A Summer Afternoon in 2020

You peel your eyelids apart and you can't begin to guess what time it is. With effort, you roll over in bed and check your phone. It's early afternoon. It's also Friday. This is news to you because every day is just like the one before it, thanks to quarantine. Not like you have a job to go to anymore. Damn virus. You're so bored. You have nothing to do, no money to spend, nowhere to go, and you're not allowed to see anyone. You wish something would happen; every day feels just like the one before it. You're pretty sure it's July, but it might be August by now, who the hell knows. You certainly know what year it is! The universe won't let you forget. You're awfully grumpy for first thing in the morning - er, afternoon. 

You peek between the shades and are blinded by light. It's raining pretty hard, yet the sun is shining. What is that called, anyway? You've heard people call that sunshine/rain combo by so many names you're not sure what word to use.

Waddling towards the kitchen (your new hobby), you decide to pour yourself a bowl of sugary cereal and realize you have no more milk. You eat it dry out of the box while you scroll through your phone. No need to dirty a bowl! After browsing for probably a lot longer than you should (maybe it's just as well you're out of milk - your cereal would be a bowl of slop by now if you'd made it properly) you decide to check the weather. Mostly sunny, slight chance of rain, blah blah blah. You're sick of the rain, too. It's been cloudy and sometimes raining for the last week or two, so the mosquito population is booming. The sun was sort of shining last you checked, so you guess the forecasted rain has come and gone.

You scroll through your phone again. Same sites, nothing new to read or look at aside from the world ending. Every day, you brace yourself for the newest way in which the apocalypse is happening. Between a killer virus, tragedies, civil unrest, political turmoil, murder hornets, and the ever-present catastrophe of climate change, you’re vascillating between major freakout mode and complete numbness. After catching up on today’s atrocities, you notice that it's gotten rather dim in here, so you flip on the light. It’s coming down hard now. Guess it's going to rain for real this time.

A blast of lightning grabs your attention and you look towards the window at the light show. It's more than a few choice lightning bolts, though. Constant crackling means no chance to count the miles. The rain seems to have stopped and given way to hail. You stop and listen for awhile. It sounds like the hail is getting bigger: no longer a clattering like beebees, it’s starting to sound like an automatic baseball pitcher on top speed. You’re starting to worry about what this means for your already soggy lawn.

You rise from your seat to peek your head out the door for a better look and it appears that the hail has stopped. Everything has stopped but the lightning. You hear no birds and there is no breeze. It's sweltering hot out here. The huge stones of hail have accumulated along the road and outside your home. Between the flashes of light, you spy that the sky is a bizarre color. What is that? Green? Oh boy... 

You continue staring and even take a step off the threshold outside. It’s so strange, you can barely look away. A distant siren wails and above the vegetable green sky, the blackening clouds look like a wall. Mm, maybe you should get inside.

All the lights are off. Ugh, storm knocked out your power. Great. Things have picked back up again and the wind is howling. You think about how cliche that sounds, but it really does sound like wolves. Wolves riding motorcycles, though. 

A thin line appears below the bottom of the black cloud, across the green-gray sky, and touches the horizon. The howling sound has turned into the clattering, whooshing, rushing, intense insistence of a freight train bearing down on you.

You've seen a lot of movies, especially in these last few secluded months, so you have an idea what this weather is. Not good. Definitely not good. You're not sure where you could even take cover if you had to. 

The thin line is twisting like a worm on a hook, growing thicker and thicker. It no longer looks like a line, but an actual funnel, like God is pouring hell straight down from the sky. 

Chaos splashes up from the base of the funnel cloud.

As you tear your eyes away from the window, looking for a place to shelter, a tree branch appears next to you, announcing itself with a deafening crunch. Splintered wood, glass, and your own stuff rains down on you. Unidentifiable debris rushes around the room, screaming past you, and catching in the branches of the massive tree that stood in front of your home just seconds ago. You hear a sustained shrieking and aren't sure if it's your own voice or the wind.

