Up In the Air - Integrity

You grunt. Your eyelids are laden and sluggish, so you decide not to open them yet. Your mind is inhibited with the drowsiness of the night’s sleep from which you just awoke. The room is bright, the blinds in the window behind your head doing a miserable job of blocking out the late morning sun. You reach up and grab the phone lying on top of the wooden frame of the bed, unplug it, and bring it down to your face. Forcing your eyes open, you blink at the blurry numbers on the screen for a few moments until they shift into focus enough to be readable: 11:23.

It’s late, but not late enough to force you out of bed; then, your stomach rumbles and you feel the depleted pit of acid shake in anger at its lack of material to melt. That’s enough: swinging the covers back, your legs swing out over empty space, and you leap the foot between your bed and rug to avoid incurring the shock of stepping on the cold tile floor. You sit down in the chair by your desk to slide on some socks and then trod to the bathroom. You notice the light that usually spreads under the door from your suitemate’s room is off. That’s odd, you think. Alex is almost always up before me.

You hear another growl emanating from your midsection and quickly change into clothes suitable for being in public before grabbing your wallet, keys, and phone and setting out from your room and into the hall lined with doors. You lock your door and travel down the hallway. It is completely empty and silent in the hallway save the slight sound of the friction between your shoes and the carpet and the rustling of your pants. You pass Kaitlyn and Karly’s room; there is no sound from within, but they sleep late on weekends. On your left is Zachary’s room. You stop for a moment, straining to hear the tell-tale sign of a YouTube video playing to indicate that he had not yet gone to bed, but hear nothing.

You frown at the lack of noise. You snap a few times right next to your ear—just to make sure you’re not going crazy—the sound sharp and loud, and then farther away, until your arm is fully outstretched. Should anyone happen upon you, they would undoubtedly brand you as odd for the scene you are making. The sound of the snap as your hand extends into space is less crisp, but still there. Oh, good. I’m not going deaf, I suppose, you think. I guess people are still asleep, for the most part. I can’t fault them for that; it is a Sunday, after all.

You shake your head to snap your thoughts away from the now less heavy silence and proceed out the door. You take a moment to glare at the sun with squinted eyes as it immediately assaults the sensitive organs, as usual, the moment you step from the safe haven that is the indoors. A bird trills in the tree to your left, and you turn, catching a glimpse of a red-chested bird with brown feathers. A robin. You listen as it calls out again and is answered by another in the tree across the small courtyard situated between two dorm buildings. At least the birds are making noises this morning.

There is no one in the courtyard, but then there is no need for anyone to be. Not only is campus supposed to be mostly empty due to the extended weekend for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but the dorm in which you reside is the farthest out in this direction, so no one would need to travel by it. You shield your eyes with your left hand and turn to the right, striding off towards the cafeteria.

The space in between you and the building is void of people. There should be people traveling to and fro for food, recreation, whatever, but there is no one. You look for the usual group of three guys passing a soccer ball between each other in the grass field in front of the dining hall, but they are not there, either. No one is out throwing frisbee; there are no dogs being walked by their owners. Perhaps the weather is too uncomfortable for people to be outside, though it doesn’t feel that bad out today. You unlock your phone and open the weather app. It’s a crisp 40 degrees with a light wind from the northwest. Well, I guess it is still possible that no one wanted to be out.

You are now even with the side of the building. You glance through the large open window to your left; there is a Starbucks in there, but, there is no one inside. You stop by the doors and stare in through the panes of glass. The hours are written on them, but they’re too faded to read. Then, you notice that the lights are off. I guess it’s closed for the break. I’m sure people are in an uproar over that. Saying that, though, I don’t think Starbucks has ever closed for a weekend break. You shrug. You don’t drink Starbucks often, anyway, so you can’t bring yourself to care overly much.

Your stomach makes another ungodly noise, and you shake your head at forgetting your only real goal of the day. You turn back towards the doors of the cafeteria and approach. You tap the handicap button, and the leftmost doors swing open, allowing you to walk inside with minimal effort. I guess I see why people do this so often; it’s a great way to be lazy, though it’s not like it’s that much effort to open the door like usual.

You step through into the warmth of the building and look down to find your zipper and unzip your jacket. When you look back up, you notice the downstairs room is empty. The Subway right across from the entrance has no workers. Homestyle Cooking is equally as deserted, and the ever-present line at Moe’s is nowhere to be seen. Is the downstairs closed, too? What on Earth is happening on campus today?

You move onward to the stairs and climb up them to the buffet style cafeteria. Your footsteps echo as you go up the stairs; you strain to hear the voices of people gossiping about classwork or relationships, but, disturbingly, there are no human voices coming from out of sight above you. There isn’t even the sound of the television that usually sits across from the register to swipe in.

You make it to the top of the stairs and glance around, your hand already reaching into your pocket and pulling out your wallet. In a practiced motion, you flip one side open, and your card slides out. You go to catch it, but stop mid-movement. It clatters to the floor as your mind finally catches up to what your eyes are seeing. The room is empty. You stand, frozen, eyes stuck on the grill which usually cooks burgers. It is turned off and the lights above are dark.

