The rain has been falling non-stop for the past two days. Sometimes it fell heavily, and other times it fell lightly; but heavily, or lightly, it did not stop. Our yard, neighbours’ yards, and the street were flooded with rain and trench water.

James, my fifteen-year-old brother, as he looked through our louvres window, said, in his deep, cracking voice, “God is flooding the world!”

“No, He’s not,” my thirteen-year-old sister, who was watching Cartoon Network on the T.V, instantly replied.

“Yes, He is. We are all going to die,” he responded, turning from the window to look at her.

“James, stop scarring your sister,” my Mom, who was watching dishes in the kitchen of our rented house, said.

“Mom, it is true, come and see for yourself. The water is higher today than it was yesterday.”

“Yes,” my Mom replied, “but that’s because the road drainage is not working properly.”

“Yes,” my sister chimed in, “and Mary, my friend, her yard and street are not flooded. So, if God is going to flood us out, they would be flooded out too!”

“Well, I believe God is flooding the world or part of it at least. Do you guys hear what they say about global warming and everything?”

“Mom,” my sister called, dragging out the word, “he is doing it again.”

“Doing what?” my brother asked, frowning.

“You are joining things together without proof that they relate to each other. Where’s the proof that global warming is proof that God is flooding any part of the world?” my sister said, turning her light brown, oval-shaped face to look at him.

“You don’t see it?” he asked, walking away from the window.

“There’s nothing to see! All I want to do is watch my show,” my sister replied, turning away from him.

“Fine,” James said, throwing himself into the chair next to her, “but don’t come crying to me when it’s too late.”

“Then fine. I will not.”

“Fine,” James said.

Later that day, between eight-thirty and nine P.M, the confident tapping on the housetop stopped, and the following morning, although the sun did not come out in its full force, it was out. It also brought with it some forceful breeze that stayed for no more than five minutes now and then.

Some recognizable vehicles made their way slowly through the creamish-brown dirty water that our street now housed. However, by the end of the work day, the trenches were the only places housing water.

“So,” my sister said to James as we sat at the dinner table that evening, “I thought God is flooding parts of the world through global warming.”

“Don’t start your brother up,” my Mom warned before biting into her corn.

“Yeah,” James said, “don’t start me up, but since you have, the flooding did not happen this time, but global warming still has something to do with all that rain.”

“Whatever,” my sister said, dismissing him with her free hand.

“Watch your language,” my Mom said to my sister.

James laughed before bringing the glass of Pepsi filled with ice to his lips, and my sister stretched out her tongue at him.

We ate quietly for a few minutes before James said, “oh, did you guys hear that the people who moved in down the street are drug dealers?”

“Where did you hear that?” my Mom asked.

“My friends texted me. The cops raided their house a few days back and found all sorts of weapons.”

“Really?” my Mom asked, chewing her food, “but they seem like such nice people.”

“They have a daughter around my age, and she is nice. She goes to my school, and we talked a few times.”

“Did she try selling you drugs?” James asked, leaning forward.

“Nooo. Why would she?”

James threw himself backwards.

“Aren’t you listening to me? They are drug dealers, they sell people drugs, so you keep away from her.”

“How do you know they are drug dealers? You said that the cops found weapons and nothing about finding drugs.”

“Yea, but like they say, where there are weapons, they are drugs. The two go hand in hand.”

“Mom,” my sister said, putting down her stainless steel fork and looking over at her, “please do something once and for all about James always connecting things that have nothing to do with each other.”

“Mom, don’t listen to her. People who smuggle weapons also smuggle drugs, just like drinking alcohol comes with smoking cigarettes.”

My Mom looked from one of them to the other as she chewed, and when she stopped chewing, she picked up another forkful of food and chewed that too.

“Don’t you agree with me, Sis?” James asked, looking at me as I wiped my hands on a white paper towel I’d pulled from the brown towel holder on the table.

The End

A. M. Linton is a wife and mother of two. She is also the author of Torn Between Love, Religion and Responsibility, A Little on Puberty for Boys and A little on Symptoms Associated with Menopause. A few of her short stories were also published in The Barbados Advocate Newspaper.