Many years ago, when I was in my gap year, I went to work in a shop fairly far from home. Having only a bicycle, I had to take several buses to get to work. I had no idea what I wanted to do in life, and the year off gave me a bit of break from thinking constantly about my future. It also got me out of the house and my mother’s constant thinking about what I was going to do with my life. The long bus ride to work afforded me the opportunity to read, or observe or just let my mind wander. Work started around mid-morning and ended at a decent hour. But as summer stretched in fall and then winter, it was dark by the time I left for home.

In the shop, I worked with a woman who had probably worked since she was a child. She knew nothing but work. Her name was Ruth. My mother called her “poor white trash.” It was just the two of us in the store, so I was able to watch Ruth and how she interacted with people. She was courteous, but not overly friendly. She was not a beauty, probably never had been. She wasn’t even what you would call handsome. Her waistline was bigger than her bust, much bigger. Her hair, a washed out ginger colour, was not so much curled as churned. She always wore the same jumper that couldn’t button in the front. It looked as if she found in a charity shop and hadn’t tried it on before buying it. She was fond of cotton dresses. The prints were faded and the edges worn. She wore thick support stockings and sturdy shoes. She was on her feet all day and her shoes were the one thing that she obviously spent money on: nothing fancy, just good support in brown or black.

I was young, shallow, and arrogant: a truly hideous combination. I had a terrible habit of judging people by their appearances. Since I found her appearance objectionable, I wasn’t well-disposed to liking her. Unfortunately, for her, she wasn’t the brightest. We had nothing in common and nothing to talk about. When business was slow and we were just doing the rote things like inventory control, she would drone on about her life and her children and her grandchildren. Having met these same children and feeling that perhaps there had been too much inbreeding there, I couldn’t say much. I would nod and think to myself, “stupid cow.”

Ruth smoked. There were times when things were slow, when she would step outside and have her ciggie. She had to have her ciggie. These were good times for me. If things were very slow, I would read. This transported me. I was happy.

It was on a cold winter day that we were told that an earthen reservoir to the east of us was about to burst its banks. The weather had been clear, it was the construction that was at fault. I hadn’t even known that there was a reservoir. Ruth had pointed eastward as she was puffing on her first smoke of the day, “It’s up there, somewhere.” The story of the breach had been on the news since soon after we’d opened. Our shop was on the south side of what nowadays would be called a “big box” store. It stood at the corner of a very busy intersection with a parking lot surrounding the store and between us and the east-west street. We called the headquarters of the chain to see if we should close up, but since we had been assured by the city services that the water, if it were to come, would only be a couple of inches in depth, we were told to stay put. We did as we were told. Someone brought sandbags, but Ruth wouldn’t let them be put in front of the door because people could trip over them she said. I suspected the “people” she was worried about was herself.

In the mid-afternoon, Ruth stepped outside to have a ciggie. It was the second week in December and I wondered how she could stand it out there in the cold. Never having smoked, I didn’t appreciate her addiction. What happened next was something I’ll never forget. There was a lone customer in the shop. She was 8 months pregnant. Ruth lit her ciggie and looked eastward. I was facing west, looking at the customer. The customer’s expression went from happy to horrified. I turned around just in time to see Ruth drop her ciggie and leaning over the counter and looking sideways out the window, I could see what they both were looking at: a 20-foot wall of water was heading right for us.

What happened next went almost like clockwork. It was as if we had rehearsed it. Ruth moved faster than I had ever seen her. She round the doorway and shut and locked the door. She headed for the cash drawer and scooped up all the cash and put it in the bank deposit bag. Ruth leaned out the back door and yelled to someone. Suddenly a man appeared at the back door on the west side of the building with a very tall ladder. She got us outside and shut the back door. With Ruth directing, we were all up the ladder and on to the roof before you could say, “Bob’s your uncle.” The ladder washed away before we could get it up.

The water rushed around us and continued down the street. It came up almost to the top of the wall. It took everything in its path with it. One Asian family had decided to stay in the bed of their lorry. In my mind’s eye, I can still see them floating down the street holding on to the sides. They were petrified, but all we could do was watch them. Shopping trollies floated and bobbed around as if they were toys in some gigantic childs’ play set. The water burst through the windows of our little store. It burst through the glass front doors of the big box store. It raged and roared. Then, it took all of the colour from the day. The whole world went to shades of grey. At about this point, the pregnant woman and I decided that we would be close forever after this.

There were quite a few of us on the roof, but not nearly as many as there had been in the big store. We knew that there were hundreds of holiday shoppers who were trapped in the big store, or dead. We moved to the front of the roof and sat and waited for the water to subside. Knowing that at some point the reservoir would empty itself, there was nothing to do but wait. The grey sun went down and night came. Suddenly it was so very quiet. No more raging water, no more torrents. Just a deathly still. There was no one down below. the earth was covered in mud as far as the eye could see.

Eventually, fire trucks came and got us down. Then, it was a question of where to go. We were thigh-deep in muck. Just before we started walking away, I looked back at the big store. The glass doors at the front entrance were gone, replaced with a solid wall of mud.

The three of us who had been in our little store started walking. We weren’t sure where, but we needed to get out of there. Someone came along and said that there was a radio station up the street that had escaped the floodwaters and was letting people use their phones to call loved ones and/or cabs. We trudged up to the station through the muck. There were railroad tracks just before the station. The raised bed of track had kept the water confined to our side. We didn’t realize until we got there just how few of us there were. The lobby was not packed, as we had expected, it was nearly empty. The receptionist let us use the phone. I called home.

There was no answer. I let it ring and ring. Not wanting to wait for phantoms, I called my cousin Sylvia. She was watching the coverage on the telly. “Oh, Gawd that newsman with the trench coat is out there covering this as if it were a war zone, for crying out loud!” “And my mother?” I asked. “She’s checking the morgues for your body. Truth to tell, I think she’s hoping to find you there.” I wouldn’t doubt this; my mother had recently taken out an insurance policy on me. She stood to collect a decent amount in the event of my untimely demise. Usually people take insurance on themselves for their children’s benefit, not the other way ‘round. “Well, since she’s not available, do you think you might pick me up? Oh, and you’d better bring some towels, I’m covered in mud.” My cousin came and picked me up, talking the whole time about the newsman with the trenchcoat and my mother’s morbid quest for my body. I went home and took a shower and threw my clothes away. When my mother got home she seemed surprised to see me. Then, she made a scene about how happy she was. She was never a good actress.

The owner of the little shop was very impressed with the fact that Ruth had the presence of mind to grab the cash. Since the inventory would be covered by insurance, he was quite pleased to get a new store out of it. As there was no store to go back to for the time being, I never saw Ruth again. I took classes at a community college the next February, and then went off to university in the fall. I never saw the pregnant woman again. I did go back to look at the store once it had been restored. They said that only 2 people had died, but I knew better. That’s why I never believe death tolls; especially when someone has a vested interest in keeping the number down. Finally, I’ve never thought anyone a ‘stupid cow’ ever again.