You hear a growl. Your empty hand slaps against your stomach as you snap out of shock. Oh, shut up. You know I’m trying here! It rumbles again. Why is the building unlocked if everything inside is closed? Well, maybe it’s not all closed.

You snatch your card off the floor and bound back down the steps and turn to the only area of the building you haven’t been in: the campus grocery store. You press your face against the door, cupping your hands around your eyes to see in. The lights are on, but you can’t see anyone. You shrug. You can’t really see anything important from the door, anyway. The register is to my left, and the staff are probably behind it.

You push against the door, almost expecting it not to open, but it does. You step inside and immediately glance to where you know the register to be. There is no one behind it. You quickly maneuver through the three aisles, looking desperately for some staff member who can ring up some food so you can eat. The store is empty. Well, people or not, I’m not going to steal food. There’s no excuse for that, and the building probably has cameras anyway. Your stomach rumbles. I do need to eat, though.

You grab a box of Pop-Tarts and a small plastic bottle of chocolate milk. You start to turn back to the register, but quickly snap back around and grab a soda, as well. At the register, you scan the items and swipe your card through the card reader. Everything registers smoothly and you put your items in a bag before going back to your dorm. You still don’t see anyone, but your mind is too settled on food to really notice.

Once you are back in your room, you rip open the box and tear through two packages of Pop-Tarts, then drain the bottle of milk. Your stomach now full, you decide to work on some math homework due in the morning. Professor Schnyder would not accept “everyone on campus disappeared” as a viable excuse for not doing my homework. You reach into a drawer, pull out a calculator and press the “on” button. The screen remains blank. Oh, come on! Don’t tell me the stupid thing is dead! With the way my day is going, there’s no way I can buy batteries for this. I guess I’ll see if Alex has some.

You step out into the hallway and to Alex’s door. You knock a few times, and wait, but there is no answer. You knock again, just to make sure. Still no answer. I guess I’ll try Kaitlyn and Karly’s room. You stride to their door and rap it with your knuckles a few times. You wait a moment, but there is no answer. Come on! Someone in this hall has to be in their room! You go for one last stop at Zachary’s room. Still no answer. You start to walk away, nearly shaking in frustration. Halfway back to your room, you remember a few weeks back when Zach’s room was broken into. He had left it unlocked while he was off campus for some gaming tournament. Maybe he left it unlocked again?

You turn around and come back to his door. You slowly reach out and grasp the handle. You push a little. It gives slightly. You push harder and the door swings open. The inside is a mess. There is trash piled up in a corner: bags of chips, soda cans, plates of mostly eaten food. On the desk are three monitors, dark, turned off. You slide a few things around on the desk, looking for batteries on the off-chance that his miserable organizational skills would allow for them to be on the desk.

You grit your teeth slightly after a few moments of nothing, and then reach for the drawers of the desk. You grab the notch on top and begin to pull it out, but stop. What am I thinking? I am breaking and entering and trying to liberate batteries from Zach. What would he think if he came back and found me in here? You let go of the drawer and step back.  Still, I need batteries for my calculator. I’m sure he’d understand. You open the drawer and rummage through its contents. There are many interesting things within, but no batteries. You look through the other two drawers, but find them discouragingly empty of batteries, too.

You exit Zach’s room shaking your head. Well, maybe I can check Alex’s room, too…I don’t know if the door is ever unlocked, but it wouldn’t hurt to try. Having made up your mind, you walk back down the hall and attempt to open Alex’s door. It swings open just as easily as Zach’s. You step inside. It’s mostly clean, relatively well organized. On the table, you spot a remote. Well, if I can’t find batteries throughout the room, I can always borrow the batteries from the remote. I’m sure Alex won’t mind. I’ll give them back as soon as I’m done with my math homework, anyway.

You scavenge through the room, but come up empty-handed again, so you empty the remote of its batteries and exit the room. There are only two, and you need four, so you again decide to enter someone’s empty room. This time, Kaitlyn and Karly’s room. Without hesitation, you reach out and push the door open. You quickly walk in and gut the room in your search for two more Triple-A batteries. As only one drawer remains unsearched, you again feel hopeless at the ridiculous situation of the day. I swear the world is out to get me. This is just insane.

You open the last drawer and find not batteries inside, but something remarkably more valuable. Stuffed into the drawer are 10 bundles of cash. They’re thick enough that they barely fit, and all hundred-dollar-bills, too. Where…no, how on Earth did they get all this money? There’s no way they could get this money through ordinary means. I mean, we’re college students for Christ’s sake!

You stare at it in awe. Your mind drifts to your family at home; your younger brother and sister wearing hand-me-down clothes from their older siblings. Your parents’ older vehicles…your own car which you bought after three years of working thirty hours a week on top of high school. You think of your house; there are three bedrooms. You share one with your twin; your younger brother and sister share one. Your parents get the last. They’re somewhat cramped, but comfortable enough. Your life is hard, but not so hard as to be unbearable. But, you think, oh what my family could do with this money. We could afford so much more; we could go from surviving to living!

