Tornado Called Life

Journal entry for October 10, 2010....revised

Picture for me a moment a lonesome old house with shutters covering the windows. The house is perhaps bordering a farm. Tomato, potato, maybe even strawberry for those with an elaborate imagination.

In front of this house stands a picket fence. Not white like the movies would have you believe. Just a busted up old pile of pine-wood planks nailed together. The wooden box encases the front yard in its entirety. There are four cobble stones leading from the dusty screen door, to the open gap in the fence used to accommodate a low swinging gate. Outside this open gate stands a confused and disappointed younger looking man. He is simply standing still and taking in the fucked up situation that stands before him.

The young man is standing merely twenty feet away from the biggest tornado he has ever been a part of. This tornado screams at him as it viciously tears at the ground, sending the foundation that he lay his house on miles and miles in every direction. He only stands this close, because he is waiting. Waiting for something impossible to happen.

It has been merely ten minutes… or four hours… or maybe even days since he first tossed that flower back.

I digress.

Upon first approaching this tornado (he knows not when in time it was) he had but a single flower fly out of the thrashing hurricane and hit him straight in the face. Completely taken aback by such an improbable occurrence, he slowly (very slowly) peeled the flower back to get a better look. To his surprise, to his unbelievable bewilderment, the yellow tulip was completely unharmed. Perfect soft yellow petals. He couldn’t believe his swollen eyes. He attempted to focus his vision to better see any defects the flower might have. But alas, he found none.

“Can this actually happen?” he said aloud, “It isn’t possible, is it?”

Within the very short time he had to admire the soft yellow tulip, with its petals so gently moving despite the fast approaching hell-wind that threatened to destroy his sanity, he grew to love the flower. Time seemed to come to a low-humming halt. The tornado, for all he cared, no longer existed. He stood there analyzing the beauty, and the absolute improbability of the situation. Before he could react, as quickly as that perfect little impossibility entered into his life, the flower was ripped from his gentle hands. Forced back from whence it came, for the hellish tornado was not yet through with the unharmed blossom.

With his arms outstretched his face filled with sorrow as he was forced to watch the one thing that he believed to be the only antidote to his insanity, be thrashed with an ungodly force back into the garbage-filled wind tunnel.

He just stood there, unsure of what to do. Time no longer stood still. The tornado quickly appeared to him once again. As did time for the most part.

He stands there now, still unsure. He is aware that time is passing, but unsure of how much time has passed. With his comfortable insanity returning to him, he understands that there is only one thing to do. He decides to wait around for not just another improbable thing to occur, but for something that, with his insanity intact, even he believes to be impossible. He will stand right in front of the house he built and wait. Wait for that very same soft yellow tulip to once again come to him. Not simply another flower, but the very same unharmed beautiful sapling with soft yellow petals.

He stands there still, eyeing down the tornado of filth. Waiting with a hopeless expression on his dirty face, and a wishing heart.

Author's Note

This is taken directly from my journal. I've revised it to make it readable.

Reviews

[Z.A. B]

you have a natural ability to write about life, sharing possible life experiences, and yet, without knowing some, you provide the reader with an understanding of life's possibilities :]

[SVermeer]

I feel sympathy for the man since he is facing imminent destruction of basically what seems to be his life...another poignant piece.