The Last Real Rain - Calamar (open ebook .txt) 📗

grandfather pulled me gently to the bathroom, stuffed me into the closet half filled with towels and sheets, kissed me goodbye, then shut the door. The next thing I remember is the howl of the funnel as it shredded the house. If my grandparents had cried out to me, I could not have heard it. The panels and boards and wooden girders of the house strained and creaked and tore with a rasping noise that even the tornado’s roar could not contain.

I woke up sometime later, but I did not know how long I had been unconscious. What was left standing of the house were the walls of the closet into which my grandfather had pushed me, the wall of the back part of the house, and a section of roof that had belonged somewhere else from where it now was lodged. The rains poured down unceasingly. Lightning spread throughout the sky, and its thunder sounded in rumbles across the vault in which I should have liked so much to see the sun. A small section of the shed still had a piece of roofing to shield it. To there I crawled, shivering and shaking with the cold, breathing hard against the violent tremors that surged through my body. Once safe against the rain, at least, I sat quiet and silent, thinking about where my grandparents might be, wondering should I ever get out of this alive. Death had a new meaning for me then, but I did not what that meaning might be. I knew my grandparents were probably dead, but I did not know exactly what consequences that held either for them or for me.

All the day I sat unmoving as the rain slid by. I could here the flooding water to the south of me as the river sent its swollen waters beyond its banks. I was hungry, cold, afraid, and alone. Night came, and the storm kept on. At sometime in the darkness, sleep took me. I awoke to a sunlit sky devoid of any wind or rain or swift passing currents. Such a peace after such turmoil brings relief all the way to the soul. I could see that the tornado had not touched down everywhere, and I walked towards the house in which my grandparents’ best friend lived. In the distance I saw it standing solid and sound. I knocked on the door, stepped inside, sat down at the kitchen table, and broke into uncontrollable sobs. I was safe. But others had paid such a price for it.

All the other stories I read about challenging the elements have fierce battles against raging waters, battles that last, battles in which first the rains are winning and then the protagonist goes ahead, with the one in charge changing until, at last, the teller of the tail, wins or loses. But, it was not that way with me. Everything was soft, and warm, and comfortable, and my faith in my safety was complete. In less than a minute everything was destroyed, all on a sudden, all lost, all gone forever. Never again can I be lonely, for nothing can ever match the singularity of how I felt separated from all beings as I sat alone under the still hanging roof of that shed.

No trace of my grandparents was ever found. Still, I carry them with me wherever I go. And I know now that which even the strongest of us sometimes never come to realize. Quiet courage in the face of danger surpasses all the deeds of all the heroes of our novels and our legends. That can never change.

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Publication Date: 10-14-2009

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