The wind
awakens me from my sleep. A gust pushes against the thin walls of my tent; then
another; and another. Each is stronger than the one before. The hard smacking
sound of air against fabric becomes louder with each blast, like a giant flag violently
flapping high on its mast. The structure collapses in on me causing the small
area inside to compress into an even tighter space. Tiny particles of sand blow
through the tiny holes in the screen and into my eyes, making them itch and
burn. I close the rain-fly, but it does little to help; the sand is stubborn
and finds a way in.
What
the hell is going on? I listened to the weather report just a few hours ago
and the voice on the radio clearly said it would be a “mostly clear night with
a slight chance of scattered rain.” And now the wind is even stronger than
before. A powerful gust flattens everything around me, snapping my tent poles
like they’re twigs; my carbon-fiber tent poles that aren’t supposed to snap. I
unzip the fly and hurry outside, for my tent is useless right now. It has
transformed into nothing more than a large kite ready to take air with whatever
is inside it. I’ve been through strong winds before but nothing like this. From
the direction in which the wind is traveling the sky is dark. I look in the
opposite direction, to the north, and see a clear night sky with a thousand
stars twinkling in the warm summer air. Turning my head back the other way I
see nothing but darkness. It’s as if the wind is visible, and the stronger it
blows the darker its color and I’m staring at the blackest black that black can
be.
I bundle the tent in my arms, with
most of my possessions still inside it, and run for the only cover available.
There sits a plot of young trees, looking more like bushes, none over ten feet
high and covering ground maybe fifty feet squared. There is nowhere else to go;
I am on island in the middle of the Mississippi River with a half-mile of water
on either side. I squat down between two trees and hold on tight, gripping each
trunk like the thin end of a baseball bat. Before I fell asleep the temperature
was over 90 degrees with the thick Midwest humidity making it feel well over
100. So now I’m completely naked and my bare skin stings from sand and leaves
and the wind itself. And I’m chilled, not so much from the temperature dropping
but more from the fear that has infected my mind.
The wind becomes even stronger and my
mind begins to comprehend the circumstances at hand. Could it be? I think it could. The worse of all possibilities,
the most severe weather condition known to man—tornado! All right, stay calm. Think! I evaluate the situation and try to
figure out the best course of action. What
do I know about tornados? I know that just a few months ago a tornado
ripped through a town not far from here, killing 159 people in Joplin,
Missouri. I know that tornados are not very predictable and sometimes appear
out of nowhere; otherwise those 159 people in Joplin, Missouri would not have
been where they were when the destruction hit. And I also know that it isn’t
the violent wind that actually kills people but rather the debris that the wind
carries with it. I have a flashback of something that I once saw on television:
a drinking straw shoots out of a machine, simulated to travel like it’s in the
midst of a tornado; the small plastic tube penetrates a piece of wood like a
bullet through Styrofoam. Somehow this brings about the slightest bit of
reassurance. Because being on an island, surrounded only by water, there appears
to be very little debris in the vicinity. Maybe my situation isn’t as bad as it
seems.
And the winds picks up. And the
trees begin to bend. And I consider talking to God. But I think about Joplin,
and all those dead, and how they must have talked to God just before the end
and how God did nothing to save them, and unlike myself they genuinely believed
in God. So instead I talk to the trees. I talk to them as if they are a higher
power and understand my language. “Ok little trees,” I say, “I know that you’re
not that old in plant years and you’ve probably been on this earth about as
long as me, and over that period of time your roots have held strong and you
haven’t been ripped out of the ground yet, so if you think you can hold on for
just one more day, I will be forever grateful.”
But wait. What if the trees can hold
on to the ground, but I can’t hold on to the trees? What if my grip isn’t
strong enough and the wind carries me off and drops me into the river? Is the
water a wise place to be during a tornado? Or are waves going to crash on me
until I’m pushed underwater and drown? I should put my lifejacket on.
I release my grip on the tree trunks
and take off towards the canoe. The wind knocks me to the ground and in all my
28 years on earth I don’t remember this ever happening before. I proceed
forward in a diagonal stance with my upper body leaning forward, trying to find
the perfect balance between falling on my face and being blown over on my ass.
I reach the spot where I left the canoe but it’s not there. I look around
frantically, my forearm pushed against my brow to stop the sand from stinging
my eyes. But it’s no use; there is nothing to be found. I know where I left the
boat, and I know that it is gone, along with everything inside it, including my
life-jacket. So now I’m standing cold and naked on an island in the middle of
the Mississippi River staring directly into a “darkness” that might or might
not be a developing tornado. And all I can think is: How the hell did I get myself in this situation?
Will I live? Will I die? The answer can be found in my new book, The Road and the River: An American Adventure. To purchase a copy, simply click on the link below!
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