No! I must not steal. We can survive as we’ve been doing for as long as I can remember. I graduate this year; once I get a job, I can help mom and dad put Jacob and Alyssa through college. It’s not right to steal. You step back from the drawer and walk towards the door. Your hand reaches out to push the door open, but you are held back by a stray thought. I could only take, say, half. There’s a lot there. Kaitlyn and Karly certainly won’t miss it, and even if they did, they would have no way of knowing it was me.

You turn around and approach the drawer again. You kneel next to it and reach out. You run a finger along a bill. The material is smooth. Your fingers splay out and you wrap them around a wad as thick as you can hold in your hand. You pull and separate the bunch from the rest, then quickly shove the drawer shut to avoid more temptation. This is all I will take. Now, I should go back to my room and hide it.

You stride across the room with purpose; your hand reaches out to grab the handle and twist it open, but it begins to move of its own accord. You stand and stare, frozen in shock. It seems my luck is just meant to curse me, you think. The door opens and smacks against your shoulder. A voice calls out from the other side. “Who’s in there?”

You step back, still staring at the space that used to house the handle. The door swings fully open and a police officer steps into the room. He takes one glance at you holding a wad of cash in your hand. “Where’d you get that?” You try to open your mouth, but your lips seem glued together. You can’t say anything, so you just shake your head and point back at the drawer. The officer steps into the room and curly blonde hair becomes visible from behind him.

Jovial eyes and a smirking face pierce into your eyes and soul from between the dual curtains of hair framing a face. A hand reaches out and pries yours open, slipping the bundle of money from your clammy fingers. Karly drops the money on the floor. “I never thought someone would try to steal fake money, and I especially never thought you would be the hall thief.”

Your eyes narrow, your face a mask of confusion. You try to ask what she’s talking about, but your lips still refuse to part. Her smirk widens, if that’s possible. “Oh, don’t act innocent. We caught you rummaging through three different rooms and stealing from two.” Karly points directly above her and you see a camera mounted on top of the door frame. “It’s a pity. I thought it was Alex who was stealing stuff throughout the hallway, but I suppose my suspicions were only because of your rooming next door.”

The police officer approaches you from behind and you hear the sound of metal clinking. “You’re under arrest for two counts of larceny and three counts of breaking and entering.” You feel the cold metal of the handcuffs snap around your wrists and the world goes dark.

You grunt. Your eyelids are laden and sluggish, so you decide not to open them yet. Then, you hear a robotic voice. “Simulation complete.” Your eyes snap open and you sit up. As you do, a man’s voice calls out, “Thank you for your time. You’ll find your test results on the table in the next room. Please take the papers and exit through the marked door.”

You swing your legs off the table and follow the instructions, finding a single sheet of paper with your name on it, a few short sentences thanking you for taking part in the testing, and a percentage next to a bolded phrase. But what catches your attention is the large text at the bottom that only reads, Humanity’s moral compass is superseded only by that of its dubious nature.

The River

“I n-need to d-come by and t-talk. Are you f-f-free, Jordan?”

“Yeah. I got off work an hour ago. Come over whenever you’re ready.”

“Thanks.” The other end of the line went dead, and Jordan looked at his phone before locking it and setting it down on the bed.

At that moment, his mom walked in the room. “Is Savannah okay, honey?”

He stared hard at the floor.

“You were on the phone for forty minutes. That’s a long conversation for her.”

“It took me thirty minutes to get her to stop crying long enough to tell me what she needed.” At this, he glanced up to see his mother jerk her hand up to cover her mouth. “I know. She’ll be over any minute, so can you make some PB&J’s?”

Jordan’s mother quickly left the room, headed for the kitchen. Savannah’s comfort food was PB&J, and coincidentally, the only outward sign of her being upset is when she’s eating PB&J’s, except now. For as long as Jordan could remember knowing Savannah, which has been since they were three, she never showed being upset. Even as a little kid, she would act like nothing ever bothered her. So, now, at the age of seventeen, for her to be crying, and not just crying, but wracking sobbing, was evidence of something clearly extremely disconcerting.

A few minutes later, the door swung open and Savannah walked in. Her cheeks and nose were red, and she sniffled three times before she got the door shut, and four more before she made it to Jordan’s room, just down the hallway from the entrance.

She pushed the door to Jordan’s room fully open, walked in, and closed it behind her before lunging towards Jordan and grabbing him in a tight hug and full on crying again. Jordan froze for a moment before reaching around and rubbing her back in slow circles. They stood, wrapped up in the hug for many minutes before a knock reverberated from the door through the room.

Jordan pulled back a little and said, “Mom made some PB&J’s. You want some?”

Savannah let go of him and reached up, wiping her eyes with her sleeves and mumbled a choked off “yes.”

He walked across the room and opened the door. His mom handed him a tray of sandwiches, then backed out and closed it again, leaving the two alone to talk it out. They sat in silence for a time, until Savannah finished all three sandwiches and then they climbed on to Jordan’s bed and lay down side by side, arms behind their heads, elbows brushing against each other, and so began a tradition that they had kept for the last eight years. Savannah said, “I don’t know what to do, Jordan.”

