A Storm Born to Destroy

A siren blared in my ear like the tinnitus you get in a quiet room after being surrounded by too many people. The sky was a mustard yellow and lime green color. And the trees next to me, still, eerily still. Perhaps from fear? Behind me, the sky looked like a child’s drawing. Blue, perfectly fluffy clouds and sunlight that streamed like golden ribbons. In front of me, a portal of greys surrounded by a black ring. “Come out to the front yard, you can see it better!” My brother excitedly screamed. Standing on the roof of our old, blue truck, my other brother was fixated on it. A tunnel, as wide as a view could see, turning from the sky, wrapped in rain and debris and hungry for more. Somehow only the sight of it was enough to feel its force in the body. People not from Oklahoma will say we are careless, stupid, or downright maniacs for being outside during such an event, and in a way, they aren’t wrong. But as much as we are those things, we also know how it feels to be in the presence of nature’s merciless ways. When you start to hear the whistle of a train, you run. But at this moment no such whistle happened.

This wasn’t the first time a tornado had struck the town of Moore, Oklahoma, in fact, it was exactly the place you would expect the tornado to strike. Year after year, the Great Plains had dedicated months where the horizon decided to show the strength of the Earth. It was a professional. Reminiscent of the greatest athletes in the world, the tornadoes showed no sign of weakness and no sliver of struggle. Their only goal was to destroy. Within five minutes, thousands of houses would look like scabs you flick off your skin. And as I looked at the tornado in my view, along with my entranced brothers, I couldn’t help but think about how I’d been in the exact same spot we watched only thirty minutes ago.

The day began as normal as it could for a sixteen year old going to a public high school in the middle of Oklahoma during the time meteorologist deemed “tornado season.”

“Stay weather aware!” The television yelled as I made my breakfast. My dog looked at me with the attitude he somehow needed the toast more than I did. “I’ll share,” I said, breaking off an edge of the crust.

During first period, the morning announcements repeated everything the news said, though the average high schooler tuned those out after the first week of school. Ms. Hampton’s crease in her brow showed she was slightly more than concerned. By the early afternoon, murmurs of storms in the the panhandle of Texas had begun and conditions favored the predictions, this was going to be a very dangerous day. “I hope a tornado takes out this school so I don’t have to come back next year,” one of my classmates said.

“Jacob!” The teacher yelled with an exhausted voice. “Everyone get back to work and stop talking. Finals are next week and I can guarantee none of you are getting a perfect score, so keep studying.” The classroom fell silent, save for the thrums of my heart. It was always beating like I had sprinted a mile when I was in school, but today especially had me wishing the deodorant I was wearing was just a little stronger.

By the last class period storms had developed two towns south of us and parents were picking up their kids. A confirmed tornado buzzed on our phones. The proceeding minutes mostly consisted of students trying to argue with the teacher over their right to leave. Halfway through the period the principal spoke over the intercom system “absolutely no student can leave unless their parent calls in and allows for their release,” his voice reverberated off the green walls plastered with posters of monkeys in my environmental science classroom. Mrs. Spuse looked relieved from the announcement as it silenced the begs bombarding her. Normally I was a great student and in most any other circumstances, I would have listened to a voice of authority. But I didn’t have a parent to bail me out, and as I looked at the ever increasingly large red and purple splotches on the weather radar, I knew I didn’t want to die at my school. So I did what every other teenager in a panicked state does, run.

I bolted out of my classroom and towards the parking lot, hearing the voice of my teacher behind me. I didn’t turn. Opening the doors to the outside I smelled the distinct scent that happens only in the moments when the sky eats all the joyous sunshine and replaces it with a blanket of thick and suffocating darkness. It truly was art in how the forces of nature could paint a portrait so violent, but so beautiful. Eventually I made it to my car that only let the engine turn if you sang the right tune. Luckily for me, the tune of fear got it started right away. The drive home was one I’d done every day for the past year, but for some reason, as the raindrops thumped on the roof of my car and smeared across my pollen-sheeted windshield, it felt like a near impossible task. I drove slowly as the radio played the street names the tornado was on. It wasn’t until I heard the road I had to be on to get home that I realized I made a mistake. Turning around, I backtracked to another route. “If it’s coming from the southwest, I’ll just go east. Easy!” I tried to convince myself. Street after street the water on the asphalt grew taller and the winds became more violent. I started to cry as the radio’s voice followed me like a map. Each turn was a game to the storm. “Stop following me!” I begged up to the sky.

It wasn’t until I was on a graveled country road an extra five minutes away from my house that the tornado started to turn away from me. In a wave of relief I drove as fast as I could knowing home would be safe. My car screeched into the inclined driveway only a few moments before my brother’s truck. “You drove here all the way from school?” My older brother scowled as the other climbed down from his seat. For them, the drive was all but two minutes from down the road. “They said we were released,” I lied. His squinted eyes didn’t believe me.

We all sat around the television, listening to the worry in the meteorologist's voice. “Mark May 20th in your calendars, folks. This will be a tornado no one will ever forget.”

The time it takes for a tornado to pass through a place can be measured, and in this case it was forty minutes, but in a spiritual sense, it isn’t time that you feel, it’s the wholeness. The idea that nothing in this life will stare you in the face like a storm that’s born to destroy. But in that moment you realize the old house in the middle of nowhere, holding more mason jars than pieces of silver, is rich in more things than money can buy. Because the houses stored with the finest jewels can’t look a hungry serpent in its fangs and still remain.

And perhaps the most interesting part is when the birds come back out from their hiding and start to chirp again like the day was normal. Like the trees and flowers and living beings weren’t just holding their breath in anticipation for the worst. And just like the birds, we acknowledge and move on, until the next time when the winds carry back yet another storm.