IMMINENT DANGER

The evening sky was aglow in an orange pink colour with the aftermath of nature's wrath. The unfamiliar sounds of the tornado sirens blared throughout the day at the same time the NOAA weather radio made its warning sounds of the tornado's imminent danger. In the meantime, torrential rain poured down from the angry skies to be joined by the lightning and cracking thunder.

Across the ocean, on the Emerald Isle, my boyfriend watched in fear as Austin was being featured on Slovakian television. More than anything I wished he could have been here with me today of all days. He called me as soon as he heard what was going on in this city and I was glad to hear a comforting voice especially seeing how the children were not with me this weekend.

Alone, but not completely alone, I was afraid in a way I do not remember having been afraid in a long time. I gathered my documents, to include my passport, a photograph of the children, my camera, laptop, and one of my hard drives and took them to the laundry room downstairs. At that point, I cursed the laundry room for being so small as to not be able to close the door without having to shove the dryer against the wall. As a last resort, I considered crawling into the dryer for shelter.

Curiosity got the best of me as I kept peering outside into the living area at the large windows. Are my children safe, crossed the thought through my mind. Would the tornado make its way to my house, I wondered. If something happened to me, when would my children find out. I started to get angry at not having had a response to the text I sent my ex-husband asking how the children were doing. 'Inconsiderate' was one of the words which came to mind.

Hours passed by and I never heard anything from my children until close to two hours after an email I sent to their father and over five hours after my initial text message. At that point, it was almost 21,00h but I heard in the background the children still needed to eat dinner. If they were at my place, they would have already been in bed seeing how it was a school night. I figured saying anything about schedules would be pointless as their father never cared much for schedules and still does not.

All over Twitter, photographs made their way of the devastation which Austin and the surrounding cities endured today. It was unreal seeing places I knew and have driven past many times now under water. Cars were submerged and some even overturned. The storm was moving at a rapid pace and made its way to Houston to unleash its fury.

In times like these, we want our loved ones around. My loved ones happened to be elsewhere but at least I was comforted by sound and sight of my boyfriend on Skype as he worried along with me.