The Eye

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The traffic was moving slower than the storm. Escape was impossible. Warnings had been ignored until the last minute and now the mass exodus had become a mass gridlock. Already the rain was crashing into the cars and cascading down the roads like a waterfall and the sky was dark, darker, darkest, burying us alive. The trees on the sides of the road shook with the ferocity of nature unleashed; bending to touch their toes, then springing back catapult leaves and branches across the carriageways. A caravan in front swung like a fish’s tail, back and forth crashing into the cars on either side, while a lorry tottered and teetered like a drunk on his way home from the pub.

“Into the back,” Mary said. I looked at her. “Do it!” she barked.
I clambered onto the back seat and she followed, we squeezed in next to Ben and Leah who gone through the crying phase and were now suffering from pre-traumatic stress disorder. The car was rocking now, the wind howling outside, rain coming like a wall. Debris smacked into the car. What I remember most was the noise. The roar of the rain, the constant grumble of the thunder, the thuds of rubble bouncing off the car and the whispering, snarling, howling wind, then, there was the strange whimpering that seemed to be coming from me. We cwtched together, the four of us in the back of that car. A duvet pulled over our heads like we were making a den in the living room.

Mary promised everything would be okay, I wasn’t sure if she was assuring the kids or me or herself.

A massive thud made us jump. I guessed it was the lorry finally giving way. The rat-a-tat of machine gun fire as its content hit our car.

Something akin to a witch’s shriek made us cuddle up tighter.

“Trees,” Mary said. Who knew trees screamed when they were violently torn apart? The car was rocking like two hippos on a seesaw; like we were rushing down a runway ready to take off. I now understood the back seat; less clutter to hit as our bodies swung around. The duvet cushioning the blows.

Then sudden silence. Stillness. Safety?

“The eye,” Mary said.

I knew that was halfway and felt hope in my heart. If we’d survived the first half, we could get through this in one piece.

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