Tiny True Tales

Before the Floods

Two days before the floods, I gave directions to strangers at an Elkview gas station. “Turn right at the light and follow 119 to the Dairy Queen,” I said. “You can’t miss it.”

A day before the floods, I drove through Richwood. An unknown local passed in a truck, waving as she went by. I returned a wave, and her child passenger smiled.

The day of the floods, the bridge outside Elkview washed away, the Dairy Queen tumbled, the streets of Richwood overflowed, floodwaters killing twenty three. And I wondered: did the strangers I met before the floods make it?