Listen ...Forces of Nature

FORCES OF NATURE
by Marilyn Celeste Morris
Available in Print and All Ebook Formats

It was going to be a two-shoe day.

Howard the Weatherman woke with what he referred to as That Certain Dread and a bad taste in his mouth, to boot. The birthday party for his youngest granddaughter the previous evening was the cause, even though it was just ice cream and cake and no booze, befitting his solid Southern Baptist background.

The feeling lingered on the fringes of consciousness until he was fully awake.

Glancing over at his sleeping wife of forty years, he considered waking her and telling her about his dream. No, he would prepare for work first, and let Neva sleep a while longer.

He eased out of bed and padded into the adjoining bathroom. He allowed the shower head to spray stinging hot water over his face and body, all the while he was reciting his usual morning prayers: “Father, I thank thee for this day that thou hast made. I will rejoice and be thankful in it.”

He continued with his intercessory prayers for his family and friends, and for the nation as a whole. “And so I beseech thee, Dear Lord, heed my prayers. I pray in the name of my savior, Jesus Christ.” Normally, his prayers would have ended at this point with a heart-felt “Amen”, but this morning he added softly, “And Lord, if it be thy will, spare us the agony of this day, and keep us safe from harm. Amen.”

Neva was up and in the kitchen when Howard stepped out of the shower. Wrapping his robe around him and combing his thinning hair, he walked down the hallway past the empty kids’ bedrooms and into the kitchen.

“Morning,” Neva said, setting a cup of coffee at his usual place. “Sleep well?”

Howard paused before replying, “Fine.” There was no sense in telling her now. “You?”

“Fine, until you began tossing and turning. What was that all about, Howard?” She sat across from him and studied him over her coffee cup.

“Nothing. I don’t remember,” he evaded, knowing full well what Neva was going to say next. Why did he even try?

“It’s the dream again, isn’t it?”

He sighed, then nodded. “I knew I couldn’t keep it from you. You know me too well.”

She smiled softly.

“Honey, it’s going to be a bad one today.”

“They’re all bad, Howard. Even small tornadoes that don’t send people to the hospitals, or kill them. Property damage, schools, businesses, all suffer.”

Howard finished his coffee and shook off his wife’s gesture of handing him a plate of bacon and eggs. “I’m gonna be late if I don’t leave now. I should have the official National Weather Service information the first thing when I get to the station. Then I’ll have to butt heads with our new station manager about interrupting the regularly scheduled programs for weather bulletins.”

“It’s going to be that big?” Neva followed him into the bedroom.

“Stay close to home today, honey. I want you close to the cellar.”

Howard wouldn’t have wanted it known that he had a “fraidy hole.” Having been born and raised in southwest Oklahoma known as Tornado Alley, he had spent many hours in the safety of his parents’ cellar while monster winds roared above, snapping power lines, tossing huge trees like matchsticks. To this day, Howard could recall the pungent smells that filled the old cellar: his mother’s canned peaches and preserves, and potatoes by the tow sack full mingled with the faint odor of field mouse droppings.

Howard thought back to one particular day when he was still in high school. He had told his family early in the morning that there would be a tornado that day. His family had come to respect his gift, and they followed Howard’s calm statement of fact: “There’s gonna be a tornado sometime this afternoon.”

He had dreamed of a tornado the night before; he saw dreadful winds ripping huge trees apart, snapping power lines and shrieking its way across the land. Sometimes he woke in a sweat, panicky, while he tried to still his thumping heart and not wake his brother who shared his room. He lay quietly and reviewed the dream, feeling clammy and cold and sweaty all at the same time, until finally he would dispel the feeling – which he soon began to recognize as a certain dread – until it came time for the storm to present itself on the horizon.

Sometimes the Certain Dread came upon him minus the accompanying dream. Or, he had the dream but didn’t remember it. Even as a high school student, he would be sitting in school, gazing at the object of his affections, and scheming a way to get her off to the side in the hallway so he could talk to her. Just talk to her about anything at all except what he really wanted to say, and that was that he loved her and wanted to marry her and live with her the rest of his life, but he was afraid she would laugh at him, because he was, after all, only seventeen.

But while Howard was trying to figure out how to speak to his vision of bliss, the feeling came over him and dispelled any other emotion he may have had. It almost overwhelmed him, causing his head to spin and his heart to pound just as it did in the nightmares. He knew for sure he had to get out of school, go home and warn his family that a twister was on its way and to go to the cellar.

So strong and certain was this feeling that he got up from his seat during French class conjugating verbs, causing Mrs. Dosser to frown and ask him where he thought he was going.

“I have to go home, Mrs. Dosser,” he said simply, and as he passed Neva’s desk he whispered to her to come join him in the hallway. Astonishing both himself and Mrs. Dosser, she did just that.

As she stepped out of the classroom, he told her, “There’s a tornado coming. Don’t ask me how I know, I just know. Go home. Tell your family to get to safety. This is gonna be a real bad twister.”

“They’re all bad, Howard.” Yet she nodded, as if she had known all along about his strange gift. “The others?” She glanced back inside the classroom.

“You think they’d believe me?”

A moment’s pause, then she placed her hand on his arm. “I believe you.”