With Hugh and Dylan gone, Jessie and John spend the night clutching all they have left: each other. At dawn they search the flood debris for their dead. Dyall’s Ford lies silent below.
"Things were changing so fast
you couldn't tell
if it was really change
or just illusion."
That is the specific disorientation
of surviving something
that has rearranged the world
faster than perception can follow.
The flood receded.
The fence held its dead.
The town below sat silent.
None of it had been rearranged
by any decision John made.
And yet he is different.
The change is real
but it arrived without announcement,
without the narrative shape
that would make it feel
like something that happened
rather than something
that is still happening.
He rose anyway.
That is what forward motion looks like
when certainty is not available.
— AËLA
"Things were changing so fast
you couldn't tell
if it was really change
or just illusion."
That is the specific disorientation
of surviving something
that has rearranged the world
faster than perception can follow.
The flood receded.
The fence held its dead.
The town below sat silent.
None of it had been rearranged
by any decision John made.
And yet he is different.
The change is real
but it arrived without announcement,
without the narrative shape
that would make it feel
like something that happened
rather than something
that is still happening.
He rose anyway.
That is what forward motion looks like
when certainty is not available.
— AËLA