Faith - for Zana
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junetideTitle: Faith
Gift for: Zana
By: [to be revealed]
Gift type: Fiction; 461 words
Genre: Realistic fiction
Rating: PG
Warnings: Warning: (skip) Devastating tornado.
Summary: The tornado siren didn’t even have time to go off.
Giftcreator's notes: I hope this is something like you wanted, Prompter. It was an interesting thing to write. This town is entirely fictional.
The tornado siren didn’t even have time to go off.
The winds spun up to two hundred miles an hour, the eye over the funeral home, and the winds ripped the nearby siren apart.
It ripped through the town of Gettyville, Illinois, at about three in the morning. Without the siren, the only warning was the train-whistle of the winds bearing down, and at those speeds, hardly anyone had time to get to safety, just away from glass at most.
Gettyville had a population of one thousand, three hundred, and thirteen at dusk on July 17.
At dawn on July 18, Gettyville had a population of four hundred and two.
*
Pastor Elizabeth Raoul dragged herself out of the remains of the rectory, through the ruined brick and shattered glass. Her lower right leg was broken, she knew, from the tree that had crashed through the roof, and she had shards of glass in her arms, where she’d thrown them up to protect her face just before her bedroom window exploded inward. It had taken her more than an hour to dig herself out, and her fingers were raw and bleeding.
Her church was gone, stripped to its foundation, and the other side of the rectory had vanished.
Gettyville looked nearly flat.
God had failed her town, her congregation, let their lives be ruined or even ended.
God could not exist, to let her town be devastated like this.
*
Josephine Achette stood in the nursery of her small apartment, the only room not destroyed. She’d been rocking Ben when the tornado bore down, and she’d thrown herself over him as he screamed. She’d heard the shrieking winds and, after, could hardly hear a thing, but Ben’s window hadn’t even cracked. The two of them hadn’t been hurt.
She’d peeked out his door, when she’d gotten him back to sleep. The apartment looked like it had been ransacked before a wrecking ball had been taken to it, the hall so ruined that she couldn’t even step out.
But she and, more importantly, her baby were safe.
Josephine had stopped believing in God when she was thrown out of her parents’ house for getting pregnant. Strict Christians, they’d believed she had sinned, and Josephine refused to believe that love could be a sin, that a child conceived in love could be a sin. Ben’s father was off in Afghanistan, sending home his meager pay to help support her and the baby, and they planned to get married, but in the courthouse, not Pastor Raoul’s church.
So Josephine hadn’t prayed in over a year. But that morning, as the sun rose and, out Ben’s clear window, she saw the ruin Gettyville had become, she said a prayer of thanks for saving her son.
Gift for: Zana
By: [to be revealed]
Gift type: Fiction; 461 words
Genre: Realistic fiction
Rating: PG
Warnings: Warning: (skip) Devastating tornado.
Summary: The tornado siren didn’t even have time to go off.
Giftcreator's notes: I hope this is something like you wanted, Prompter. It was an interesting thing to write. This town is entirely fictional.
The tornado siren didn’t even have time to go off.
The winds spun up to two hundred miles an hour, the eye over the funeral home, and the winds ripped the nearby siren apart.
It ripped through the town of Gettyville, Illinois, at about three in the morning. Without the siren, the only warning was the train-whistle of the winds bearing down, and at those speeds, hardly anyone had time to get to safety, just away from glass at most.
Gettyville had a population of one thousand, three hundred, and thirteen at dusk on July 17.
At dawn on July 18, Gettyville had a population of four hundred and two.
Pastor Elizabeth Raoul dragged herself out of the remains of the rectory, through the ruined brick and shattered glass. Her lower right leg was broken, she knew, from the tree that had crashed through the roof, and she had shards of glass in her arms, where she’d thrown them up to protect her face just before her bedroom window exploded inward. It had taken her more than an hour to dig herself out, and her fingers were raw and bleeding.
Her church was gone, stripped to its foundation, and the other side of the rectory had vanished.
Gettyville looked nearly flat.
God had failed her town, her congregation, let their lives be ruined or even ended.
God could not exist, to let her town be devastated like this.
Josephine Achette stood in the nursery of her small apartment, the only room not destroyed. She’d been rocking Ben when the tornado bore down, and she’d thrown herself over him as he screamed. She’d heard the shrieking winds and, after, could hardly hear a thing, but Ben’s window hadn’t even cracked. The two of them hadn’t been hurt.
She’d peeked out his door, when she’d gotten him back to sleep. The apartment looked like it had been ransacked before a wrecking ball had been taken to it, the hall so ruined that she couldn’t even step out.
But she and, more importantly, her baby were safe.
Josephine had stopped believing in God when she was thrown out of her parents’ house for getting pregnant. Strict Christians, they’d believed she had sinned, and Josephine refused to believe that love could be a sin, that a child conceived in love could be a sin. Ben’s father was off in Afghanistan, sending home his meager pay to help support her and the baby, and they planned to get married, but in the courthouse, not Pastor Raoul’s church.
So Josephine hadn’t prayed in over a year. But that morning, as the sun rose and, out Ben’s clear window, she saw the ruin Gettyville had become, she said a prayer of thanks for saving her son.
Poll #10990 Faith
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 3
I enjoyed this!
Yes
3 (100.0%)
no subject
Date: 2012-06-30 12:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-01 05:05 pm (UTC)