You’re a bringer of death, steal our last breath, fill us with dread, tear everything we know to shreds, make no amends, leave us in debt, Mother Nature has come to collect. Yet we’re all drawn to you, gather when the skies are no longer blue, as the ground and atmosphere roar in tune, filling the air with doom, a freak of nature that still haunts us like the Dark Side of The Moon.
Although I wouldn’t know, it’s really true what they say; you fiend for what you can’t have, no matter how good or bad. Before anyone mistakes this for some melancholic love story let me get to the point; out here in California you rarely get the chance to witness such a powerful force of nature as the catastrophic, yet entrancing tornado. Earthquakes perhaps, but they’re purely destruction without the beauty. At least with twisters you still have a fighting chance to survive should one cross your path.
Although, tornadoes can deceive you like a sadistic woman; they draw you in with their exquisite figure, and your eyes become so magnetized and seduced by their beauty that you find yourself blind, unable to recognize the danger you’re truly in.
Yet I still would like to get a chance to see one for myself. Perhaps, the only reason why I would ever journey into the Midwest. I don’t intend this as an insult to anyone who lives there by any means; my reasoning mainly stems from the fact that I would likely find myself in a wild police chase due to the lifestyle I’m used to living in California.
In the Midwest they’d shred my medical cannabis card in front of me as their rambunctious laughter echoed off the walls. The prisoners would cry out in pure terror at such a sound, before the officers would lock me into a cell filled with murderers and rapists serving shorter sentences than I would be.
If ever found myself in such a dreadful situation, however, I would likely just roar straight into the heart of the twister with Riders on the Storm turned up high, and never look back. "There's a killer on the road. His brain is squirmin' like a toad..."
But enough babbling off topic - my thought process tends to take random twists and turns in direction much like tornadoes do.
Back when I used to live in Texas I saw my fair share of supercell thunderstorms, with impressive lightning shows dancing across the sky. Yet, to my dismay they always lacked the main element that normally comes with such storms.
The closest I’ve gotten to witnessing a tornado myself was about six years ago, when my mom and I were driving through San Marcos on our way back to Austin. An ominous cloud was hovering above us that seemed to morph daytime into night, and before we knew it, hail stones were clobbering the windshield.
The wind had built up with such furious power that I had to help her steer the car in order to keep it from drifting off the highway. After fighting through the storm for the next few miles of absent farmland, we finally took an exit for the nearest gas station, and hovered inside with about thirty other petrified highway travelers.
We later learned that there was a tornado about 25 miles away from where we were. Yet, even from that distance it still held such astonishing and compelling power. I can only imagine what it would’ve been like to experience it from a mile or two away - incredible.
Now that we’ve reached the time of year where the numbers of tornadoes normally climb to their peak (May-July), I get the terrible temptation of dropping my overnight retail job and making a savage run for Tornado Alley. But, for now, I’ll remain a spectator and keep an eye on the Weather Channel to see what the Tornado Valley has in stock for us this year.
One day though, you’ll find me with that same crazed look of ecstatic curiosity expressed by Jim Cantore; when I finally get my chance to indulge in this reckless fantasy of mine, and chase the twisted beast itself, in the flesh.
