Winds of Change

There is a break in the storm clouds that spin chaotically overhead. A single shaft of sunlight fights for life, struggling to shine its beams down onto the valley below. A tree flutters its leaves in the breeze of the passing storm; the sunlight illuminating the flora with a burst of golden yellow. Budding flowers appear nearly translucent, their delicate pink petals kissed by the sunbeams of the spring sunshine.

Thunder rumbles low, growling intensely as it prowls among the clouds. The smell of sulfur carries on the light wind, informing anyone near that at any moment the sky will split open and spill its contents onto the ground.

A sudden burst of wind howls around the lone house, whipping oily strands of the little girls’ muddy brown hair into her face. She is standing alone outside staring up into the sky, fascinated by the beauty in the violent nature of the thunderheads churning overhead.

The tendrils slap at her eyes, stinging them as water beings to pour down around her from the sky. She bats at them, frantically dragging them out of her face because she is afraid she will miss the event her parents have only talked about in hushed voices when they think she is not listening.

The horses in the barn to her right scream in ear piercing protest at the ferocious upheaval taking place around them as the sideboard paneling begins whipping around violently. The boards her father promised to fix for months are loose, snapping in the wind like they are merely thin strips of muddy brown ribbon. The other fenced yards are alive with other animals frantically searching for any means to escape. The horses began stamping and jerking around in loud protest of being penned as thunder clapped again overhead, followed by a nearly instantaneous blinding flash of lightning. This seemed a signal to the ominous clouds overhead to relinquish their cargo. Fat raindrops plop heavily on the ground, forming instant muddy puddles that on any normal day, she would plod through them with childish delight.

But this is no ordinary day.

Adrenaline courses through her, thoughts of escape carried off by the howling chaos surrounding her. The wind pushes the little girl forward with such force that it drops her to her knees, the vibration of bone to ground so sudden, she feels her teeth click together in shock. Hail as large as golf balls ping on the tin roof of the shed that is sheltering her from all of the objects falling from the sky.

Bright white slats of the new fence her brother just installed are knocked loose from their nails and imbed themselves in the planks that pen in Portia, their large white hog. The shrieking from Portia enraptures the child so completely; she is startled when a plank slams into the ground just inches from her knees. Her breath catches in her throat as another board spears through her families sliding glass door with a crash.

She can’t help but think how upset her mother will be at the shards of glass on her shiny linoleum flooring when a dull roaring off in the distance catches her attention. Aching knees and teeth now forgotten, she looks over her shoulder, to the west, and sees a massive funnel spinning over the tops of the trees that line the front fields of her family’s farm.

She watches in abject horror as the trees are picked off one by one when the clouds roar to the ground. The newly budded trees are tossed into the air, batted around like they are nothing more than toothpicks. They disappear into the madness of the spinning clouds as the horizon over the roof of her house turns murky and black, filled in its entirety by the funnel cloud. Jagged forks of lightning lance through the sky illuminating the spinning clouds in an eerie halo of white.

She notices a movement in the house from the corner of her eye and reluctantly tears her gaze from the massive storm cloud to see her mother’s face staring out the kitchen window. Her lips form her daughter’s name but the child is unable to hear them as the words are carried off into the wind.

The child watches, helplessly, as the front of the house buckles. Her mother’s eyes are wide in astonishment and disbelief. It is the last image she has of her mother as her mother’s form vanishes, obscured by the roaring train of the spinning whirlwind. The structure rips violently from its foundation and shatters into a thousand tiny pieces as it is lifted into the air by the tornado. The barn is then sucked into the vortex and all she can do is stay rooted to the ground and stare in wonder as the monster funnel moves off to destroy anything left in its path.

She is frozen in astonishment and glances around to see the grounds around her that were once her family’s farm. The wooden shack, her solitary source of protection through the ordeal, is all that remains. The house and barn have been ripped straight from their concrete foundations. Those blocks of the foundations are now the only things that remain of the buildings. A fence that her older brother struggled to finish yesterday now lay scattered in pieces across the yard.

In moments, the sky clears as the tornado disappears into the horizon leaving a slit of pure, clear blue that peeks through the remaining moisture rich clouds. Rain hangs heavily from their edges like a large gray veil, intending to shield the valley with its caress. The once acrid smell of ozone is replaced with the comforting smell of freshness. Within moments, the misty clouds are gone as well and the sun once again beats down on an Earth that is now calm and serene. It is as if the horror of the past few minutes never occurred.

The screams of a five year old child shatter the stillness.