“About what, Savannah?”

“These problems I’m having.”

“What are these problems?”

“Cody. Cody’s my problem, and the cause of my other problems.”

“Why?”

“Because Cody is an idiot and a coward and I can’t believe I dated him.”

 “What did he do?”

“He stealthed me.”

“What is that?”

“When we were having sex, he took off the condom without telling me.”

“And what happened because of that?”

At this point, the tradition broke. When they came up with this tradition, it was to make it easy to get things off their chests. It took the hard task of telling troubling stories and made it a simple question and answer prompt, and there was no judgment involved, so it was easy to feel safer than even two absolute best friends could feel in each other’s company.

Savannah rolled on top of Jordan and buried her face in his chest, sobbing again. “I’m pregnant, Jordan. I’m pregnant and I don’t know what to do!”

The thoughts running through Jordan’s brain were strong enough that his body almost became too confused to respond to Savannah, but his knee jerk reaction took over, and he wrapped his arms around her. Then, his face began contorting through the many emotions running through his head. First was confusion, morphing his pleasant features into a strange array. Next was fear for what Savannah would do, but that was quickly overridden with anger at her for doing something so dumb as having sex with the stupid jock she decided to date. His features morphed into a grotesque image as he turned that hate on to the useless jerk, Cody, who put his best friend, and the only girl he had ever loved into this situation.

After several minutes of this train of thought, Savannah’s crying finally began to stop, and Jordan began to reign in his emotions so he could put on the mask of the loyal friend Savannah had always seen him as.

“Well, I have an idea of what to do, or more, I know a place where we can go.” He slid out from under her. “Come on, get up. Put your shoes on and follow me.” He pulled her up so she was sitting on the edge of the bed, grabbed her shoes where they had been haphazardly thrown in the floor, and slid them on her feet, then pulled her up. He took her by the hand and led her out the door, down the hall, outside, and around the back of the house.

“Where are we going, Jordan?” She sniffed out.

He pointed at the hill in front of them. “Down.”

Jordan guided them down the hill by a path that was nearly overgrown by grass and small plants, under hanging tree branches, and around giant rocks. As they walked, Savannah began to walk more and be pulled along less. When they had made it halfway down, a subtle roar began to fill their ears, growing louder moment by moment.

Jordan led her around one last bend in the path, and it finally came into view. “The river,” Savannah gasped.

“Do you remember when we used to come down here all the time? That path was so worn out that we thought nothing was ever going to grow on it.”

“The pool. It’s still here?”

“I came down every few weeks and kept it built up, in case you decided you ever wanted to come back.”

The pool in question was just a circle of rocks all stacked up on the side of the river, creating a pool of much slower water about two feet deep. They had built it when they were 12, and came down almost every evening for four years to sit in the pool, let the cool water wash past them, and talk.

As if in a trance, she walked towards the pool and stepped in the water. It was still somewhat warm from the hot summer day, and she sank into it sighing. Jordan joined her, and she said, “I know I shouldn’t have done it, but I wanted to so bad. I wanted to experience it. What do I do?”

“Pray. That’s what we always came down to the river for.”

“But, I’ve messed up. Bad. What do I say?”

“Say what you feel. God knows what you’re thinking and feeling anyway. Just talk to him like you do me.”

So, Savannah bowed her head and prayed. She poured out her heart in that pool, and later, when the sun had fully set and the moon had started to slide up over the trees, she stopped and rose from the water. She glanced down at Jordan who had sat there the whole time, silently praying for her.

He stood up, too. “You may not know what to do now, but God always has a plan for you. And I’ll always be here for you, too.

Savannah nodded. “I missed this. I never should’ve stopped coming, but let’s do it again tomorrow.”

They stepped back and stared at the river, standing beside each other. Jordan reached over and grabbed Savannah’s hand, holding it comfortingly as they stood, dripping, and staring over the moonlit water.

The next day, Savannah and Jordan returned to the pool, and the next day, and the following week, and the next month. Finally, at five months into her pregnancy, Savannah’s mother no longer felt it safe for her to continue making the arduous trek to the river, and so Jordan began visiting her instead.

“Savannah, you in there?” Jordan knocked on her bedroom door again. “Your mom said you need to come eat.”

“No! I don’t want to eat! Leave me alone!”

“You need to eat! You have to stay healthy, and you haven’t touched anything since your doctor’s appointment yesterday morning.”

“I don’t care!”

“Fine.” Jordan walked away from the door and into Savannah’s kitchen. He grabbed a plate, loaded it with food, and made his way back to her door before pushing it open, and freezing in the doorway at the sight of the mess in the room. It looked like a child’s temper tantrum if the child had been hopped up on sugar. Clothes, books, and various accessories were strewn everywhere. Her bed was on its side, and her chair had been flipped over, with her laying on the floor, curled into a ball, and not moving.

“Holy… Savannah, what happened?”

She looked up at me, eyes bloodshot and puffy. The second time I had ever seen that look. “She’s gone. Jordan. She’s gone.”