Arms thrown over your head to protect your neck, you scurry further into the house and duck into a closet that is somehow still standing. The shrieking continues as the air turns opaque with dust and debris. You're reminded of a horrific snowglobe as you crouch down, hoping against hope that it's almost over. 

You feel your clothes and hair ripping away from your body. You feel splinters of wood, stones, objects, and whipping wind lashing your back. The furious screaming wind - wind doesn't seem like a strong enough word - pummels your body. The closet doesn't seem to be providing much shelter, so you open your eyes to survey your surroundings.

You were in your living room just a moment ago and now you appear to be outside, surrounded by splinters of unidentifiable detritus. Wait, is that your laptop over there? And that must be what your refrigerator looks like from the back. Your dresser has overturned all your laundry and strewn it as far as you can see. You barely have time to register the chaos when you notice that your car that was parked on the street has turned on its side and is moving towards you. Everything is moving towards you. 

“Run!” you scream out loud to yourself. You can't hear your own voice. The wind is too strong for you to rise and you're barricaded in the remains of the closet by your own overturned and demolished furniture. You hold your breath and wait to be crushed.

But the car has been replaced on its four tires, albeit on top of a muddy pile of what used to be your front lawn. The wind has shifted away for the moment and everything has stopped moving around you with such ferocity. The sky above is no longer green, but a swirling kaleidoscope of gray, black, and brown. The clouds seem impossibly close.

You're exposed. You only see one choice.

Grateful for your jingling habit of keeping your keys clipped to your belt loop, you run at a crouch towards your car, unable to fully stand in the wind and terrified of being struck with one of the massive house beams flying overhead.

You scramble into the passenger seat and catch your breath. Three of the windows are gone and the windshield is a spiderweb of tempered glass. The wind howls, crashes, and screams in your covered ears. 

You know you should never try to outrun a tornado. You saw it flip your car back and forth with ease. But you also know that you can't stay exposed - and you would be if you had stayed crouched in the closet. You turn to look at the house you just crawled out of, but it's gone. A ruined smear stands in its place, only identifiable by the remains of the massive tree that crushed it.

You are out of options. You turn the key in the ignition and it miraculously starts first try. You stomp on the gas pedal with both feet, not even trying to look where you're going - everything is leveled anyway. You're glad you bought the heavy duty all terrain vehicle - a luxury you never truly needed until today. You keep your eyes clenched tight so you don’t have to look at the ruins that used to be your neighborhood. All around you, there is little to see but ruin, uprooted trees, isolated propane fires, and destruction.

The fire hydrant that stood on the corner is missing. In its place is a gushing torrent of water, exacerbating the flood from the icy downpour this afternoon. You turn on your windshield wipers as fast as they can go, but it makes no difference. The water is pouring through the cracked glass anyway. The worst seems to have turned away from you, but the wind is still blowing sideways. Your visibility is down to almost nothing, yet you continue to drive as fast as your car will allow, praying you don’t hit a tree - or that a tree doesn’t hit you.

You’ve finally made it out of the worst of the damaged town and as suddenly as it appeared, the tornado evaporates behind you. Relief washes over you. You unstick your feet from the gas pedal, bringing your car to a halt. You finally exhale. As the adrenaline leaves your body, you can feel your broken collarbone and assess your many injuries and lacerations. Your torn clothes are soaked in blood and mud. You notice aren't wearing any shoes. You must not have had time to put them on. Bits of wood and glass protrude from your skin everywhere you look. You haven't died, so you think you'll live if you can get to a hospital soon. Is the hospital still standing? 

You take a deep breath to prove to yourself that you’re still alive. Just hours ago, you were lounging in your bed wishing for something to happen. An inappropriate laugh burbles out of your throat as the magnitude of loss finally hits you. You’re having a hard time stopping the laughter despite the sobbing that overtakes you. Hyperventilating, filthy, bleeding, and tear-soaked, it takes your brain a few seconds to understand what you're now seeing before you. 

Not far above the wreckage, fires, and flooding, you see the clouds retaking a now-familiar funnel shape. Hysterical, you look out what used to be the window and think, not for the first time, just how wrong the weather forecast had been.