Jules Risingham
The Clerk Under Water
Every morning the clerk opens the office by unlocking a door that leads nowhere. Behind it is only fog and the low sound of waves. This is not a metaphor. The building used to be a library, but the sea rose quietly, and now the tide comes all the way to the records department.
People line up with wet papers. Birth certificates that smell of the sea. Eviction notices stuck together by dried kelp. Maps that lead to neighborhoods that no longer exist. The clerk stamps them anyway, because stamps are what keeps the world pretending it is still organized. Again, not a metaphor.
Somewhere in the building, a child is crying. Somewhere else, a printer is making copies of that sound.
At noon, the clerk eats a sandwich made of nothing. The bread is air. The filling is the memory of cheese. It’s cheaper that way.
Outside the window, a woman is being dragged across the parking lot by men in uniforms. She is shouting a name the clerk cannot hear over the surf. It might be her own.
The clerk looks down at the desk. There is always another form to file. If you keep filing, you don’t have to decide what kind of person you are.
On the third floor, the water has climbed to people’s chests. Still, not a metaphor. They have started coming in with towels wrapped around their shoulders. Some joke about it. Some do not. One man keeps asking if anyone has seen his dog. No one answers him, not because they are cruel, but because nobody knows what to say.
The clerk notices, slowly, that their lungs don’t hurt the way humans should.
They step through their office door.
Under the water, the building is quieter. The shouting becomes a low, faraway hum. Filing cabinets line the floor like coral. Papers float loose, brushing against the clerk’s face. They see names they recognize. Neighbors. Old coworkers. The woman from the parking lot. The child who was crying.
The clerk gathers what they can carry. The paper softens in their hands, ink smearing, but the names are still there, stubborn as the memory of your childhood bedroom.
When they come back, the lobby is flooded to the waist. People are standing on chairs, on desks, on each other’s patience. The line has not dissolved. It has only become more tired.
The clerk wades through the water and begins handing the papers back.
“This is you,” they say, over and over. “This is you. This is you.”
Some people take their names like something fragile. Some laugh, because it sounds ridiculous. One woman presses the soggy paper to her chest like she’s afraid it might leave again.
The water keeps rising. The clerk keeps handing things out.
They do not save everyone. They know this. But for a few moments, people are no longer just numbers on wet forms. They are themselves again, even if only briefly.
You are this piece of paper. Your name is smudged, it never mattered anyway.
I wish this was a metaphor.
Jules Risingham is a Yorkshire based writer. She takes a collaborative approach to writing, taking inspiration from; workshop participants, old stories, and snippets of conversations heard from passersby. She loves creating work inspired by folk tales, especially for people who may not have access to the arts, hoping to make spaces for curiosity, interaction, and learning.
Please consider a donation to Kids in Need of Defense (KIND). KIND provides legal and social support to child immigrants, particularly those who have been separated from their families.
Banner Art:
Weeki Wachee spring, Florida, Toni Frissell, 1947, United States Library of Congress‘s Prints and Photographs division
