Last night I dreamt of tornadoes. They appeared on the horizon, two of them, speeding toward me. I assisted a friend in a wheelchair to the curb but knew I could not lift her over it...asked if she could run long enough to get into the house because I could not carry her. She rose and ran with me into the garage of my childhood home. I was afraid she would slow me down, and we would both die. We ran into the house, cats scattered just out of our reach, we abandoned them to the storm as we ran. Family dog was larger and easier to catch so we dragged him into the basement and crouched in the basement, in the bathroom, holding the dog by a leg as he tried to run upstairs.
The tornado raged over us, ripped the house up and took it mostly away, but we survived. The dog was pulled out of my grip in the wind...
Details of note: the house was almost empty when we entered it. Only two cats; we had four when I was small. The dog was a rottie named Charlie; ours was a black lab, Jake. The friend in the wheelchair: Mayim Bialik, who reminds me of myself.
Hmmm.
My mother always told me that if the sky turned yellow, a tornado was approaching. But we lived in the Northwest, where there are virtually no tornadoes, so I never saw a yellow sky until one summer, when I was in the Northeast...with my grandfather and sister. A hurricane was approaching...mum and grammy went to the store for supplies. We waited at home with grampy. The sky suddenly turned yellow and I said to sister "do you remember what mom said about yellow skies?". Suddenly rain and objects blew horizontally past the windows, and grampy, blind, yelled for us to get away from windows. He picked up a hammer, scrambled his fingertips toward them like spiders and tried to beat the frames shut. They would not close, the air had swollen them open and the rain flew into him, drenching his shirt. The door blew open and before I could stop her, sister, tiny, ran toward it. Lightning hit the porch right in front of her and she stared for a second, still, the blue light impressed on our mind's eyes. I yelled for her to leave the door and she ran back in...we ran to a back room...we should have run to the basement. The whole time, grampy yelled for us to stay away from those windows as he tried to close them.
It ended as fast as it began, like a candle blown out, steaming. Silent.
An hour later grammy and mum appeared, a little hysterical. All around us properties were destroyed and as they'd driven closer to the house, collapsed structures and mangled power lines terrified them. But we were fine. That house had withstood 300 years of elements. It stood strong in the face of whatever had just hit us, and everything else that had come before.
And so did we.
The tornado raged over us, ripped the house up and took it mostly away, but we survived. The dog was pulled out of my grip in the wind...
Details of note: the house was almost empty when we entered it. Only two cats; we had four when I was small. The dog was a rottie named Charlie; ours was a black lab, Jake. The friend in the wheelchair: Mayim Bialik, who reminds me of myself.
Hmmm.
My mother always told me that if the sky turned yellow, a tornado was approaching. But we lived in the Northwest, where there are virtually no tornadoes, so I never saw a yellow sky until one summer, when I was in the Northeast...with my grandfather and sister. A hurricane was approaching...mum and grammy went to the store for supplies. We waited at home with grampy. The sky suddenly turned yellow and I said to sister "do you remember what mom said about yellow skies?". Suddenly rain and objects blew horizontally past the windows, and grampy, blind, yelled for us to get away from windows. He picked up a hammer, scrambled his fingertips toward them like spiders and tried to beat the frames shut. They would not close, the air had swollen them open and the rain flew into him, drenching his shirt. The door blew open and before I could stop her, sister, tiny, ran toward it. Lightning hit the porch right in front of her and she stared for a second, still, the blue light impressed on our mind's eyes. I yelled for her to leave the door and she ran back in...we ran to a back room...we should have run to the basement. The whole time, grampy yelled for us to stay away from those windows as he tried to close them.
It ended as fast as it began, like a candle blown out, steaming. Silent.
An hour later grammy and mum appeared, a little hysterical. All around us properties were destroyed and as they'd driven closer to the house, collapsed structures and mangled power lines terrified them. But we were fine. That house had withstood 300 years of elements. It stood strong in the face of whatever had just hit us, and everything else that had come before.
And so did we.
This post is pretty old, but I need to say, HOLY CATS THAT WAS INTENSE.
ReplyDeleteOh and thank you, your blog is awesome. I just got diagnosed with ADD over Christmas break (after a disastrous first semester of college), and reading through your older posts when you were starting out is helping me a lot.
Oh man, it's been a long time since I read that one...interesting to see it again with new eyes.
ReplyDeleteAlways glad when someone can find something useful for themselves in my writing ;) Good luck to you...
-Mrs. Rollins