When The Storm Leaves

Grey and dreary, but knowing that it’s cooling off the warm humid air is enough for me. Basking in sweat, hoping for the relief that I know is soon to come. It’s the best feeling, when the breeze and the static of a storm rumbles ahead, into your head, into your veins, your head, when it gets deep into the nerve endings inside your brain.

The zaps and the brain tingles give way to fear when the funnel clouds form, tearing away everything I’ve ever known. I watch the brick and mortar fly away, then the shingles, the black thin things, so easy to rip away. I watch the trees rip from the foundation, up from the root, turned on its side, utter turmoil.

I watch every piece of my mundane life fly away.

It’s a mixed emotion, watching the town I was so desperate to leave torn apart. On one hand, I wanted to see it destroyed. I wanted to see it sucked away. I wanted to watch, like Dorothy, in the hopes that this storm could take me far away from here.

It was peaceful, almost.

The peace that I had felt, seconds before the funnel formed, all ripped away too; it flew away in the storm.

Lightning strikes in the distant. Rain pelts. The storm is starting up again, rearing its ugly head. When will it be done? Hasn’t this town done enough?

But it’s not enough. Not until every last shred of hope is torn away, out of my life, out of this town. It’s running away, like I’ve been trying to do for all these years. All the money saved, the time spent, wasted, taken, in one instant.

The storm leaves, eventually. The difference between me and the storm is, when I leave, I won’t ever come back.