MONSTROUS STORM

There you are. You are driving down this monstrous storm from work. The cloudy grey skies lie low above you. You look up and see bursts of white bright sharp claws, protruding out of dark shadowy limbs that dance in the sky. The shadows blanket around you and heavily darken your way. Lightning whips the claws and slashes the thick foggy clouds like shattered glass. Thunder roars, cracks and explodes, and the ground shakes and rumbles like an earthquake. The sound is like the brushes of trees in a hurricane and buzzing of cicadas, shushing the wind and your voice. Lustful rain pours and builds strong streams on your streets. Watch out for flooded streams! You turn on your wiper to clear your windshield, not knowing the heavy breath is fogging your windows. Your car’s headlights are the dimmest light of the night. The sun sets and disappears to the other side of the world, kissing the storm one last time before night turns pitch black.

You pass down long empty streets, littered with coffee cups, fast food containers, split cigarettes and someone’s vomit streaming down the curbs. Asian markets glittered with zodiac statues, but soaking the paint off. Basketball billboards swerve and shake as if on an edge of cliff. Playhouse Squares’ chandelier clinks the teardrop crystals like ringing chimes, pleading for mercy against the night. The shadowy cloudy limbs dance around Cleveland’s tall buildings, like a lion dangling on tall trees. The teeth bare out and bite the power out. Despite the city crying warnings, you drive out and speed for home.

Your phone rings and beeps with many voicemails, emails, and texts, but you silence them. Your mother never stops asking you to come home and stay before losing you. Your mother is strict, but is always there to keep your mind off your pain despite you avoiding firm Indian cooking lessons. You can hear your HR team preaching sympathy for missing your work schedule due to traffic jams and school, but fire you anyway. You can feel the icy stares of the guests and deacons against your bright purple hair, pierced gouge ears, dark jean pants and a leather jacket, because you use to wear a long white dress, a tight black bun and a simple silver cross necklace for all your religious, girlhood life.

You can’t remember your next therapy appointment, but you remember how many girls ghost you. You can’t remember those dates when the first dinosaur discovered or when the first president was elected, but you can remember all the days you tried avoiding folks who yelled; “get out of this country and never be born you colored bitch!”

You recall standing with your exes down these rainy nights, running out of bars, hotels and movie theaters and kissing with hands all over before leaving and swore to never come back again. You remember how you kept skipping classes, oversleeping, and struggling to breathe. You remember how you felt messed up when you lost your phone and your car keys, neglected your assignments, and forgot your parents’ anniversary, birthdays, and moments of peace. People tell you look like you are in your early twenties, but you feel aged with a hidden illness, oozing from your mind. Your body is tangling in thick ropes, but wishes to lash out drown out the thoughts.

But the biggest strike puts out all your power when you remember who died on this same road in the ravenous storm. Your father drove down this same commute, swerved around, rolled off the bridge and crashed below. Though immature and reckless without eating biscotti cookies and drinking London Earl grey tea, you always felt found when you were lost while held in those arms. Pain and grief shower your drive.

Of course there are more things to remember.

Of course it’s a struggle to not listen to those voices.

Of course there are more walls to climb.

Of course there are more questions of how I exist.

“Why do you keep dropping out of so many schools?”

“Are you black? You don’t look brown obviously.”

“How come you’re not a follower of the Lord?”

“Are you a Muslim?”

“You can join this club for minors because obviously you’re not white, right?

“How the heck did a white man fall in love with an Indian immigrant?”

“Do your parents have trouble raising you for being so different?”

“Your mom should be fine living in this country and should start speaking better.”

“Your dad must be depressed from living in a nonwhite family.”

“Did your dad try to break up with your mom and try driving away so fast and crashed?”

“What are you going to do now that he’s gone, and your mom is alone?”

“Why do you keep isolating yourself?”

“Stop being so sensitive.”

“What is wrong with you?”

Don’t hit and crash! Wake up! There. Now you are almost home.

No, you miss your exit and take a different route.

You drive by lined square-colorful block homes and metal wire torn fences. The grassy, flat backyards are now large muddy pools, drowning colorful gardens and soaking their patios. Delicate flowers and saplings drown away. Snapped branches of towering green oaks and maples tear down utility poles, cutting the world out into still darkness. You park next to a lonely home and walk out.

Wait, you slow down.

You abruptly stand in the middle of the road. No car or person comes to you in this vicious storm, as if darkness is emitting from you and dimming the streetlights. You look up, as if daring the storm to fight and lash at you.

Why do you look at the skies?

Do you see the monstrous beast?

Do you see the mane reflecting in the lightening crackling in the sky?

Do you see the eyes hungry with revenge?

Do you see the showering rain of pain and relief pour?

Because the storm sees that in you.

You suddenly scream in fury like a phantom arising from the dead, and silence the thunder. Your eyes match the stinging lightning slashing across the black skies. Your clothes are soaking like a wet sponge, and your skin is clammy, ice cold. You smell misty dew and dirt, and taste bittersweet water dripping down your face. Although you are drenching wet, tears stream down from your face like a waterfall. You feel exhaustion wearing you low to the ground.

Suddenly, you smile brightly and laugh out loud, like bubbles rippling and popping as they fly. You felt like thin air and your burden lifts just for this moment. The storm envies your happiness and relief, and the rain lightens before the wind slows down.

“What on earth are you doing, child? Get inside before you drown!” says your mother, who barely opens the front door to avoid any pool entering the house. You laugh and hop in the deep puddles before surrendering to your mother. You confess your silence of not reaching out. You receive her nonstop talk of how crazy you were to stand in the storm like a drunkard. You don’t push back the long, aching embrace that breaks you into more tears. You remember there is no other better life than the one you choose. Because it’s yours only. You once again feel proud of the life you lived and whom you lived with. As you go back inside your home, the monstrous storm is tamed and silent.

Viola Koduru resides in Twinsburg, OH. She loves animals, listening to music and especially reading. Her top favorites so far are The Lord of The Rings by J.R.R.Tolkien, Percy Jackson by Rick Riordan, Gunslinger by Stephen King, and Under The Whispering Door by T.J Klune. She hopes to continue publishing short stories and eventually create novellas of her own while dreaming of adopting lots of animals in a big house."