Day of Reckoning

Day of Reckoning

      Traveling down U.S. 23 to make a surprise visit to my home town,
but it’s raining so hard I’m afraid the town will flood and we will all drown.
The sky is dark, menacing and unleashing its fury on the town.
Maybe I should have stayed put in Motown.
The weather was nice when I left and not a single storm cloud was predicted for the area.
What am I worried about?  These frightening clouds are just causes me to experience hysteria.

I arrive in town to discover a tornado heading straight for me.
This is not how I imagined this trip would be.
Tornados don’t hit the area often and when they do they are weak and don’t cause much damage,
but the one heading straight for me is mammoth.

I quickly turn to avoid the oncoming twister and head towards down town Rogers City.
I see a second twister coming off of the lake and come to conclusion that I have to make a decision that’s witty.
This storm is deadly and producing massive tornados at an alarming rate.
It’s beginning to look gloomy, Rogers City’s fate.

I turn down fourth street and race to my grandma’s house.
I pull into her driveway hoping my panicked appearance doesn’t cause a rouse.
I park my car quickly and run into the house.
I slam the door behind me hoping my grandma will hear me, I’m not trying to sneak around like a mouse.
I enter the house and yell for my grandma.
There’s no answer.
I run around searching every room of the house.
My grandma is nowhere to be found.
I search upstairs quickly.
Nothing.
I go to the basement thinking she’s taken shelter.
Nothing again.
My grandma is nowhere in this house.
I have a decision to make.
Do I stay and bunker down here in the basement?
Or do I get back in my car and attempt to make it out to my parents’ house?
The choice is an easy one for me to make.
I head back out to my car, hit the ignition and slam down the parking break.
Home, here I come.
I hope this decision pays off because it sure is dumb.

I head out of town towards my parents’ house with four tornados circling in towards me.
I hit 70 in a 25 in an attempt to flee.
I won’t get caught by these tornados.
I look in my rearview mirror and see that one is mighty close.

The tornado is closing in on me as I speed through the U.S. 23 intersection without stopping.
I’m stressing out so much now my blood may be clotting.
I hit the gas and move up to 100 as the tornado behind me begins to lose momentum.
With the tornado now out of the picture, I lay off the gas as I come to my senses.
The car slows as I ease into the turn down my parents’ driveway.
Thank god they are only a few miles out of town.
I need to get out of the car and down the basement to safety.
It was probably insane of me to drive out here but I did so bravely.

I park the car in the garage and run into the house.
I find my parents in the living room or thereabouts.
I tell them tornados are tearing through Rogers City and that we need to head to the basement for safety.
They can tell I’m being serious, my voice and body are both shaky.
They head for the basement as I look around for the cats.
I locate Samantha sitting by a window staring out the glass.
I pick her up and run her down to the basement and hand her to my mom.
I tell her I’m going back for Cali before we get hit by a bomb.
I run back upstairs and find her eating in the kitchen.
I pick her heavy ass up and carry her towards the basement with my legs now twitching.

I reach the basement door and before I go down, I look out the back door and see a tornado appear out of the woods heading straight for the house.
I run downstairs with Cali yelling for my parents to take cover.
I do the same just as the Tornado rips through the house above us.
Scared and upset, I hear my parents cuss.
It sounds like a freight train and rolling through their house.
A freight train of pain and destruction has hit them head on.

Just as soon as the tornado hits, it passes and it’s all over.
My parents and the cats are all alright but it’s going to take some time for them to get some closure
on their home being destroyed by a nasty force of nature.
Hopefully the governor of Michigan will sign legislature
for the town of Rogers City declaring a state of emergency seeing how I’m sure most, it not all of it has been wiped out.
I look at my parents and tell them that we are in need of a government bailout.
They nod their heads in agreement as we fear what we have to do next,
go back upstairs and take in the sights of the damage that has been done.

Thankfully, I don’t have to go through with it as my eyes open to the site of my dark bedroom around me.
I take a deep breath happy to be back in my normal realm and away from the chaos my spirit gets itself into on a nightly basis.
If I’m not battling demons, confronting lost souls, getting shot at, escaping natural disasters or dying then it’s not a normal night.
My spirit likes to drag me to dark places and away from the light.
Once again, I look to my alarm clock and see that it’s 3 am.
3 am.
It never gets old.