The Eye of a Cyclone

PART 1

I was going to a picnic with my family comprising my mother, father, elder sister and younger brother. We were halfway to our destination when the rains started. We decided that we should stop by a restaurant and wait for the rains to stop.

The restaurant on the highway was extravagant but almost empty. There was one waiter, the owner who was also the chef and one another woman who had also stopped by because of the rains.

Mom and my little brother John were playing in the rain in a garden 40 yards from the restaurant. John was running and mom was chasing him. That was when the first wind hi. The swings started swinging violently and the shaky slide dropped to the ground. Mom thought that it was a bit too windy and brought John back. They changed their clothes and they ordered for coffee.

The wind blew violently outside and thunder shook the Earth but mom silently drank her coffee inside. She was halfway through her cup when things got elevated. A strong wind knocked heavily on the glass doors and the doors rattled on their hinges.

The winds grew so strong that a thin 50 feet cyclone formed 150 Yards from the restaurant. It disappeared as soon as it had come, but it was a warning that more were to come.

Scared and terrified all of us asked the owner if there was a basement or something of similar sort where we could be safe till the winds calmed. To our delight the restaurant had a cellar where they kept the abandoned equipment.

Indeed the cellar was nearly as lavish as the restaurant. 20 feet high walls separated the cellar from the restaurant. Tiles made of Italian marble covered the floor. Bright LED lamps filled the room with bright white light. The previous display boards were retired to this place and one still useable water cooler stood there.

All of us waited, an hour passed but neither the winds nor the rains seemed to come to a halt. That was when winds with the speed of upto 220km/h struck the place and the whole building got ripped apart piece by piece. A man size hole exposed the cellar (which was a safe heaven as of now) to the strong winds outside.

The wind sucked everything that was light enough through the hole. Pieces of broken plastic chairs flew to the hole into the chaos. Mom’s slippery hands lost grip on John and John flew weightlessly toward the hole.         

PART 2

Mom screamed John’s name on the top of her lungs as he flew towards the hole, sucked by the wind. Luckily a big piece of plastic had been stuck in the hole and acted as a net keeping John from being sucked out into the violent winds.

Dad jumped as high as he could to reach John who was twenty feet up. The strong winds multiplied the force he applied and dad was propelled 10 feet in the air but still insufficient to reach John. Eventually he started accelerating towards the ground. A moment later he made contact with the ground with a heart sickening crack which was audible over the howling wind. He had obviously broken his leg. All for nothing, John was still 20 feet in the air and in imminent danger of being sucked into death’s mouth, mom was still screaming on the top of her lungs and even the winds had not stopped.

All of this was too much to handle, for me, for little John and for everyone who was present in the room. I thought about how John must be feeling, every wisp of air sucked from his lungs by the winds. I thought that enough was enough, that this had to stop.

How many people will have to suffer because of my imparity? Even before, my true parents had died falling off the cliff. Remembering that day brings back pain. I was able to do nothing while my parents struggled not to fall off the cliff. They died to save me.

Today again my brother was in immediate danger of dying and I was sitting on my luxurious prison, my wheel chair, and unable to do anything. If only I could I could move, I was of the perfect mass to jump 20 feet in the air and grab him and the wind will also soften our landing so that I don’t break my leg. John would safe, as safe as could be in such a situation.

I made the millionth exasperated attempt to move but my paralysis didn’t allow me to. A figure leaped up in the air in an attempt to get hold of John. This time it was my sister. She reached a mere 15 feet before being acted upon by gravity and them even she accelerated towards the ground.

She landed on the floor with a thud and the thought resurfaced in my mind. How many would have to suffer because of me how many would have to lose their lives. If I hadn’t existed my parents wouldn’t have died and John would have been safe with them now.

Anger swallowed me. I was angry of myself that I couldn’t move. I was angry of god who made me like this. I wanted to die but I thought ‘ I still live in spite of the doctor saying I would die within weeks because god wanted me alive, he wanted some work done from me.’ This gave me hope.

 The wind started growing louder and I feared that the bottleneck that kept John alive would get widened. A snap sound confirmed my worst suspicion and John flew into the chaos. The last person in blood relation with me was wiped off from the surface of the Earth. Congratulations to me.

PART 3

John was sucked by the wind and as if consuming him gave it more energy, the winds became more violent. Debris that the wind had picked up bashed into the ceiling above us and the ceiling started to break.

The winds were so strong now that even we were being lifted. We all held hands in order to increase the weight but the winds were still too strong to have any effect. We held on to a stack of abandoned display boards and to our relief, this seemed to be effective.

The most prominent problem, amongst the million other problems, was that we could not hold on to it forever. The winds had to stop or eventually our grips would loosen and we would lose our lives.

Before the winds could slow down a car hit the ceiling of the cellar and the whole ceiling broke. However the broken chunks of cement did not fall on us, before they could they were sucked into the great cyclone above us. This exposed us completely to the outside world which was full of chaos as of now.

But after some time the winds seemed to be slowing down. Then finally after a burp of satisfaction the winds stopped.

‘Finally’ I thought ‘It’s over. The winds have gone. We can go back home now’ I looked up to the sky to see whether all of it  was really over, and then I saw that our problems were not yet over. I saw debris falling down, accelerating towards the Earth. Most of them were small things like stones but some were really big. Like cars, dead people and uprooted trees. I wondered whether we could find my brothers dead body in the debris but then abandoned the idea and focused on more immediate things like death.

Everyone scrambled to find safe places to hide except me. I was on my wheelchair, unable to move, unable to do anything. The first thing that hit the surface was a flip flop. I willed myself to move but I couldn’t.

All I did is sit there and stare in disbelief as the scene unfolded before me. A small tree landed with a thud perfectly on its roots as if the wind had done a tree flip. A large rock the size of a motorbike flattened the other woman as she was running for her life. All this was hard to believe in. How could this be possible? How can everyone die but not me? Why everyone who loves me is punished with death. I wanted the answers to my question but I was hit on the head by a stone the size of the fist and darkness swallowed me. 

PART 4

Once again everyone scrambled like mice to save their lives except me. I stayed there on my wheelchair, immobilized with terror and disease. ‘I wouldn’t be so lucky this time’ I thought ‘ or would I.’

I couldn’t afford to risk again. So for the last time in my life I willed myself to move. I don’t think I had imagined it. I saw my left leg twitch. I tried it again and I could feel the blood running in my legs. ‘Yes,’ I thought ‘the feeling has come back’

Which feeling? The feeling of having the ability to feel. It felt very good. My joints were too stiff to move. But I tried moving my legs up and down and then finally when I thought that my legs could take the weight of my body I gave it to them. Black dots danced across my vision but eventually even they disappeared.

It was my reward. My reward for not giving up on trying. I could finally move. I could walk.

I felt like celebrating but at that moment I had no time and anyways I had no one I could celebrate with. No one had loved me except John, who was dead now. I quickly went over to the place where the others were. It was the cellar of another building but it was much deeper than the one we took refuge in before.

While the others were waiting for the storm to recede, I enjoyed the look of horror on my step mom’s face. She was the reason my parents were dead and I was the only witness. Now that I can move and speak her little secret will be revealed. 

THE END :)