The Mudslide by Mark Tulin– The Wild Literary Magazine

by Mark Tulin The officer from the county knocked on Mr. Oakley’s door and notified him that his neighborhood was under a mandatory evacuation…
— Read on wildlitmag.wordpress.com/the-mudslide-by-mark-tulin/

The Mudslide
by Mark Tulin

The officer from the county knocked on Mr. Oakley’s door and notified him that his neighborhood was under a mandatory evacuation and he must leave his home within twenty-four hours. There was a previous wildfire that scorched the hills, and the weather bureau was predicting heavy rains and a strong chance of a dangerous mudslide in the area.

I was Mr. Oakley’s neighbor, and knew him better than anyone. I encouraged him to leave and explained the dangers involved in staying. I did not hesitate in packing my emergency belongings into the car, but I found out later that Mr. Oakley refused to abandon his home. He moved next door to me about four years ago from the East Coast. He said that he had always had a dream of living in California by the ocean, and once Mr. Oakley retired from his job as a Social Worker, he decided to make his dream come true.

He sold his house in Philadelphia, packed what he needed into his Ford Explorer, and drove cross-country to Montecito. He bought a beautiful one-bedroom bungalow along the foothills, surrounded by a picturesque mountainside and a breathtaking ocean view. He landscaped his home and he took pride in Birds of Paradise.

Prior to a mandatory evacuation, Mr. Oakley told me that he wasn’t going to leave his house after he invested his life’s savings and spirit into it. He couldn’t leave a place that he loved; where he’d take walks along Butterfly Beach every morning at sunrise and walk the Santa Ynez Mountain trails on Sundays.

Soon the heavy rains came as the weather bureau predicted. While I was safely in the next town staying at an inexpensive hotel waiting the storm out, Mr. Oakley had clung to the belief that if he prayed hard and long enough, he would escape the treacherous mudslide. As the day long rains came, there was a rumbling as if there were an earthquake. Mr. Oakley’s house shook, and the northernmost wall buckled and gave way to mud, boulders, and trees. A dominating force of dark, wet sludge came rushing into Mr. Oakley’s home surprising him in the middle of the night.

A few days later, the First Responders found him buried up to his neck in mud that hardened like a rock. He was holding the keys to his car and a black Gideons Bible.