Author Disclaimer: I wrote this for fun while on a sprint call with some fellow writers during a competition. I read that survivors claim that the middle of a tornado is quite calm, and decided to write a story about it. I've done little research on this, and as a result, this story is likely not realistic; but it was a fun piece I scribbled down one day and I thought I would share it.
Some say it sounds like rushing water. Others, a deafening roar.
But most say it sounds like a freight train.
The wind, instead of blowing in steady puffs or whipping ones’ cheeks, instead knocks you from side to side coming from north or south, east or west. One blast is freezing cold, the other as hot as a furnace. The long grass rolls like a golden sea, and the slender cotton trees bend to breaking point.
The black clouds are made all the blacker by the sun that shines from the setting sun. The tornado throws up dust into the air and leaves destruction in its wake.
Tim watched the twister spiral towards him in circular motion.
“Big one,” his Father said from beside him.
Tim nodded, his eyes following the progress of the dark tornado. He imagined what it would be like to be inside; to be spinning around, and around, thrown high into the air with no hope of ever coming down alive again.
“Some folks reckon they’ve been in the middle of the twister and survived,” Tim said, turning to his Father.
His Father absently plucked a thick piece of prairie grass and stuck it between his teeth. “That so? What do they say it’s like?”
“That’s the funniest thing about it,” Tim said. “They said that it’s calm in there.”
He heard a loud snort from behind him. Turning, he saw his elder brother John climbing out of the storm cellar and striding to stand beside them.
“Crazy, sounds like,” he said. “How could something so powerful have a heart so calm?”
“It doesn’t sound too crazy,” Tim said, feeling himself flush.
“You listen to old quacks too much,” John said unfeelingly, his eyes following the tornado’s progress with interest. “Pa,” he added suddenly. “That thing’s getting darn close to us. What do you reckon? Should we stand out here or go down with Ma and the girls?”
At his brother’s words Tim suddenly realized that the wind had grown even stronger. Lightning cracked loudly overhead. A sheet of rain started pouring down a quarter of a mile away, obscuring the tornado from view.
“We’re fine,” his Father said easily. “The cellar’s only a couple of feet away.”
“Do you hear that?” John asked suddenly, straightening.
But most say it sounds like a—
“FREIGHT TRAIN!” Bellowed Tim.
His Father and brother turned to him in surprised alarm. “What?”
“Get down!” Tim grabbed his brother’s shoulder and yanked them both to their knees.
A horrible noise filled Tim’s ears and he screwed his eyes shut. Wind whipped around him, terrible, horrible, and somehow Tim knew that if he gave in and let the wind take him away, he would never come back. Dirt hit his face in waves, and prairie grass flew into his mouth.
He clutched his brother’s shoulder tightly. It wasn’t much comfort. John was three years older than him, and if he got pulled away there was no hope of saving him. He wondered where his father was.
Then suddenly, the wind lessened. The noise continued.
Gradually, Tim dared to open his eyes. He, his brother, and his father were all crouched in what had a moment ago been long green grass. It was now dirt. All around them was a rolling circle of dirt and wind.
As the tornado spun around them, Tim thought he caught glances of things in the pipe-like structure around them. There, he swore, was a clothesline with underclothes whipping from it. There was a tree branch. There was a fishing rod.
“Wow…”
Tim turned his head to see John staring with wide eyes.
“Are we in…a tornado?” His voice turned into a squeak that Tim would have teased him about in any other circumstance. In the moment he could only nod affirmatively.
“Try to get down as safely as you can,” his Father warned them from Tim’s other side. “We’re lucky we were standing on this low ground, or we could be spinning up there like those underpants we saw a moment ago. Any second we could be met by the other side of the tornado.”
Tim and John hurried to follow their Father’s advice, falling flat on their stomachs and gripping the soil as though their lives depended on it. They very well may have.
The sound like that of a freight train came again, and the wind began tearing at Tim once more, pulling at him to join the awful carousel. Tim ground his teeth and held on.
And then the wind stopped. Tim opened his eyes to see the tornado spiraling away across the prairie, dark against the scarlet sunset.
Shakily, he got to his feet and looked around at his father and brother. They also were unhurt, though their hair was wild and their eyes full of shock.
“You, boys, have seen something many people never will,” their Father said in a hushed voice. “The eye of a tornado.”
“I can’t believe it,” John said, running a hand over his head in a futile attempt to flatten his hair. “I’ve never thought anything could be like that. It’s so powerful—it could destroy anything if it wanted to. But when you get to its heart, it’s gentle. In fact, it could protect you from anything else that came at you.”
“Just like God,” Tim said.
The three of them watched the tornado as it sped away.
That is very curious. I have a random two-year-old note pulling an analogy between God (and faith) and glimpsing the eye of a hurricane or tornado of sorts, definitely didn't expect to stumble upon the same line of thought here!
...there might be something to it, hm. (X
This was very good, Emma! We had a tornado come right past our house and one night, and that is how my mom explained the noise as well (freight train).