“What do you mean, ‘she’s gone?’”

“I mean my baby. The doctor, he… It’s a miscarriage. She died before she was ever born.”

Jordan didn’t know what to think. He knew what he should be thinking: sadness, sorrow, mourning, for Savannah’s loss of her unborn child, but he couldn’t help but feel a mix of other emotions: vindication, lucky, and while happiness most certainly wasn’t the right word, it was as close as he could get to describing the feeling that bounced around his head because Savannah had been freed from the trouble that would have changed everything about her life. However, he reacted on none of these. Instead, he said, “I’m sorry, Savannah.”

Then, he flipped the bed back down and picked her up, laid her on it, and slipped the covers over her shoulders. He lay down beside her and asked, “What did you pray for, that first day at the river?”

“What?”

“What did you pray for?”

“I asked God to forgive me, and to take care of me, to set me back on the path he wanted me to go.”

“What did you think would happen?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t want the baby. I hoped it would be taken away.”

“What changed?”

“I got attached. She was growing, and I could feel her alive and moving inside me. Is God punishing me for having sex? For running away?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Then why did this happen?”

“I don’t really know, Savannah. Maybe because God didn’t want you to have a baby yet. I can’t tell you for sure, but I know he does everything for a reason.”

“How do you know that?”

“That’s what the Bible says. The same way you know it. I’m not going to pretend to know any more than that, but you know that I’m always here if you need me.”

Nature's Control

Clouds rolled in the reddening sky, the white-and-red-tinged edges on the horizon shading gradually darker into the grays and blacks of the cumulonimbus directly above. The darkest, in the center, seemed to be more a void than black; a gap in between it and its neighbor allowed Nick a glimpse at the atmospheric heights it reached for. At the top, a flash lit the air. First yellow, then red, then blue, a highly unusual color pattern for any sort of atmospheric light, excluding auroras.

A voice beside Nick startled him into looking down. “Is there aliens up there?”

“No, Joshua, there are no aliens.” Nick jerked his head upwards sharply back to the hole in the clouds, but it had closed in the time he had taken to look down. He grunted. “Why don’t you go back inside. We don’t need to leave for school for another hour.”

“Mama’s yellin’ at dad again. I didn’t want her to yell at me, so I came out here.”

Nick’s lips contorted into a grimace and he threw an arm around his little brother’s shoulder, pulling him a little closer. “What did dad do to draw her ire this time?”

“He got in the shower before her. She said she needed to go to work earlier today or somethin’ like that. I didn’t stay to listen. So, what’s them lights if they ain’t aliens?”

“Lightning. Rare lightning. Look.” Nick pointed at another gap in the clouds that had just opened, revealing a yellow flash that veined its way through the towering structure of water and dust. “The yellow is just regular cloud-to-cloud lightning. There’s nothing special about that, but what comes after is pretty cool.” A column of dim red light, almost invisible, shot up miles above the cloud. After that, a jet of brighter blue light shot up even higher. “That is sprite lightning. It’s one of the rarest forms, especially the blue jets. They form in the ionosphere, hundreds of miles above the top of any storm cloud due to an irregular charging and discharge of positive and negatively charged particles in the storm cloud.”

“What’s an ion sphere?”

“Not ion sphere. Ionosphere. It’s a layer in the atmosphere of charged particles. It causes stuff like the Aurora Borealis, or the Northern Lights.”

“Oh, that’s cool. Why’s it so rare?”

“The conditions for it to form are very particular. Basically, sprite lightning occurs when the process to make regular lightning screws up, and since nature rarely screws up, we rarely get to see it, but when we do, it’s definitely something to remember. In addition, sprites are very dim, and thus, very hard to see. We’re lucky that it’s still mostly dark outside, or we wouldn’t be able to catch a glimpse of anything more than the barest hint of blue jets, especially considering the redness of the sunrise.” He muttered the next part barely loud enough for himself to hear. “Though, these are a lot of strange occurrences to be had all in the same morning.”

“Don’t dad always say something about red in the mornings being bad?”

“It’s an old sailor’s saying: Red in the morning, sailors take warning; red in the night, sailor’s delight. Basically, the conditions that create a red morning are conducive to incoming thunderstorms that can be very dangerous, like the one we’re about to experience.”

A thick drop of water punctuated Nick’s final word, splashing on the tip of Joshua’s nose, who promptly giggled like the fifth grader he was.

“It’s gonna rain again. That means no recess!”

“Well, at least that means Zach won’t have the chance to pick on you today. Come on, get in the car. I’ll go tell mom and dad we’re going to school and we can get breakfast on the way.” Joshua flashed a wide grin at him before taking off for Nick’s car. Nick smiled briefly back before dropping his features into a dead glare with his lips downturned, eyes deadened by his half-closed eyelids and taking a deep breath. Then, he stepped back into the house.

Before the door could shut behind him, he was beset upon by his mother. “What were you doing outside?”

“Cloud watching.”

“Don’t you do enough of that useless stuff on T.V. in the afternoons?”

