The sirens blared, but she didn’t need to hear them to know what was coming. The sky was grey, then green, the trees reaching toward the house, their green leaves plucked from the branches. The thunder was deafening, rattling the glasses in her cabinet and followed by sudden barrage of hail against the aluminum siding. Hunkered in her closet she waited and prayed, not for herself but for the baby, six weeks old that lived across the street. The storm relented and she ran to her door dumbfounded at neighbor’s house. The front wall was peeled back, giving it the illusion of a doll house. Inside, she watched as the family emerged from the closet under the stairs.
They had no home, no electricity, but they were alive and that was everything.
English