The Deluge

The front door's frame was swollen, the hinges rusted, so we stopped closing it. The shingles were rotten. On those rare occasions that the rain briefly stopped, and the sun had the nerve to show its face, the attic floor became a night sky under our feet, complete with overflowing bucket galaxies amid our secret constellations and ruined book asteroid belts. The windows on all floors, the mirrors in every room, the crystal glasses, and every last piece from the china cabinet: we smashed it all. The Macassar Ebony hardwood was littered with glass shards and rotting food, empty bottles of imported wine and beer, cigarette filters and their washed-out packs all floating or sinking in sickly brown standing water.
I taped an m-80 to the television in our room. It was the first time I had laughed in months. You took a sledgehammer to one of the guestrooms and found asbestos. We waded it into balls and threw them at each other in a malignant snowball fight. We razed the room with molotov cocktails and then tore our hair out in frustration. Everything was so saturated, and the asbestos so effective, the room refused to burn.
Before the rain started, we bought matching designer rainslickers; dayglo yellow numbers with matching boots for his and stilettos for hers. We thought it would be cute. Weeks after it had started and we came to accept that this deluge wasn't ending, "not now, not never," she said. Seeing her in that microfiber hood and her stilleto rain boots made me uncomfortable and self-conscious. I started staring at my boots when we were in the same room.
It's been six months since we last spoke, eight months since the rain started. Stuck in this decaying mansion, the water up to our waists. We, beyond words, so sickly stuck, with nothing left to break, and nothing new to yell. No more ways to say "I love you", "I hate you." Absolutely nothing that can rekindle a flame in this marriage, with so much water and stagnation and destruction. We are complacent to the point of madness now. So here I will sit, strapped to this bloated recliner with the water at my chin. And here I will wait for the rain to stop or the world to end.