“No. I like to learn about the weather, and there is no such thing as doing too much of something you enjoy, mom.”

“There is when you don’t get your chores done. How many times have I told you to wash the dishes this week?”

“At least once a day.”

“Then why haven’t you done it?”

Nick’s face shifted from the deadened expression. The corners of his lips upturned and his eyes flashed slightly in the dim light of the living room. “I have. You seem to forget, for some reason, that every night when we eat dinner more dishes are dirtied. I have washed dishes every day this week and will continue to do so every day of every week I spend in this house.”

“That’s no excuse for me seeing dirty dishes in the sink. Go wash them. Now!”

“I can’t. I’m just grabbing my bag before taking Joshua to school.”

“School isn’t for another forty-five minutes. You have time.”

“I have a meeting with Mr. Garrick before class today. I’ll do them when I get home,” he said, simultaneously reaching down and grabbing his backpack from the top of the stairs leading down to his basement bedroom. Two years ago, he had moved into the basement when his mother threw out the bunk beds he and his brother had shared before confining Joshua, who was afraid of the dark, to the abyss for keeping her up vomiting with a stomach bug one night.

“Fine, but you’d better not have that stupid weather channel nonsense on when I get home.”

Nick just brushed past her into the bedroom she shared with his father and his baby sister. The crib was pushed into his dad’s corner of the room. He leaned in over the walls of the crib and picked up the awakening toddler, just over a year old. “Hey, little Emily,” he cooed. “Did you sleep well?”

The brown-haired little girl lifted her meaty hands to her face and rubbed at her eyes, nodding her head. “Good.”

“Good.” He set her back down in the crib. “Behave for dad, today, okay?”

“’Kay.”

The door to the adjoining bathroom flung open, bathing the mostly dark room in fluorescent light around the six-foot figure filling the door frame. “Hey dad. Just letting you know Joshua and I are going to school. I’m buying him breakfast. Text me if you need anything and I’ll get it on my way home.”

Nick’s dad crossed the distance between them and hugged him. “Alright bud. Y’all be safe, especially with this weather. Red in the morning and all.”

Nick hugged him back. “I know. I’ll drive carefully. Don’t let mother boss you around too much before she leaves, and don’t forget to take care of Emily before your Skype interview.”

They separated and Nick’s dad only grinned. “Hey, this ain’t my first rodeo, you know. I did raise you and your little brother, and I’ve searched for jobs before. I got this.”

“I know, dad, but I worry still.”

“You’re only 17. You’re too young to be worrying about me. Now get on to school and grab some money out of my wallet for breakfast. Save yours for gas.”

“It’s alright. I worked an extra eight hours last week. I have a little to spare.”

“Not a chance. He’s my kid, not yours. I’ll take care of him.”

“Look here, old man, if I want to treat my little brother to Bojangles, I’ll treat him to Bojangles, especially after he attentively listened to my lecture on lightning earlier. He deserves it.”

“You sure are intent on making your old man feel useless, aren’t you?”

“Nonsense. I just want to be helpful, and this is how I can help.” He walked towards the bedroom door but turned before opening it. “Love you, dad. See you this afternoon.”

“Love you, too, bud. Now get going; I’m sure Josh is hungry.” Nick reached for the handle, but the door swung open before he got there, smacking into his hand and nose before being stopped by his foot. He reached up to swipe at his now runny nose and could see the skin of his hand already turning a little darker with the first stages of a bruise. It came away with a shimmering red liquid covering it.

“Get out of the way!” He backed up slightly from the door as his mother slammed into it from the other side and she stumbled in, barely able to straighten out from her momentum. She glanced briefly down at the floor, then glared into Nick’s face, taking in the blood dripping off his lip and adding to the already present puddle below and said, “Don’t forget to wash the dishes when you get home, and clean up that mess you made on the floor!”

Nick grunted and walked past her for a box of tissues next to the door. He swiped them off the table, acknowledging his dad’s comment about cleaning up the floor for him by shouldering the door open and kicking it shut behind him. He rolled his eyes and got in his car, starting the manual piece of junk that was all he could afford after a year of working at the local grocery store. The rattle of the engine briefly disguised the deluge of rain that had just tumbled from the sky, but the sound was too much to cover up completely, especially with the massive burst of wind that howled as it dropped straight down from the sky, nearly pushing the rust-bucket car into the ground.

Joshua, who had been trying to avoid looking at his older brother’s bloody nose yelped and asked, “What was that?”

Nick answered, “A microburst,” but it came out a little muffled and stuffy from the drying blood in his nose.

“A what?”

“A microburst. A lot of water and wind all coming straight down at one time. It seems we were on the edge of it.”

“How do you know that?”

“If we were in the middle of one in this piece of crap, we’d be dead, probably. Luckily, they’re not very big, and they don’t last long. It probably hit the house, but it isn’t quite enough to damage it.” That wasn’t strictly true, but Josh didn’t need to know the utter disrepair their house could be in. Microbursts were one-in-a-million weather occurrences, so it wasn’t anything he needed to worry over. Tornadoes, maybe, but those were nearly as rare in the mountains where they lived.

