The Great Flood

The Great Flood

Corbin still remembered that winter, the great flood of 2002. He could still picture the water, its trail of cleansing destruction. He still laughed at the thought. In actual fact the flood was his favourite story from his time at Maple Grove.

Number two of his top three was the time he caught a kid drawing on his front door with a marker pen, Corbin had sent the young vandal home with a Hitler moustache, a pirate’s eye patch and a lesson he would never forget. Completing the top three was the occasion when he had found a guy pissing through his letter box. When Corbin had sneaked up to the door and yelled “Hey!” the hasty withdrawal of the, still urinating, member had caused the letter box to clamp shut. The backwards motion only tightened its grip. The culprit must have had an interesting trip to A & E, Corbin felt there had been punishment enough so had made no further retaliations. Despite the competition The Great Flood had maintained its hold of the top spot.

It was Christmas and the block of flats was occupied by young people – couples, students, bachelors and bachelorettes - of course they all went to spend Christmas with their families, leaving the building empty. In fact the only resident who didn’t fit the general demographic was the middle-aged divorcee in number 6 and he was on his annual Christmas trip to Thailand to fuck young girls or boys, or both.

It seemed, as the residents shared a common thought as they made their respective preparations. It went something like this ‘The neighbours will leave their heating on, that will keep the place frost free.’ The poor, naïve, cheap, unfortunate bastards! Corbin had known better or, at least, had realised he was sharing a building with such skin flints.

The soon to be refugees had begun returning home on Boxing Day to be greeted by a magnificent stairwell water fall. Under different circumstances they may have been proud of the communal effort, working together, making equal contributions; what good neighbours. However, this was not the time for pride or celebration. Pipes had burst in all nine of the unheated flats, number ten (our hero’s abode) was on the top floor, safe from the torrent and radiating its heat up to heaven. There he sat, feeling like Noah in his great Ark, minus a few shipmates obviously.

Adrian, number 3, opened the door to a world where kitty sailed by on his litter box raft. Each flat was a tributary of the communal waterfall; carpets squelched and splashed underfoot, sparks popped and fizzed from electrical appliances. Under the door of number 6 floated several sheets displaying various incriminating images forming a horrifying makeshift travel brochure for his little expedition. The divorcee would live to regret not fitting a draft excluder!

Noah’s flood went on for forty days and forty nights. This one lasted 2 hours until a (very expensive - it was Boxing Day remember) plumber was organised, and nobody had the front to ask for a contribution from number 10. The clean up, of course, took longer, as did finding a new tenant for number 6.

THE END