50 words 100 words
It Was a Dark and Stormy Night
Thrifty Words Theme Challenges 100 #8: / 50 #29: Storms
Signs Spring has sprung are all around me as I sit to type this. Purple crocus in the back, yellow daffodils in front, red chested robins, and red-headed woodpeckers, and slightly higher temperatures.
A less pleasant sign of spring is the storms. More specifically tornados.
Here in the Texas Panhandle, aka Tornado Alley, we’ll see several hard-core storms each spring, many of them resulting in tornados. Most of them with lots of lightning and LOUD thunder. Those who enjoy lightning storms would love it here.
We’ve all heard about the big Texas freeze. The cold weather down south was unusual, which made it newsworthy.
What doesn’t usually make the news are storms that only come very close to doing damage, or storms that do a great deal of damage but have no confirmed twister. Everybody wants to see the funnel cloud.
Thinking about wind and lightning and thinking about some of the volatile people who have been in and out of my life inspired today’s challenge. I was composing the challenge in my head yesterday evening when I heard the sirens go off. I glanced at my phone and saw the tornado warning.
Once again my story ideas seem to be prophetic. I should write stories about getting loads of money. That would be much more fun than last night’s storm.
We have a cellar. It was poorly built and the walls are caving in. The cellar is not an option. Also, it is underground and particularly creepy with cobwebs and ancient jars of unidentifiable home-canned goods. My son calls it the murder hole. I would have to be unconscious to go down there even if the walls were sound.
The safest place for us is the master bathroom. The one that isn’t finished yet. The one with the big ol’ window waiting to shoot glass all over us. The window where I would inevitably get sucked out and lightning would eat my face and I would end up somewhere a lot less cool than Oz and with a baby goat instead of Toto to keep me company. Have I mentioned I’m terrified of lightning?
For years I’ve been telling people I was almost struck by lightning once. That it knocked me off my bicycle and into a tree. And that’s why I am terrified of lightning. Even though I remember the incident as described, I don’t think lightning was involved. It may have been raining. This was in Germany and I don’t remember very many lightning storms over the 4 years I lived in Hamburg. The apocryphal story gave an explanation for my irrational fear. I have come to learn, the fear is likely based on a sense of loss of control rather than a PTSD incident.
There have been many storms in my life. I’ve written about my mother who could affect the entire household with her passive-aggressive storming about and slamming doors and drawers. I have inherited some of these behavior patterns. I slam stuff. I angry clean. I hate every second of my stormy moods. As do my family members. My therapist has pointed out that I am the emotional barometer of my household. We’re working on it!
I had a narcissistic personality boyfriend for a while. He reminded everyone who knew both him and my mother of her. People, including me, would say he was basically my mom with a penis. He would wield his rage like a weapon. If my mother stormed about like a hurricane, he was a tornado. And just as violent and unpredictable.
In addition to weather storms and stormy people, there’s what scientists call Cytokine Storms, a severe immune reaction to viruses. These immune system reactions may be to blame for so many Covid 19 deaths. In medicine, there are also thyroid storms.
Think about all the possible types of storms and give me your best 50 or 100-word story.
Storms: 50 Words or 100 words GO!
Submission guidelines
Remember, in order to be considered for the challenge, you need to write exactly 100 or 50 words (contractions such as ‘you’ll’ and ‘y’all’ count as one, as do articles ‘a’ and ‘the’ ‘and all 23 auxiliary verbs ‘am’ ‘is’ ‘are’ etc. Hyphenated words count as one word.)
Please use the kicker 100 WORDS or 50 WORDS and ‘Thrifty Words 100 Challenge #8: Storms’ or ‘Fifty Word Challenge #29: Storms’ as your subtitle and submit by 6:00 pm.EST on Friday, 19 March. All stories submitted by the deadline will be released the following morning.
A reminder: we will only publish one story per author to the roundup. If you submit more than one story, it is most likely that the first story submitted will be chosen for the roundup. You may submit Thrifty Word stories outside of the theme challenge anytime. They will be published in the Thrifty Words section but not included in the theme challenge roundup.
For further inspiration
We will be holding a monthly Incite Change essay contest. Winners will receive a small cash prize along with some other goodies. Stay tuned for the topic and rules coming soon.
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