In The Eye of Chaos
The morning of May 8th, 2009 started like any normal day in Southern Illinois, but by late afternoon, it would go down in history as a day like no other. An extremely rare weather phenomenon, a super derecho, would rip through Southern Illinois, destroying towns and taking the lives of several individuals. Wind Speeds of up to 80 mph blew people away.
The arrival of the Super Derecho caught everyone by surprise. By the time it had passed the sheer amount of destruction was undeniable. Buildings laid in ruins, trees were uprooted, power lines were down, and roads were impossible to drive on. Emergency services were instantly activated, states of disaster were declared and curfews were given. The lives of Southern Illinoisans were upended that day. The resilient citizens of Southern Illinois came together to pick their lives up and piece it together piece by piece. May 8th would forever be a day of remembrance, not just for the destruction and the lost lives, but also for the small town pride it encouraged in citizens. The following is a reimagination of the events of that day.
It was a Friday, the last day of the school week. My grandma had just picked me up from my preschool. I was at my grandparents house waiting to be picked up by my mom when she got off work. I was sitting in the living room watching Twisters on television while my grandma was baking cookies. The smell of freshly baked cookies was wafting through the air as Glen Powell wrangled tornados on the television.
Suddenly, my movie got cut off by an important announcement on the television. The weatherman on the tv announced a flash flood warning because of the hard rain storm outside, he also announced that we would be under tornado watch. I thought nothing of it and went back to my puzzle and my movie. I lived in Southern Illinois my whole life so having weather like this was nothing out of the ordinary.
As the day went on the wind picked up and the rain got harder and harder. The wind got so bad that we lost power. My grandma ran into the living room, scooped me up, and ran into the laundry room to take shelter. The storm had gotten increasingly worse and the radio said something about tornados popping up all around us. We sat in the laundry room for what felt like hours and prayed. We prayed that we were safe, that our family was safe, that the houses around us would be okay, and that somehow someone would stop this horrible storm.
The storm kept getting worse and worse, eventually we heard knocking coming from the door. My grandma got up to go inspect what was going on and I followed closely behind her. When we reached the door we realized no one was there, but someone was standing in the street yelling at the sky. A closer look revealed that Glen Powell, the star of the movie I was just watching, was standing in the street. He was yelling at the storm to go away. After a few moments passed he pulled out a magic cowboy hat, put it on and began to point at the sky.
He yelled “go somewhere else and leave all these people alone.”
Suddenly, the sky cleared up, the sun began to shine and a huge double rainbow stretched across the sky. We walked outside to see that the only damage that had been done and there were just a few small branches in the road. Everyone began to flood outside to see what had happened, but no one could figure out why this huge storm just suddenly went away. Everyone began to pick up the few small branches that were down in the road. People left work early to go home and see what had happened to their homes, but to everyone’s surprise all of the houses, cars, and the landscape was left completely untouched.
Everyone kept asking each other what magical thing caused the storm to stop, but no one could explain it. Even the weatherman on the television could not explain what happened that afternoon.
To everyone in Illinois that afternoon God had granted everyone a miracle and that is why everyone and everything all across the state was safe, but me and my grandma knew what actually had happened. Glen Powell was a wizard and he had cast a spell to banish the storm into another dimension before it had caused any major damage.
