Through the Storm

Lightning flashed in the horizon as the skies slowly rumbled. The Earth was afield with tremors. An old scruffy pirate, landlocked via his retirement from the ocean, looked onward towards the pendulous, rolling waves overhead. The scent of rain hovered on the horizon. The old gods of thunder have called their children. The old scruffy-looking man drew in a deep breath, and slowly exhaled., Inside the trailer, Katrina felt a sudden jolt pass through her veins. Quickly she gazed out the back patio. The skies rapidly grew dark. Through an unknown compulsion, she ran out the glass door, and down the steps from the metal patio door. North-westerly winds raged, pulling at her to share in its chaotic embrace. Katrina and her father, descendants of Lightning Alley, have heard the call.

“What'cha doin' Dad,” she asked of the scruffy old man. A veritable weather shaman in his own right. She found him scanning ant mounds in the sandy lot behind their trailer. He stood browsing the tree-linedperimeter, flanked by a metal barn, a small plot of native grasses and herbs, and a weathered old burn barrel. The background cacophony scattered horizontal electric blue threads through the charcoal cumulus effigies overhead.

“Oh, just watchin' the weather. Mighty strong storms a comin',” the old man said as he stroked his full white and silver beard. His seagreen eyes searched the storms for a moment, before leaving his daughter. “I'm gonna go take a nap. Don't stay out too long, Kat,” he said, as he headed back towards the trailer. Katrina always loved stormy weather. The rain was good for cooling the moist, humid air. Katrina stood out in the storm a little while longer. To the southwest, Katrina glimpsed a peculiar funnel-shaped storm cell on the horizon.

“Tornadoes? Here?” she thought to herself. “How peculiar.” No ordinary storm moved with such veracity. The funnel-shaped cloud was moving north-east, but the winds were still moving to the north-west. Katrina knew that something was amiss. The funnel touched down 15 feet away from her. She wasn't ready to go indoors just yet. Something was calling her to the cyclone.  Five feet tall and two feet wide, iridescent electricity spinning off of it. Loose fly-aways condensing the atmosphere. Katrina felt the charge, and fell to the Earth. Close-ups of the cyclone revealed a violet iridescence erradiated from the core. She never saw anything quite like it. The trailer was too far away now. She hunkered down. Fear embroiled with her neurotic sensibilities. A living, breathing force of static was on a collision course now.

Certain as Katrina was of her fears of encountering the violet lightning, she remained, and locked her eyes upon its beautiful and fearsome mysteries. As it spun into her she shut her eyes. She felt the jolt pass through every part of her being. It hovered there, surrounding her in its silvery light. She opened her eyes as the cyclone hovered around her, an electric forcefield filling her breath with its static charge.  Upon realization that Katrina was physically unphased, she got up from the Earth and gazed at her limbs, tracing the faint violet tendrils that pulsed beneath her skin. The cyclone spun off and away from her, and faded in the dark and airy tumult. She watched as the cyclone disappeared, and dusted herself off. She re-entered the trailer through the back patio, renewed. Soon the monsoon rains came, and transformed the dry sand into silt and mud. The scent of rain and fire remained fresh in her mind.