Nick shifted the car into gear and slipped out of the driveway and onto the road, maintaining a velocity just under the speed limit to avoid any extra danger of hydroplaning. He flicked his windshield wipers on to the highest speed to see through the downpour now being unleashed from the void-like cloud above.

After grabbing breakfast, Nick dropped his brother off at the elementary school just down the road from the high school. As Joshua grabbed his bag and exited the car, a loud, rolling crash rent the air. Joshua jumped and smacked his head on the door frame. “Ow,” he cried, rubbing his head.

Nick frowned. “Joshua, run into school, and don’t leave the building until I come get you. Stay away from the windows, okay?”

“Is the storm that bad?”

“Maybe. That lightning was close, from the sound of the thunder created by its shockwave of displaced air. Better safe than sorry.”

Sensing the tinge of fear almost hidden in his voice, Joshua nodded his head and said, “Be careful, bro.”

Nick tried to smile reassuringly. “I will, now run along.” He watched until his brother’s backpack disappeared in between the double doors of the school’s entrance and then set out for his own school, reaching into his bag for some fries. When his fingers couldn’t feel any, he braved a glance down into the bag; it lasted no longer than a few seconds. He spotted some and grasped his prize just as another shockwave of sound blasted the area. His head jerked upright in shock, and a flash of lightning illuminated the area like the midday sun. In that brief instant, he spotted a large, smoking tree stretched out across the road. He slammed on the brakes, initiating a stop, but almost immediately began sliding. He cursed himself for forgetting his Driver’s Ed lessons and started pumping the brakes, trying to force his wheels to gain traction on the slick surface. When he stopped, his front bumper was mere feet from the tree.

Even from that distance the tree was barely visible through the streams of water that darkened his windshield. The thick clouds above blocked out all the light now that the outer edge of the storm had stretched beyond the horizon and the sun had risen to a place above them, and the headlights on his car were nearly useless anyway. Nick took a moment to thank Mother Nature for the storm being directly above him. Had it not, the thunder and lightning combo would not have struck in nearly as quick succession, and he would surely be a smoking, impaled corpse on one of the many sharp limbs of the tree.

Ever so slowly, with shaking hands, Nick turned the car around and traveled back before cutting down a side road detour. Just before he entered the school building, he took one last glance at the clouds in the distance. At the very edge, a low, long cloud filled the sky underneath the storm, barely visible against the darkness of the clouds surrounding it, almost like camouflage. Had it been on the eastern edge of the storm, he never would have seen it; however, its presence on the western edge meant it was highlighted by the greenery of the Appalachian mountain range in the distance. It was a sign of, perhaps, the greatest danger a storm on land ever posed to people: a tornado. The timing of events after a wall cloud formation are sporadic at best. Tornadoes can form anywhere between one minute after the formation of a wall cloud to an hour or more.

Knowing this, Nick promptly pulled out his phone and texted his dad: Dad, take Emily into the basement now! Make sure you have something sturdy to hold over you and her and grab the radio. Don’t go upstairs until you get an all-clear from the weather station. We’re under a tornado warning.

A few minutes later, his dad texted back: I took care of it. But, how did you know we were under a tornado warning? The radio only just announced it for the first time after you texted me.

I saw the wall cloud. Stay safe. Love you.

We will. Love you, too.

Satisfied he had done everything possible at the moment, Nick glanced at the time and read 8:05. He groaned. Of course, that stupid downed tree made him late for class. He shoved the door open and made his way to calculus, greeted only by the sounds of his shoes echoing in the empty hallway. Another roar of thunder sounded, rattling the doors in their frames. As he passed the remedial classrooms, he noticed a figure stomping down the hall and into the remedial algebra classroom. He locked eyes with the figure, staring directly into the beady black eyes of his personal version of Joshua’s Zach. Jacob had a habit of picking on the cloud-watching nerd every chance he could get. It was one he had built up since recess in elementary school, but now could only pursue in the mornings before classes started. Fortune smiled upon Nick once more that day; since he was late, Jacob was unable to pull anything, which meant he only had the two bruises from his mother to sport all day, now.

Classes passed as usual, with the storm intensifying as the day continued. Just after noon, though, in the middle of lunch, the lights in the cafeteria flashed above Nick. He assumed they had done the same in the rest of the building and was justified when they shut off for good and the administration announced that everyone would be going home early.

Nick raced for his car, eager to check on his family. As he sprinted through the parking lot, he passed by Jacob who didn’t even spare him a glance in the downpour, as he was too annoyed at the rain soaking his brand-new jacket and shoes. Nick slipped into his car and slammed the door shut before dialing the number for the elementary school. After confirming they were letting out, too, he made his way back through the side roads to avoid the downed tree and picked Joshua up, heading directly home from there.

He tapped feverishly on the steering wheel as he drove, hoping that his luck would hold, and his dad and sister would be perfectly fine in a completely safe house when he arrived. Joshua was uncharacteristically silent the whole way, picking up on his older brother’s tension.

