Reclaimed and Lost

By: Julian Miles | June 7, 2026

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer

The alarm goes off again. Helen rolls over and swats at it, scoring a hit that sends it backwards off the bedside cupboard, still beeping until it hits the floor with an ominous cracking sound.
She sits up. That phone’s not even a month old! The sales blurb raved about it being satellite-linked and pretty much everything-proof!
Too quiet? She pops her open earbuds out. There should be street noises. The market shop across the road is always busy first thing.
She looks back and forth: the shadows her phone vanished into or the window? Consider the balance: positive curiosity – look outside. Negative curiosity – see if her phone is broken.
It’s early. Positivity is a must. She rolls over, gets her knees under her, and opens the window.
Damp!
The smell that comes in on the breeze reeks. The sounds coming with it are distant sirens and a passing helicopter. Still no traffic? She leans out and looks down.
Water!
She looks both ways. Three storeys below, her road has become a lake. Darker shapes are the undisturbed forms of cars, still sat at the kerbs. The market shop isn’t open because water’s lapping against the signage above it!
What about people who sleep at street level, or in basement flats?
There are other things in the water. Rubbish, clothing, magazines. Down by the corner she can see what might be a body. Which answers her question in the worst way.
How’s she going to get to work? No. The factory is a bus ride away, and downhill. Water always levels itself. Work is deeper under than the market shop.
Phone!
She dives back and gropes behind the cupboard. Her hand hits something furry and warm! It makes a noise and is gone from her grip. She recoils, then resumes. Rats. Have to go somewhere, and if getting out isn’t an option, up is all that remains.
Grabbing her phone, she checks it. Not a mark on it? She starts the torch app and looks behind the cupboard. One startled-looking rat that scurries off, and her mum’s trinket box with its lid in two pieces.
Swiping the torch away, she brings up the newsfeeds after flicking through the morning ad stack and paying her daily tariff.
The headlines are about how the New Thames Barrier was made irrelevant when the tide bypassed it, inundating the land for kilometres on either side. Scrolling down, she finds secondary headlines about coastal towns on both sides of the channel being flooded by a spring tide augmented with polar meltwater. Apparently the ‘silent flood’ occurred when the tide came in as normal, but simply kept coming. Some low-lying areas are under six metres of water! Reading further, she sees speculation that entire communities have been lost. She snarls. Somebody knew this was coming. Without solutions, they decided not to publicise it.
Going to local news, she finds the few available sites have last posts made yesterday evening. Switching to social media outlets, some are still accessible. Reading through, she slumps back onto the bed.
Local emergency response was flooded out. Those answering initial call outs are suspected lost or driven inland. Anything relying on local installations or power is down. National emergency response is prioritising cities and strategic sites. Predictions are assistance may not arrive for weeks, maybe even months. Current recommendations are for people to head inland – without saying how.
Many have already grasped the bottom line: there’s no help coming. Her home town has been claimed by the sea, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.