Storms

Sitting on the front porch of my house, overlooking the neighborhood. The view is dismal compared to the view thirty years before. Gloomy, gray clouds building in the backdrop of a once flowing visage of glass, steel, and concrete. Skyscrapers once high on the horizon are now blackened husks. Skeletal remains of a once thriving, populous civilization.

My neighbor walks by and says a quick greeting, without glancing my way, hurrying to catch the commuter tram. I'm always there, he doesn't have to look my way to know. Being one of the few people I talk to, he has never said more than a quick hello much less disclosed the details of his profession to me. He barely dodges a pothole, heading to the tram stop.

The skyline fades under an ominous black cloud. The thunderstorms we had been warned about have slunk in while I sat here. Swirling puffs of weaponry contained by the atmosphere surrounding our city. Mesmerized by the folding formations, remembering my favorite game as a child. What does that cloud look like? Imagination and dreams creating creatures of fantasy in the sky. Smiling at my memories bittersweet, I rise to my feet.

Heading into the house, the first crack and peel of thunder, rumbles through the streets. The floor trembles under my feet as I hold onto the door for stability. Another lightning bolt rips across the sky, felling another skyscraper to rubble. Echoing through the houses, the sound reverberates through my feet and up to my head. My hair stands on end from the static charge in the air.

I watch from my door as my neighbor picks up his pace, racing the oncoming deluge. The tram stop has a cover and bench for comfort, but it is not successful in keeping the poor man dry. By the time the tram arrives, the man is drenched and shivering.

I could have called out to him, to remind him of the oncoming storm, but that would've created those pesky quotation marks of dialogue. And I really hate trying to incorporate dialogue into a daily report. Seeing the tram disappear with my neighbor, marks the end of my morning watch.

I step back from the door as the torrential rainfall, quickly cleans the streets of any refuse in its path, scouring the gravel packed streets better that the street cleaner that used to run every other week. The gutters on my house fail to contain the gush of water and overflow onto the porch. I shut the door to the onslaught and head to my desk.

I sit down at my ancient desk, a throwback from the roaring twenties and my Pulitzer typewriter. The tapping of the keys hitting paper begins my first report of the day. The removal of abandoned cars that had ceased to run on the day of the visitors' arrival had begun twenty days ago, so I made a notation of which cars were left on the street from the day before. The people that had failed to walk by my house today, if they were regular pedestrians. The view of the city after the strikes, to the soaking wet man were the entries I made. Every detail from the coming of the storm, the gray sheets of rain pummeling the streets, down to the smell of the ionized air, after the first lightning strike.

The air feels damp and the papers I've finished and laid aside, curl up on the table beside the typewriter. A few more lines of details to write before I can stop. Taking pride in my work, as an observer, I hammer out the words that describe my morning. Reams of paper stacked in the corner, remnants of overzealous employers thinking that I needed that much paper per week for such a mundane task. I try to write long embellishments, but the words stick in my craw. I'm not good at saying great things, when I don't believe my own words.

My needs are few, living alone, with no pets other than a few stray cats that seem to like me. I had never owned a car myself, having the tram to take me where I need to go. My writing gives me purpose and it keeps me dry on days like this, unlike everyone else, I can work from home to earn a living.

The storms have gotten worse over the years since the visitors arrived nearly thirty years ago. The destruction of the city continues with each passing storm. The ferocity of the storms growing as the population decreases daily, if my neighborhood statistics are indicative of the city as a whole. Only a few people still went abroad to work. Afraid of being the next casualty of the storms.

At first I had not minded the storms. The cleansing waters, washed years of dust off the streets and sidewalks, due to a five month long drought. The intensity fills me with excitement, the crispy ionized air charges me, but the reality cools my excitement. The visitors assure us that they came to help us, but the storms suggest otherwise. I knew the moment the first storm hit after their arrival, and took out most of the city's buildings. The skyline forever changed.

I keep track of these storms now, for the powers that be. The damage done, the people surrounding me that slowly disappear from the neighborhood. But what can they do against an enemy that can control our very atmosphere and turn it into a weapon. I can't fathom how my observations could possibly be beneficial to anyone now.

The days of dialogue are gone now. No one speaks much, afraid of being overheard by the wrong ears. We continue on our paths to eventual extinction, never fully understanding the depth of the visitors' deceit. Today will be my last entry for a while, as I have been called to the visitors' hall to explain some of my observations.

My findings over the past decade have reached their ears, if they have ears. I do so hope my neighbors will remember me kindly, and feed my stray cats.