s roof. When Sandy saw him from next door she went over to join Pearl in her yard. The man was working alone, crouched on the roof with a hammer and shingles.

“Nice-looking guy,” Sandy pointed out.

“He’s like a Hollywood idea of what a roofer looks like,” Pearl said. Like Sandy she already wore her boots and a bright yellow jacket. “Like they hired a handsome actor to play the role, and they hung a tool belt around him and smudged fake dirt on his cheeks.”

“At least he’s making progress,” Sandy said, looking down their road, which dipped at the end, the direction the ocean would be coming from, when it came. “Seems like a lost cause though?”

“Figures this would be the day they’d show up,” Pearl said.

*

The local radio station had gone off the air with the Wi-Fi and everything else, so they listened to a bluegrass CD on Pearl’s boombox while she served their tea. “Frank already left,” Pearl said. She stirred maple syrup and bourbon into hers. “Should’ve known he’d go running off to his kids.”

“Did you guys,” Sandy began. “I mean was there a fight or—”

“No, I just told him how I thought it would be. And he said, ‘I have to get to my kids, maybe we’ll survive.’”

“What did you say?”

“I said, ‘You’re gonna do what you’re gonna do.’”

The repairman was hammering away, Sandy could feel it in her solar plexus. “But shouldn’t we—I mean all of us—be looking for higher ground? Honestly I don’t care— you know—” she winced as she touched her throat — “with my situation and everything I figured why not, I’ll ride it out.” She reached for her cup. “We’re pretty high up. When it gets bad I’ll just swim as long as I can. I mean, they said don’t expect rescue boats, right? They said not even if you’re one of the lucky ones who bought a flotation device before there weren’t any left.”

Water had begun to seep into the kitchen from the direction of the living room—no more than an inch. They lifted their feet, rested their boots on the rungs of their chairs. “Might be an interesting way to go.”

“Better than chemo my dear,” Pearl said. I know I’ll pay a high price at the end of my life, the bluegrass singer was crooning, over a bed of plucked strings. “Besides there is no higher ground.”

*

They heard seagull cries, echoing whale songs from distant depths. Dolphins played in the yard, leaping and twisting out of the water, and something with larger fins circled, still submerged. The ocean was up to the second story, so the three of them sat on the roof, watching the marlins, new arrivals, bounding across the waves where the road used to be.

“Nice job on the roof,” Pearl said.

The repairman’s name was Lance, and he was even more handsome up close: a chin as if chiseled out of granite, and something twinklingly pleased with itself in his sea-blue eyes.

“Thank you.” He looked across the water. “I had to rush a little.”

“We’re impressed you’re even here,” Sandy said.

“My wife already left for her sister’s up in Crawford. Figured I’d just do my scheduled jobs.”

He shook his head. “Jesus, I still can’t believe they were right about all this.”

“They said North Carolina got a lot of starfish,” Sandy said. “Last thing I heard on the news before we lost the station.”

Lance reached into the bag of grapes. “Amazing.”

“Big ones,” Sandy said. “Like they wrapped all five legs around people’s heads.”

“Wait, what’s that music we’re hearing?” Pearl said. “I heard the whales before, but this seems different.”

The new melody sparkled; it reminded Sandy of sun glistening on wet seaweed. It wasn’t quite as if someone were singing, but close. “Mermaids?” she giggled. “Lord I hope there are mermaids.”

“My wife’ll be pissed, but sure,” Lance said, tossing a grape into the water, where a scaly burnt-orange fish jumped up to eat it.

“We might need those later you know,” Sandy said, gesturing toward the grapes, the apples, the cookies she’d grabbed before they climbed up, when the water had begun to rise in earnest. “We ought to conserve, don’t you think so, Pearl?”

Pearl’s lips tightened; Sandy watched the reflection of the waves in the darkness of her eyes. “Look at all that water,” Pearl said, “it’s rising all the time.” Her head turned as a pod of orcas broke above the water in unison, swirled into formation and began circling the house. “Sorry dear but I’d say if we want a snack we’d better eat it now.”

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Timothy Boudreau’s recent work appears in Reflex Press, Cease, Cows, and MonkeyBicycle, and has been nominated for Best Microfiction and a Pushcart Prize. His collection Saturday Night and other Short Stories is available through Hobblebush Books. Find him on Twitter at @tcboudreau or at timothyboudreau.com.