Gale

She stood there, that someone I knew, arms crossed in obvious displeasure. The sky swelled with a stale autumn storm and leaves voluntarily abandoned their branches.

A long inhale pulled all the air from the porch and in that pause I felt naked, defenseless. And then she parted her lips to speak and the great wind swept in from the Sound, carrying on it curses and undiscovered disease, rumors and accusations.

Branches were wrenched from trees and joined their leaves. Shutters rattled violently as storm doors were locked from within. Electrical lines whipped like fiery bullwhips and roofs were lifted so effortlessly, one might imagine the caring chef tilting back a lid to stir the sauce.

I found myself frozen in the storm and trying very hard to become small, to be a lesser target to the debris which filled the air, turning it solid, deadly.

And then it all fell. All at once and straight down

Carried no more by the gale it crashed with a prolonged THUD, after which there ached a great silence. For all its violence, the storm had run its course and I had endured.

An echo bounced dreamily back and forth off remaining walls and cliffs and I mistook its quietness in relation to the storm as unimportance. But it grew, softly shaking the earth beneath my feet and rattling through my bones, to my teeth until it sat, humming, making my tongue itch in discomfort, as if I were supposed to speak, respond.

It was my name, repeated several times until it lost all meaning. I noticed her then, staring angry, arms still crossed, lips parted once more, inhaling the calm. I closed my eyes in preparation for the next wave of the storm. I locked them tight from within.

Instead, from my shelter, I heard the calm, resigned voice as she walked to the earthen road, setting forth one last gust in a dying gale.

"You never did listen."