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“High Water on Divinity Street” blends the mundane with the mythic, the modern with the historic, to create a quietly poignant meditation on displacement, missed opportunity, and the strange comforts of being out of control. Set against a backdrop of torrential rain and rising floodwaters, the story uses its physical setting as a metaphorical landscape in which the protagonist confronts more than just a missed presentation—he encounters a reckoning with expectation, resilience, and time itself.

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 “High Water on Divinity Street”

By Harry Arabian

Cambridge had always seemed charming from afar—its cobbled paths, ivy-draped walls, and the mist of intellectual reverence that clung to every lamppost. But this morning, charm had given way to chaos.

It was the second day of the Embedded Systems Conference, and I woke to the insistent drumming of rain on the sloped roof of my attic room. The small square window offered a blurred view of a tree that I guessed was a maple—its leaves smeared against the glass like a watercolor left out in the storm. The smell of something warm and sweet, maybe pancakes, teased its way up the narrow staircase from the kitchen below.

I slid into a sweatshirt and padded down the creaky stairs that might’ve once groaned under the boots of revolutionaries. The old three-decker house on Divinity Street had a history. My host, a very old woman with a face like an apple left in the sun too long, claimed that the home dated back to the Revolutionary War. I half-suspected the ornate wrought-iron balcony railings were indeed forged by Paul Revere himself—or at least by someone who had borrowed his tools.

The kitchen was empty, but alive with the scent of coffee and browning batter. I was about to pour myself a mug when a shriek shattered the morning quiet.

“Basement’s flooded again!” the old lady cried.

Startled, I peeked through the stairwell. There she was, standing just three steps down into the basement, water swirling around her ankles, her ancient housecoat floating like a cape.

“You okay?” I called down.

“Oh yes,” she said with a grim chuckle. “Benefits of living so close to the riverbank. I’m a good swimmer.”

Her tone was light, but the situation wasn’t. The water had risen fast—five feet, at least—and was still creeping upward. I moved toward the window and gasped.

The street was gone.

Where Divinity Street had once meandered up toward Harvard Square, a steady current now surged past the house. Not a trickle, not a puddle—this was a full-blown river. Parked cars bobbed like lazy barges. Mailboxes became buoy markers.

“No chance to make it to the convention on this rainy day,” I muttered, staring at the watery scene with disbelief and a growing sense of helplessness. My slides. My prototype. My shot at standing out. All adrift somewhere between a maple tree and Paul Revere’s balcony.

I turned and leaned against the sink, sighing at my own foolish optimism. Should’ve stayed in a hotel downtown near the conference center. But the blurb said “cozy New England charm just steps from Harvard.” It hadn’t mentioned that it came with waterfront views and indoor swimming.

Then came the comforting hiss of a kettle and the soft clink of porcelain. The old lady reappeared, was wringing out her sleeves like it was any other Tuesday.

“Coffee?” she asked, unfazed, her silver hair was escaping its bun like floodwaters through a levee.

I nodded.

“My cat’s safe,” she added. “She hates water, but she’s got more sense than most people I know.”

We sat at the wooden table, watching the rain trace rivers down the windows. She poured coffee as though the world outside hadn’t shifted.

“We’ll wait it out,” she said, placing a steaming mug in front of me. “The Charles always gives back what it takes. Eventually.”

I took a sip. Rich. Bitter. Alive.

So I sat in that Revolutionary kitchen, surrounded by history and high tide, missing my presentation but gaining something harder to define. And for a moment—just a moment—it didn’t seem like such a bad trade.