Another for the Illustrated Wordsmithing gallery.

* Caution: Text content includes personal interaction between a male and a female.

Tornado
by
Wayne R. Crauder

It is an July day in the midwest. The temperature and humidty have
both been in the 80s. But there are signs of a cold front in the west.
We go out on the bridge to the penisula. We stand apart, because
although we would like to touch, in the words of Cole Porter, "It's too
darn hot."

Quietly we watch the clouds build and study the refelctions in the water.
It is still and calm. Occasionally our eyes meet, but it is just to hot
to hold even a glance too long. It seems the world is dead. There is no
sound to mar the calm. The air dampens everything. In the southwest,
the clouds that had been moving in start to boil. They rise up 10,000
feet in the air as the cold air meets the hot moist air in the sky. With
3 minutes, the swiftly moving clouds have become raging thunderheads. We
look towards the house and safety it provides. But at that moment the
wind hits. Before we can move the clouds are almost upon and as we watch
they turn green. Knowing what is coming, and even yet in our clothes, we
slip into the water. The water is cooler and I reach out and pull you to
me. I encircle you with my arms to protect you from the coming power of
nature.

Now I see the tornadoes drop from the clouds. There are three and the
nearest is coming at 150 mph towards the inlet the bridge spans. Quickly
I pull you down into the water as the tornado hits. As the tornado
passes overhead, we can hear the roar even below the water. I try to
wrap my leg around a bridge support, but now the tornado draws the water
up into itself. The sudden flow of water upward pulls us out into the
lake. Still I hold onto you. In seconds we are on dry ground and the
backside of the tornado rolls us through the mud that was once lake. The
200 mph winds pulls the clothes from our bodies and threatens to drag us
away from the dry lake bed. I tighten my hold on you. We are drenched
with the smell of greenry from the tornado. Now towards the end of the
lake, the tornado drops the water it had pulled up. Swiftly a wall of
water moves down the dry lakebed. It hits us carrying us under the bridge
and washing us onto the shore of the inlet. At last I let go of you.
Quietly we lay on the grassy shore. Washed clean by the rolling water,
we lay there in out now tattered clothes and breathe once again.
Although it was less than 10 seconds, the time seems years from when we
first dropped into the water. Gradually we feel the warmth of the sun
penetrate our skin and start to warm us. Its warmth feels good in the
now cool air.

Slowly I recover and turn to you. I notice the awe in your eyes. As I
reach out to you, I notice the way what remains of your now wet clothes
cling to your body. Softly I lean over and kiss a scratch upon your arm.
Gently I search your body for bruises or more cuts and tenderly kiss away
each one and softly lick away the pain from each bruise. Now I reach up
to you face. Gently I kiss your eyes. Finally I wrap my arms around
youa nd pull you into me. Now the heat we feel is not from the sun but
from ourselves. Slowly beneath the warm sun and amid the devastaion
wrought just minutes ago, I undress you. Now in earnest I kiss your
forehead and face before kissing the rest of your body. Lingering here
and there I move my mouth over your whole body. At last I wend my way
back up to your lips. Now we kiss each other fully. I roll unto my back
with you over me. Now we join in ectasy made even more wonderful by the
majesty of nature we have just experienced. At last exhausted we fall
into a pleasant sleep at one with each other, and the universe in which
we live.