October Whirlwind Isabella Zarmakoupis ‘21
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tep— “ouch!”—step— “mmh.” Lugging my bulky backpack and my wafer-thin patience, I muffle the pangs shooting up my right foot as I heavily climb those concrete stairs to the place I loathe calling home: the Marriott Residence Inn. Step— “mmh”—step— “ahh!” Like a singular pearl within a clam, hidden beneath the sand of the deepest ocean waters, that shard of window glass from my parents’ bedroom remains lodged in my right sole beneath that layer of skin often threatened by a nail technician’s rugged ocean sponge. This stubborn shard is transfixed in my foot despite multiple attempts at removal, but it serves as a memory of that night… a cool October night forever transfixed in my head when Mother Earth would blow her catastrophic breath through the neighborhoods of North Dallas. The month of October used to usher in costume parties, the smell of the backyard grill, and of course, my younger sister Audrey’s birthday, but Audrey and I now joke that the universe despises her growing up— the result being a cursed October. In fact, just a few years prior to the tornado, on the night of her birthday, I plummeted from the uneven bars at gymnastics on the last skill of my last bar routine, dismantling both my elbow and Audrey’s idea of a “fun” birthday celebration. This same night a year later, someone t-boned and
totaled my mother’s almost-payed-off Volvo. So this past October, as we neared the end of a smooth month in which Audrey’s fourteenth birthday celebration was pleasurable and without injury, Audrey and I reevaluated our October conspiracy. Could the universe be coming around to accept her inevitable aging? It seemed this way until the evening of October 20, 2019.
Flipping to channel eight, Pete Delkus warned, “Seek shelter if you reside between Royal Lane and Highway Seventy-Five.”
This evening began as any other Sunday in my household—my father grooming the yard, my mother sautéing onions in the kitchen, and my sister and I individually completing school assignments amongst other distractions. I moved between taking derivatives and checking my Instagram feed which seemed a never-ending trail of pictures from the homecoming dance last night. My father had retired to the couch and the Cowboys game when he received a text from his manager alerting him of dangerous weather. Flipping to channel eight, Pete Delkus warned, “Seek
ESSE 2021 | 15
