According to the man at the agency, half a meter’s rainfall over two days was all it took to so loosen the soil the local cemetery gave up its coffins. Dozens of them, he said, dozens of coffins bobbing along half submerged amid the general flow of debris – tables, wardrobes, phone boxes, and so on . . .
And our Rosamie was one of those who survived – by clinging on to the side of one of these floating coffins.
Isn’t that right, Rosa?
We call her Rosa.
She’s very little English. But is picking up, I think. She knows where everything is. A matter of reorienting herself, you might say.
As Matt says, she’s time enough to learn the language of words.
There’s no doubting some things. – Among them, that you take your life in your hands soon as you step out the door. It’s a dangerous business. Especially these days. Rosamie knows this. Out alone is not wise. A handbag thief runs away with your very life: passport, visa papers, the lot.
Anything can happen. It happens all the time. It’s a different sort of jungle, that’s all.
That Rosamie would be coming back with us had something about it of the inevitable.
As Matt said, who could resist?
Had it been a wardrobe she’d clung to, or a desk . . . well, then it might have been a different story . . . But as it was, it wasn’t . . . it was a coffin . . . one of the few that stayed intact. There were others, I’m told, so rotted the lids came off.
Well, you can imagine!
That was it for Matt. He could talk of nothing else. She would be coming back with us, no question. It took a little longer than he’s expected, but . . .
She so has the face, he said. Imagine what you could do with it. I suspect he’d already conceived the main theme. I do recall books on topical customs, river-gods and the like. But that’s Matt. Once an idea takes hold, it’s all there is. Not a man to be diverted, Matt.
He would do Rosamie justice, he said. Even her broken English was perfect. And so falteringly uttered – and in so plaintive a tone it couldn’t fail but move. On a loop her voice would make the very stones sigh. Her words would speak for themselves, he said.
But that was just it. Rosamie she . . .
Matt hadn’t reckoned on her reluctance. To say the words, the ones she’d already spoken. To repeat them. Just . . .
Quite frankly it surprised me too. We are talking words. No actions were required. The sound of hurtling waters would be added later. But try as he might she would have none of it. She’d lost a sister that day was about all she’d say. Any more and there would be tears.
That’s when Matt decided the coffin Rosa had clung to had crumbled in her arms amid the rush of debris. He would do with her story what he would, he said. He showed her just what he would do with it.
After that there was no going back.
Isn’t that so, Rosa?
She’ll be here somewhere.
Image: Bibliothèque nationale de France, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons – Flooded city street in black and white with submerged trees and damaged infrastructure
literally stories 
Geraint
I cannot do this justice in such a small space, but this is a tremendous work whose meaning surpasses the sum of its words.
Soul shopping, having to have a certain person (child) due to observing her in tragedy is a complicated deal to describe, but I can heap it with praises to hell and back! (genuine “!”).
Leila
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