Four Wooden Legs In The Air

I'm cold. The water is waist deep. The toolbox is heavy.

Well, this didn't end well, I say sourly. Beside me, Max Tunguska hefts his largest hammer from one hand to the other.

End? he says, raising his eyebrows. We're not out of the woods yet, mate. Max looks around his flooded lounge and corrects himself. Bayou, he mutters darkly.

Behind us, the torrent of water continues to rush down the carpeted stairs. She's going to kill us, he states cheerily.

Your wife?

His sofa floats past us. Yep.

I consider this. What, worse than that time with the artillery firework?

His TV floats past us. Yep.

Shame you don't have a basement, I observe, then all this water could be downstairs.

He looks sideways at me.

I do have a basement. He sighs, and adds absently, I hope my experiments don't get out.

I'm too nervous to ask what he's working on down there, but I think one of them just moved past my leg. I drop the toolbox and move backwards, looking vainly for something to stand on. What was that?

Relax, it was just the guinea pig, my friend says, pointing. I follow his finger and watch as a mighty rodent, almost a foot long, swims for the window ledge. It curses vehemently in what sounds like Swedish.

He can swim? I ask, though it sounds quite reasonable; I'm probably trying to take my mind off things. He's a big lad.

He can surf when there's a tide. Max looks about the flooded ruin of his house and adds quietly, He can play the banjo too. He pauses. Remind me how this happened?

We tried to fix your dripping shower head. It can only have been a few minutes ago.

Right. And we cut through that big copper pipe, because?... he leaves the question hanging.

Well, we had to! It was full of water!

He sighs and nods. On reflection, I think it was the rising main.

Wow, that sounds technical. And I take it that's a bad thing? My lack of plumbing experience probably should have disqualified me from helping my friend. His own lack should have disqualified him from asking me. That's the trouble with evil geniuses; boundless ambition.

He looks round suddenly, and swings wildly with the hammer; it splashes through empty water. With a hint of alarm in his voice he growls, OK, something just moved past me.

Was it not the guinea pig again?

From the window ledge, I can hear the sound of a banjo being tuned. It starts to pick out Oh My Darling Clementine. Never mind.

Decisively, Max points to the nearby table; it's ten feet long, six feet wide, heavily set, and has yet to be moved by the water. Blueprints and post-it notes teem on its dry surface. Turn that over and we'll sail out of here on it. I nod and move to the table, grunting as I tip it onto its side, scattering papers. I start to flip it onto its back, and suddenly buoyancy does the rest.

The inverted table looks solid and stable, floating there with its four wooden legs in the air; this could work. As I climb up onto its underside, there is a scream behind me. Quicker than I would credit, and in flurry of splashes, my friend is squatting in our makeshift raft beside me, a look of panic on his face.

I play it cool.

So, what experiments did you have downstairs? I ask amiably. As he considers the question, a terrifying leviathan violently breaches the surface of the water at the other end of the lounge.

There is a terrified exclamation in Swedish, a sickening wooden crunch and the music stops.

Seconds later, the water is calm again. Not a ripple.

We look at each other.

Roth, he says flatly, I think we're gonna need a bigger boat.


Indigo

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