When he arrived home, he dropped his stuff in his room and jerked open the door to his dad’s room. Seeing no one, he assumed he was still in the basement, and subsequently dragged Joshua down the stairs. Another rolling thunder punctuated the door slamming shut behind them and masked their steps coming down the stairs. As they reached the bottom, Nick heard the high-pitched squeal of Emily’s laughter accompanied by the booming bass of his dad’s. He rounded the corner of the stairwell to see them lying on his bed, with his dad holding Emily above his head and swooping her around in the air like a plane.

When he saw them, he sat up, pulling Emily into his chest. “What’re you two doing home so early?”

“Power went out at school, so they sent us home. I take it the tornado warning is still in effect?”

“Yep. I just finished my interview a little while ago, and Emily wanted to play, so we’ve been doing that for a while.”

“How’d the interview go?”

“You’ll never believe this, but it seems that luck is turning for me today. I forgot to turn the radio off during the interview, and they heard the tornado warning report. I was about to apologize to ‘em when all of a sudden they stopped the interview and just said, ‘you’re hired.’ I stuttered a bit, and all I could think to ask was ‘why?’ They told me that I had some kind of dedication doing an interview in the middle of a tornado warning and that was what they was looking for, so they hired me immediately.”

Nick’s eyes widened so much they looked like they were about to fall out of their sockets. “Really? That’s almost unbelievable! Congratulations, dad!”

“Yep. Only problem now is I’ve gotta break the news to your mother that we need to move. The job’s only two hours down the road, but it’s too far for me to drive to work every day, and she can take her job from home, so we’ll have to switch up everything.”

Nick grimaced. “Well, we can break the news to her when it’s not so stormy outside so we can get out when she starts yelling.”

“Sounds like a plan to me.” They grinned at each other and all three passed the time playing.

**

By about mid-evening, the storm had ended, bringing with it the reddest sunset Nick had ever laid eyes on. He was sitting on the porch watching the clouds dissipate in the distance when his dad opened the front door. He had his phone in his hand, and his face was as pale as the barely visible ghost moon rising above the horizon. “Nick, get your sister and get her in the car. We need to go.”

Nick shot up from the chair, a question springing from his lips, but before he could make a sound his dad just held a finger over his lips and shook his head. “You’ll see when we get there.”

Nick hurried inside and grabbed Emily, securing her tightly in the car. He hopped in the passenger seat as his dad pressed into the car and cranked it before backing out and heading the opposite direction of the school. Nick’s eyebrows furrowed momentarily before realization hit him like lightning. They were headed to where his mom worked.

Nick glanced at his dad, who caught the action and only shook his head again. They remained silent for the entire 30-minute drive. When they arrived at the Verizon store where his mother worked as tech support, Nick knew immediately why his dad wouldn’t say anything. The store, and everything around it, was nothing but rubble. Nick leaped out of the car as it came to a stop out of pure instinct and dashed toward the rubble of the store.

His father was right behind him, followed shortly by Joshua. He froze as a voice sounded from behind. “Are you Mr. Silas Drake?”

Nick turned with his father, feeling a tear slide, unbidden, down his face at the news that was about to come.

His dad answered, “I am.”

The EMT nodded and stared him in the eyes. “I’m sorry. We’ve called the mortuary to retrieve your wife so that funeral arrangements can be set up. I hate to say this, but it’ll probably be a closed casket.”

For a long moment, Nick and his father stood side by side and stared at the man, who began to shift uncomfortably. Tears began to flow more freely now, gushing from Nick’s eyes. He reached up and rubbed at them, frustrated at his own emotions. ‘I shouldn’t be crying right now,’ he thought. ‘She bullied, bruised, and demeaned Joshua and me. She controlled dad all the time; she made it so hard to be a family. Why am I sad?’

Joshua broke him from his thoughts, tugging on his shirt. “Why are you crying, Nick? What’s wrong?”

Nick turned to face him but found himself unable to look Joshua in the eyes, instead looking above his head at the storm clouds dissipating in the distance. “Mom… Mom isn’t here anymore. The storm… and the tornado. They killed her.”

Joshua’s brow remained furrowed in confusion for a moment before Nick’s words hit him. The transition from confusion to despair was immediate as tears flowed from his eyes. In the next moment, he shoved his face into Nick’s side and wrapped his arms around him. “Why?”

Nick leaned down and embraced his little brother. “I don’t know, buddy. With all the things I understand about the weather, I just don’t know why it hurts.”

After a few minutes, the tears began to slow, and Josh finally looked up at Nick. “Mother Nature is a mom, too, right?”

“What?”

“Mother Nature. She’s a mother, so she’s a mom just like ours, right?”

“Uh, I guess so. Why?”

“I was just thinking that if Mother Nature was a mom, maybe our mom is like her. She takes care of us and helps us, but sometimes she hurts, too. Like a bad storm. But, it’s sunny more than it’s storming, ya know?”

Nick released Joshua and rubbed at the excess moisture in his eyes again. “I think you’re right. That’s why. A majority of the weather is so good that we never really stop to think about it, but we always remember the rarities, when nature screws up, even though—“

“Nature rarely screws up,” Joshua finished.