We're in a plane. It's me and my ex-boyfriend, along with some friends and a notable Hardin County-born country singer. We've taken off, things are peachy, and ex-boyfriend and I are seated in the front row of this fancy plane where there are huge windows that you can see out of. I'm watching the landscape — largely rural farmland — bloom and unfurl in front of us, when it dawns on me that we are really close to the ground to have been flying for a while. Are we landing? What is that beeping?
Turns out the plane is having some issues staying off the ground. The pilot is doing her damnedest to keep the big bird in the air and she makes a sharp turn, but suddenly there's a big storm bubbling up to our east and everyone in the plane sees it out those big windows. We see tornados forming — at least two — and they are moving fast and snaking out toward us. We can't avoid going into the storm cloud, which has completely taken over the sky, and the cabin fills with mist and fog and wetness, and I can feel the wind and rain against my face as we plummet. The press is going to go wild with this dead country star, I think cynically to myself. I lean over to hug my ex-boyfriend and pat him on the back, over and over and over. We brace for impact.
I think to myself, Wait a sec. I am dreaming.
And I open my eyes. It's morning and I lie there a minute before I hear my boy on the monitor, and it's time to start the day.
Showing posts with label storm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label storm. Show all posts
10.14.2013
5.01.2008
Bad weather and a wedding
My father instructs me to get all gussied up; we're going to a wedding in less than an hour, and would I mind getting ready even earlier because we have to stop by the store for something on the way? The wedding is happening at the Parkers' house. I played softball with the Parker girls throughout my school years and we were always good friends (I've not seen or spoken to any of them in years; I don't think they're on Facebook). Apparently Faye (Jo Ann's mom) has cancer (that's true in real life) and even though Jo Ann just met this guy thirty minutes ago, they're getting married immediately and everyone's got to get dressed up to come to the house and watch it.
So I do my best to put my dress on and look pretty and it's tense because we're running late because of me. We pile into the car and my cousin Keri — a younger version of her — has to sit in my lap and I'm afraid she's getting mud on my skirt because she's just a kid.
The weather has started to get nasty out and we are trucking it over backwoods hills, topping them with no tires on the ground, screaming for my mother, who's driving, to be more careful each time we meet another speeding vehicle at the crest of the hill. We have so many close calls that eventually something happens and we're all exposed to the elements and we're wet and my hair is all effed up.
The sky is the heaviest color of dark grey, like it's ready to just flatten us all.
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I'm in a high rise, in what I've come to understand is my editor in chief's office. It's super swanky, with its own little breakfast stand and attendant in the lobby. There are jars of candy on the stand, as well as doughnuts. The office is sparsely decorated, but seems incredibly, frighteningly open because it's surrounded completely by giant plate glass windows. And glass for a ceiling. The storm is still raging outside and I wonder who would want to work in a place like this when the weather gets sour. I notice a small, black, high-walled, completely enclosed cubicle. It is there that the editor actually keeps his desk, I discern.
I imagine a tornado sucking the entire thing out the window and carrying it across the fields that surround the building.
So I do my best to put my dress on and look pretty and it's tense because we're running late because of me. We pile into the car and my cousin Keri — a younger version of her — has to sit in my lap and I'm afraid she's getting mud on my skirt because she's just a kid.
The weather has started to get nasty out and we are trucking it over backwoods hills, topping them with no tires on the ground, screaming for my mother, who's driving, to be more careful each time we meet another speeding vehicle at the crest of the hill. We have so many close calls that eventually something happens and we're all exposed to the elements and we're wet and my hair is all effed up.
The sky is the heaviest color of dark grey, like it's ready to just flatten us all.
[][][]
I'm in a high rise, in what I've come to understand is my editor in chief's office. It's super swanky, with its own little breakfast stand and attendant in the lobby. There are jars of candy on the stand, as well as doughnuts. The office is sparsely decorated, but seems incredibly, frighteningly open because it's surrounded completely by giant plate glass windows. And glass for a ceiling. The storm is still raging outside and I wonder who would want to work in a place like this when the weather gets sour. I notice a small, black, high-walled, completely enclosed cubicle. It is there that the editor actually keeps his desk, I discern.
I imagine a tornado sucking the entire thing out the window and carrying it across the fields that surround the building.
4.12.2008
Mother nature hurls Crayola colors
I'm at a beach with a lot of people I know including my sister who is out in the surf while I walk on the beach looking around at people and wondering about the menacing clouds approaching.
The clouds are not the average dark grey thunderheads. They're rather brown and resemble something more like a sandstorm than rainclouds.
About as soon as they're over the beach, softball-size drops of mostly yellow paint come falling out of the clouds and making big "sploosh!" sounds in the water. People start screaming and running. I'm looking around and realize these paint bombs aren't bursting and dissipating very much. They're actually rather gelatinous and they're ensnaring people in the water and on the beach.
It's strange, too, the color of these things. They're mostly bright yellow, but there are swirls of red, green, blue and purple in them that occasionally appear. The water has since turned from blue to an Easter-like pale yellow with rivulets of other colors.
My sister is screaming and crying as she tries to climb out of the surf and onto land to flee. I see a few people move to try to help her and I turn away to keep running. I've been hit by two or three of these Crayola blobs that I've shaken off as I climb over a breaker and stumbled down into some long soft grass.
I start clambering up an embankment full of flowers, grabbing and tugging at them to help myself up to the path. I yell at people to head east. "You have to head east before you go north!" I shout.
The clouds are not the average dark grey thunderheads. They're rather brown and resemble something more like a sandstorm than rainclouds.
About as soon as they're over the beach, softball-size drops of mostly yellow paint come falling out of the clouds and making big "sploosh!" sounds in the water. People start screaming and running. I'm looking around and realize these paint bombs aren't bursting and dissipating very much. They're actually rather gelatinous and they're ensnaring people in the water and on the beach.
It's strange, too, the color of these things. They're mostly bright yellow, but there are swirls of red, green, blue and purple in them that occasionally appear. The water has since turned from blue to an Easter-like pale yellow with rivulets of other colors.
My sister is screaming and crying as she tries to climb out of the surf and onto land to flee. I see a few people move to try to help her and I turn away to keep running. I've been hit by two or three of these Crayola blobs that I've shaken off as I climb over a breaker and stumbled down into some long soft grass.
I start clambering up an embankment full of flowers, grabbing and tugging at them to help myself up to the path. I yell at people to head east. "You have to head east before you go north!" I shout.
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