Wednesday, August 05, 2009

A remembered tale regarding a tornado

The Atlas of Curiosities: Part 30

“Well at that time I was so young,” she told us.  She looked off into the distance.  “At that time I was so young.”

“In those days of course it was a big thing to have a supermarket in town.  I mean the type of place that would have all the food.  And we were just changing, back then, to go to the market once a week, or two times a week instead of every day.  It was about that same time that my father got himself a brand new car which was a long Chevy with white wheel wells that he used to make us kids clean.  And if we ever played around it or managed to make it dirty we knew we were really in for it. 

It was just becoming easier to take the car out and fill it up with food for the week rather than going back day after day.

And so we piled into the car one week, it was me and my two sisters and my older brother and my mother and my father.  In those day it was common for us to all go together to do things like this.

And of course it was so hot.  It was August after all.  And you know how the weather is out here when it’s hot. It was the sort of day when you could just feel a storm coming.  But we knew that feeling.  We were used to it, so we piled inot the car anyway.

And we got to the super market.  And my father was going up and down the aisles with my mother and choosing the food for the week and we kids were bringing back candy or cookies or whatever we wanted to have and we would try to sneak it into the cart when our parents weren’t looking.  And bit by bit outside it grew darker and darker.

And before long I looked out the window and I saw that the wind had really picked up and there were branches and leaves and things flying past the big windows out front and I pulled on my mothers skirt and I said ‘Momma don’t you think we should hide?  Shouldn’t we hide?’  I was really scared, because I hadn’t seen clouds like that and wind like that before.  But she told me don’t be silly.

Well we kept on like that but before long it was so dark outside and sure enough the manager of the store came on the intercom and said there’s a tornado in the area, and there has been a warning declared.  And so the manager ordered all us shoppers into the back room of the store there where the offices were. 

It not being a established store there wasn’t anything in there except for a small light and about 20 of us shoppers. We huddled in there and it was hot and it was dark except for this one swinging lightbulb.  And my father kept grumbling under his breath like “That car better not have a scratch on it when I get outta here.”

I remember my brother had this big smile on his face like he was about to have his birthday or something.  And it was odd to me because I knew he was sacred just like the rest of us but he just kept on similing.  And he smiled on and on as the noise outside got louder and louder.  Weirdest thing.  And he smiled even when the room started to shake.  And there was a noise like a car was ebing ripped right in half, and the roof came off where we were.

“The roof came off?” we asked her.

“Striaght off,” she said.

And up there in the sky was all this rain and cloud and lighting and thunder adn it was as if God himself was lookign down at us all angry.  And just like that, the wind left that little room, and wouldn’t you know it, it riped the clothes clean off our bodies.”

“No.” we said.

“Yes.” she said.  “And if you’ll listen to this—It ripped the clothes clean off.  You hear of things ike this.  Of a tornado leaving a chicken with no feathers.  Well there we were a bunch of chickens with no feathers.  It was maybe 20 seconds after that that the storm passed on.  They end just as suddenly as they begin.  We were all stunned, and we were trying to get ourselves all covered up, but we knew we had to get out of there as a first step, since the wind had blown everything all around. And so the manager of the store he unlocks the door to where we are and we exit out of that little room.  and we walk out into where the store had been, and there was hardly anything left.  everyhtign was gone.  and we wandered out and I remember my father looked out to where his car had been, and it was gone. It was just plain gone.

And we were all looking around ourselves at all the nothing that had used to be something.  And all of a sudden it started raining food.

“Raining food?”

“Raining food.  It all started falling down what had been sucked up into the sky by the storm.  I stil remember apples and bananas and loaves of bread all starting falling around us.  And we all just looked at each other.  And I looked over at my brother, and he was still smiling.  And I just remember him looking around, and there was this deadening silence.  Because for the first time we had been revealed, you know, for what we were.  Chickens with no feathers, you know.  And there were no rich people or poor people or adults or children and it was raining, I mean it was actually raining food.  And you know what my brohter said?”

“What?”

“He said, “It’s the Garden of Eden.”  He said it softly at first and then he shouted it.  And the noise of him shouting that was enough to rouse my father out of his stupor, I suppose, because he walked over to where his car had been, with the white wall wheels, and he took a look across the parking lot and he saw it, and saw that it was completely smashed.  And there was my brother running around naked looking at all this food, laughing and shouting like it was his birthday or something.  Fresh food from all over the planet, you know.  And it really was miraculous, I’ll never forget it, standing there and realizing how much food there was.  There was no way we could ever have eaten it all.  It was the lowest moment of our lives, in some ways, because town was completely wrecked, but there we were and we the whole ground was covered with good things to eat.

Well, my father took a look at his car and he heard my brother hollering about the garden of Eden.  And he walked right over to my brother, and my father, who was still stark naked, hit my brother across the face.  He smaked him full on in the face and he said “You’re acting like a lunatic. Stop that!  Can’t you see that everything is ruined?  You’re acting like a lunatic.”

And the smack, you know, that noise, that brought he rest of us out of it a little bit.  And my mother began gathering rags to cover us.  And my father went to call an insurance man about the car but of course the phone was out.  And the manager of the store went around gathering up the food.  Gathering up all that food that had rained from the sky.  He thought it was his.  He really did.”