Tropical Storm Betty

Tropical Storm Betty 

“Tropical storm Betty due to touch land within the hour.  We encourage all citizens to seek shelter as soon as possible. We are predicting 100 mph winds and heavy rain. Hail has been spotted in some locations within the city. We will keep you updated as we continue coverage of this historic event. Back to you Katie,” the weather man says.  

Tiffany presses the power button on the remote control to turn the television off. She had work to do, so she didn’t have time to be worried about a little storm. Her publisher was waiting on the final chapter in latest novel. She had already missed her deadline by three weeks. She looked out the window at the dark sky. The villa she’d rented was on the beach, so she could see the waves in the ocean crashing against the rocks. Her neighbors were packing up their truck just as the rain started to pour.  

Tiffany sat at the desk in front of the window and started to type. She had been thinking about the ending to her novel for days, so she knew exactly what she wanted to happen. After five minutes, she stopped and googled the locale weather. They were saying the storm was at least a category 7. Which made it the strongest storm in the history of the town. She heard her cell phone buzzing on the coffee table sitting in the middle of the floor. She looked at the screen.  It was a severe weather alert from the storm center.  The phone rang. She swiped left to answer the call.  

“Hello,” she said. “This is me.” She listened to the person on the other end of the phone. She nodded her head. “I understand! I think I’ll be okay here.” She listened. “If I think it’s getting to bad, I’ll head to the main hotel. Yes, thank you for calling.” She pressed the end button and put the phone back on the table face down.  “I need to focus.” 

She sat at the desk and started typing again.  Suddenly, the windows started to shake.  She looked up from the computer screen. It was dark outside. So dark she couldn’t see anything., but she could hear the rain as it hit the roof of the villa.  The villa was made of wood, so she was concerned about how strong it was. Could it take on this kind of storm? She continued to type.  

She heard glass breaking but that didn’t stop her from finishing her from her work. The sirens had been going for so long, they sounded like they were running out of power. She stared into the darkness and listened to roar of the wind. The villa was moving with the wind, swaying from side to side. She typed.  

“I should probably head to the hotel,” she said to herself. The roaring sound got louder. If you waited long enough you could see the tornado in the flash of light from the lighting.  It was moving fast and headed right for her villa. She typed. “I have to finish this!” she yelled.  The villa started to shake so hard if felt like it could come apart at any moment. A beach chair crashed through the side window landing in the middle of the room.  Tiffany didn’t even look up. She frantically typed as if her life depended on it.  

Another window shattered in the bedroom of the villa. The ocean was crashing against the outside of the villa breaking of small pieces of wood on impact.  The water was starting to seep into the villa. Tiffany put her feet up in the chair so they wouldn’t get wet. She continued to type.  The hail sounded like little bombs going off as they hit the roof and objects outside.  Her car alarm started to go off.  

The window in front of her suddenly shattered sending pieces of glass everywhere. She covered her laptop with her arms just as the rain drops started to hit the desk. She closed the laptop and put it in the wet leather bag sitting on the floor next to the desk. It was waterproof, so the inside was bone dry.  The door opened out so as soon as she opened it, the wind took it away. She clutched her bag as she walked against the wind towards the hotel. She was the only one outside, but she couldn’t really see. The rain was so heavy that it hurt when it hit her skin.  The hail stopped just in time. She wouldn’t have been able to leave if it was still falling. The tennis size hail balls covered the grass and sidewalk.  The wind was ripping the leaves right off the trees leaving them bare.   

She used the lights from the hotel to guide her, until the power went out. Everything went dark. She stopped walking, unsure of which way to go. The lighting lit up the sky. She was walking slower now, holding on the whatever she could get her hands on. She was walking against the wind. It was like the wind was trying to stop her from getting where she was trying to go.   

She couldn’t see who it was, but someone grabbed her arm. They started to pull her closer to the hotel. The lights were partially back on.  Her rescuer had on a lime green raincoat and rain boots. He was almost dragging her as he took big steps towards the entrance of the hotel.  A hotel worker held the door open as they got closer.  

“Thank you,” Tiffany said entering the hotel lobby. She plopped down in the first chair she came to and took a deep breath. “Thank you for coming out there to get me. You didn’t have to do that.” 

“I know I didn’t,” the man said as he took the hood off his head. “What the fuck took you so long to leave the villa? Were you trying get swept out to sea?” He was visibly angry.  

She turned to the coffee table sitting in front of her and sat on the floor. She pulled her laptop out of her bag and opened it.  Her novel was still on the screen. Her hero walked away after he realized that she wasn’t going to respond. She looked at him as he walked away. The lobby was full of other guests, so it was noisy.  She would never be able to get any work done here. She closed her computer and went to the check in desk.  

“Can I help you ma’am?” the receptionist asked. 

“Is there somewhere quiet I can write?”  

The receptionist looked her with a puzzled look on her face.  

“I was staying in one of the villas, so I don’t have a room in the hotel,” Tiffany explained. She assumed that was why the lady was looking at her so strangely.  

“Oh, okay! That makes more sense,” she said sounding relieved. “Yes, please follow me.” She walked from behind the counter and lead Tiffany to a little office down the hall. She opened the door. “You can work in here.”  

“Thank you!”  

Tiffany sat on the floor again and pulled out her laptop. The receptionist left the room closing the door behind her. Tiffany cracked her knuckles and started to type.  

“Done,” she said after typing her last word. She stretched her arms above her head and stood up from the floor.  She didn’t realize that she’d been in the room for two hours. She opened the door and stepped into the hallway. All she could hear was the sound of a floor buffer being pushed across the floor.  The sun light shined through the window and bounced off the freshly polished tiles.  The clouds were gone, and the sun beamed in the sky.  There was debris everywhere, but people were outside like there had never been a storm at all.   

“Ma’am,” the receptionist called out.  

Tiffany turned to her and walked to the counter.   

“We are going to book you into a room until we complete the repairs to your villa.  We are going to give you a suite for the same price as the villa for the inconvenience.”  She looked down at the computer screen in front of her.   

Tiffany opened the door to her new room and went straight to the desk. She opened her laptop and hit the enter button on the keyboard.  

“Novel sent,” she said to herself.