Sam wondered where Rosie, his home help was, she wasn’t usually late. He hoped she hadn’t had an accident. Slowly swinging his legs over to the side of the bed and with the aid of his crutches, he managed to get to the stair lift. He made some breakfast and wrote a list of food items that he needed, that Rosie could get later.
Through the window, he could see the palm tree waving in the strong wind. Quite a storm we had last night he thought, he was glad the tree had survived. It had always been a bit of a joke between his wife Maureen, and himself, a reminder of good times together in sunnier climes. It was only then he noticed that the garden bench wasn’t in it’s usual spot. It was bobbing up and down in water near the hedge. He looked towards the road hoping to see Rosie, but only saw a swift flowing muddy river that seemed to be surrounding his home.
“Oh, Lord help us!” He said aloud, thinking no one will be able to get to the house. He felt so helpless. He painfully made his way round the other downstairs rooms, checking for any water ingress, though if there was, there was nothing he could do about it. He hoped the neighbours hadn’t been flooded, they had been so good to him when his wife passed away. He tried to phone them but the lines were dead. He was truly stuck until the level of the water went down.
Having checked his meagre rations, he sat at the kitchen table and reread yesterday’s paper. Musing how everything these days had e-mail addresses rather than proper addresses, he remembered that Joe, his grandson, had left his old laptop for him. Joe had even given him some lessons, and knowing what his granddad’s memory was like, wrote the instructions down. They had communicated quite frequently until Joe went off to college. Too busy having fun to talk to his granddad, Sam grinned, but still there was a slim chance of contacting him.
The laptop was where he had last used it all those months ago. The battery needed charging but that wouldn’t be a problem as long as the electricity was still working. As soon as there was a trickle of a charge, Sam donned his glasses and slowly went through the instructions. After typing out his SOS message, Sam hit the send button and crossed his fingers.
He slept downstairs on the sofa that night, close to the laptop. The rain had been relentless in the night and if anything the water level was higher than before. He had just finished his last drop of milk, when he heard someone shouting outside. He hobbled across to the window and was surprised to see a Fire Service rescue boat on his lawn.
“God Bless the Internet.” Sam prayed out loud.
