Tuesday, January 2, 2018

Short Social Fiction: Adventures of Tupi 27

Tupi exited the house. The rain has ended and everything was calm. Tupi sat on the front steps with his feet in the flooded lawn. He looked around and tears rolled down his face. Tupi felt the pain after looking at all the destruction, even though he had not lost anything to the hurricane. Tupi has never seen such destruction in his life. It was not really too bad. There were several trees uprooted, widespread flooding and a lot of debris all over. The house Tupi was in did not seem to be damaged in anyway.

"This is bad." Justin said as he sat beside Tupi. "I've not seen it that bad before. Lets go out in my truck to see if anyone needs help."

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Justin and Tupi walked around the house to survey the damage. One of the neighbor's fence was destroyed by a tree, and there was debris all over the yard. Tupi cleared some plants and debris outside the garage, and there was otherwise no signs of damage. The garage door opened, and the floor of the garage was wet, some water entered, but nothing was damaged. They got into the truck and drove around.

Tupi was in the truck driving slowing down the street. He was holding his breadth as everything felt surreal and incredible. He saw some houses which totally collapsed and others damaged by debris. In some areas, there were downed power lines and policemen directing traffic away.

"This is terrible." Tupi said. "The streets are so empty."

"Hi officer, is there anything we can help with?" Justin asked the policeman.

"Perhaps you can visit the High School." The policeman said. "Some people who have their homes damaged are there."

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Justin returned to the car and looked worried. "Well, we know about the hurricane, and I thought your flight would be cancelled but you came. Too bad you can't have a nice sightseeing as you can see, everything is damaged." Justin said.

Justin stopped by one of the houses where an elderly couple was staring at a tree embedded in their house. "Wow..." Justin muttered. "Can we help you in any way? Do you need to go to the shelters?" The couple just waved them by and Justin drove back home. "This is my first hurricane that is so bad, Maybe I should evacuate next time."

The water level went lower and within hours, the flood was no more. Tupi helped to clear the debris off the lawn and clean up the surrounding area. There was sounds of chainsaws as the city officials started chopping up the down trees to have it towed away. It was a busy day and restoring work has just started.

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After tidying up the lawn, Tupi took a short nap and was woken up by Justin. Justin was packing some bottled water and cookies he stocked up to bring to the shelter. Tupi got up and walked over to the garage. "Need any help?"

Tupi help load the canned food and bottled water and drove to the high school. There were about 100 people in the shelter and many other cars dropping off food and water. Tupi was glad that he could be part of the help. Overall, many people brought bottled water, canned food and biscuits. Tupi sat down and chatted with a few people in the shelters. Most of them lived in areas where there could be widespread flooding near their homes when it rains heavily, or they do not have any cars or trucks, so they may not be able to stock up food before the hurricane.

Tupi and Justin spent an hour at the shelter, and went back. Tupi quickly went online to check on his flight and it was still suspended. Justin turned on the generator and cooked dinner, after which Tupi took a quick bath and went to bed. It was a long and tiring day and Tupi felt good about himself.


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