Rain had come fiercely that night, drumming on the roofs as if trying to break them open, turning dirt alleys into muddy torrents instantly. Deep within the sprawling city slums—a place hidden beneath glittering towers and bustling streets—lay stories that people preferred to ignore. It was here, among the forgotten, that floodwaters rose swiftly, mercilessly devouring everything—homes, memories, and sometimes lives.
It was late afternoon when she told me the story. The bar around us hummed gently with the quiet rhythms of a rainy day—spoons stirring mugs, muted conversations punctuated by distant laughter, the soft clink of dishes being cleared from nearby tables. A faint aroma of damp earth and coffee lingered in the air. She sat opposite to me, her hands folded calmly on the table, knuckles pale against her bronze skin, eyes fixed on something beyond my shoulder, perhaps a point in the past only she could see clearly.
“You know,” she began quietly, “it happened during the flood. It wasn’t long ago, actually. But in a way, it feels as if it happened in another life.”
I waited, watching her carefully. Her gaze remained steady.
“We were on the roof,” she continued, her voice almost a whisper. “Everyone had to be, back then. The water rose faster than anyone imagined. One minute, it was just lapping at the doorway; the next, it swallowed our streets whole. Furniture floated past, tangled with clothing and debris. Everything we owned was either submerged or carried away by the relentless current.”
She paused, collecting herself, and I noticed the slight tremble in her fingers as she lifted the cup to her lips, sipping tea she had long since allowed to grow cold.
“My husband had vanished quietly months before—he had his reasons, I suppose,” she said without resentment, only acceptance, as if speaking of the weather. “And there I was, alone with my six children. The youngest was still an infant, barely three months old.”
Her eyes flicked up to meet mine for the first time, filled with the quiet intensity of someone who has seen beyond the edges of what life usually reveals.
“When the water came, it came suddenly. We climbed onto the roof. The children were frightened, of course, crying and holding each other tightly. I held the baby close, feeling its warmth against my chest, feeling the gentle pulse of its heart, whispering prayers I wasn’t sure anyone would hear.”
Her voice grew softer, almost silent, as she admitted, “The current tore through, fierce, unforgiving. And then—then it took my baby.” Her voice broke slightly but regained its steadiness. “I saw it clearly. I could’ve jumped. I could’ve reached for my child. But if I did…” Her words trailed off, leaving silence heavy with the unspoken: that terrible realization that if she had moved, all her children might have vanished into the flood.
She exhaled softly, a breath that seemed to echo in the silence between us. “So I stayed. Held onto the others. And let the water take what it wanted.”
We sat there quietly afterward, the weight of her story settling into the space around us, heavy yet strangely gentle, like a winter fog descending upon a quiet town. The small room closed in around us, the world beyond becoming distant and unreal.
Listening, I realized her story was one among countless others—each tragedy quietly carried by those who lived through them. Perhaps, in a way, we all carry fragments of these burdens, silent echoes of choices we hope never to make.
Later, walking back through rain-slicked streets illuminated by the muted glow of streetlights, her words remained with me, suspended delicately between sorrow and acceptance, an echo of the things we carry silently inside.
I don’t know what to make of this story. I’m narrating it this way because it’s not just one woman’s story—it’s everyone’s, yet nobody’s in particular. I heard a very similar story when I was a kid, and again, on the other side of the globe, the echoes returned to me. I’m not here to preach or to despair; I’m simply putting it here as honestly as I can.
We parted ways quietly, and she returned to the world that shaped her, vanishing into the gentle gloom of evening rain. I stayed behind with her words, feeling humbled, haunted, and compelled to share them, hoping someone might listen and help carry a fragment of her burden.
Radical Human 