Anna in Floods

Anna never really liked waking up early, but she was used to it because she went to the 1st International School of Ostrava. She was always tired, like literally every day, and she always talked a lot even when people told her to be quiet. She was really short for her age and she had long blond hair that always got in her face. She didn’t wear a backpack like everyone else, she only had this small girls’ bag that barely fit anything, but she didn’t care.

Sometimes, mostly when she was bored, she thought about the future. Lately she thought a lot about what Ostrava might be like in 2050. It wasn’t like a dream or anything, more like she just couldn’t stop imagining things. And for some reason she kept imagining a really weird October.

She imagined that in 2050 October would be way too warm. Not warm like summer, but warm in a way that felt wrong. People would walk around without jackets, and at school the classrooms would feel super stuffy. The windows would be open but it still wouldn’t help. The teachers would complain that they couldn’t concentrate and the students would say they felt like sleeping. Anna imagined herself sitting there, staring at the board thinking, Why is it so hot? Because October was never supposed to be like that.

Every time she imagined walking to school, she saw the river looking higher than usual. Even now in real life it sometimes looked like that, but in her future imagination it was worse. The water moved fast and kind of scary, like it was pushing too hard against the stones. She’d stand on the bridge after school, watching it and thinking something wasn’t right.

Then she imagined the rain starting. At first just normal rain, nothing special. But in her mind it didn’t stop. It went on for hours and then days. She pictured lying in bed, listening to it hit the windows so hard she couldn’t sleep. In the morning her street would be full of puddles that were way bigger than normal. When she walked to school, her shoes would get soaked in like five seconds.

At school everyone would talk about the rain because no one could ignore it anymore. Even people who never paid attention to anything would suddenly act worried. The teachers would say things like, “It will stop soon,” but in her imagination it didn’t stop. It got worse. The news would say the Odra River was rising. People who lived close to it would start putting their important things on shelves. Anna imagined her mom telling her to keep her stuff off the floor “just in case.”

Then one day in her imagined October, the river finally overflowed. It didn’t happen with a huge crash or anything dramatic like in movies. It just slowly came up over the sides and then into the streets. She imagined stepping off the tram after school and the water was already up to her ankles. People were walking around confused, trying to stay calm, but she could tell they were scared.

Shops near the river would close. Some cars wouldn’t even start because the engines were already wet. The roads would look like giant brown puddles. Anna imagined herself walking in it because she had no other choice, her little girls’ bag bouncing on her arm while she tried not to fall.

At night she imagined the power going out sometimes. Everything would go dark and she would hear people talking in the hallway of her apartment building, asking if everyone was okay. Parents would check on their kids. Some people would bring flashlights. The whole situation would feel unreal, like something that shouldn’t happen in her city.

But in her imagination people didn’t just panic. They helped each other. Neighbors shared food and let others come upstairs if their apartments were flooding. Volunteers went around giving out blankets. Students helped too. She imagined herself carrying things for people even though she was small and tired. She would talk and talk, trying to make people feel less scared, because that’s what she always did.

She imagined that after days of rain, the storm finally ended. When she stepped outside, she saw the whole city wet and quiet. There were reflections of buildings everywhere, like Ostrava had turned into a giant mirror. Especially the tall industrial towers in Vítkovice—they looked even bigger when their reflections shook in the leftover water.

She imagined walking through the damaged streets. Mud was everywhere. Some doors were broken. There were lines on the walls showing how high the water had reached. It felt strange, like she was walking inside a memory even though it hadn’t happened. People were tired, but they were already cleaning and fixing things. She could almost hear the scraping of shovels and buckets being dragged around.

In her imagination, Ostrava didn’t fall apart. It just… kept going, because that’s what people do. And she imagined that she would keep going too. Even if she was short. Even if she had no backpack. Even if she was always tired and talked too much. She imagined still walking those streets in the future, remembering the floods and thinking, We made it through that. So we can make it through anything.

And somehow, imagining all of this didn’t scare her. It made her feel like she understood her city more. Like she would still be part of it in 2050, no matter what changed. Because Ostrava was her home, and she believed it would survive anything even the floods she imagined.