Listen!
Go to sleep.No, it’s a storm! It’s out of control, I’m sure it’s a tornado.
Go to sleep.
We have to go downstairs!
Mmm.I’m going downstairs.
Mmm.The lights flicker, the wind is powerful. The trees are bending – I can see it well, the lightening is nonstop, like flashlight photos, one after another. The farmhouse has trees on two sides, but the nearest are pines. Can’t worry about pines. Their limbs aren’t heavy enough to come through the roof, into the bed.
I go downstairs and huddle in the mudroom, flashlight and phone in hand. Essentials to survival. My laptop isn’t too far either. Life’s work on it. Can’t lose that.
And then it passes.
In the morning we survey the damage. Limbs down, yard cluttered with the post-storm debris. My landlord seems unfazed. Have to take the John Deere and the chainsaw out. Maybe later.
We have such different personalities.
It’s Saturday – market day, but it’s raining hard. We opt for the Westside Community market: compact and condensed. All the essentials are there.
Back at the farmhouse, Ed snoozes on the couch with Isis, I work.
