The Storm of 84 by Adrian Jose Fernandez

The Storm of 84

fiction by Adrian Fernandez

Great surges of salt water slammed aggressively against the barnacle covered concrete that was the seawater retaining wall, over which abnormally large waves threatened to burst over and into main street. Down at the pier, a vicious tide churned pacific waters into foaming rip currents that would have surely stolen away even the most experienced swimmer from between the piers algae ridden pylons. Most of the towns citizens were still tucked away under multiple layers of hand stitched quilts and heavy electric blankets when the sirens began to wail from old air raid system, repurposed as extreme weather warnings after the war. A sirens warbling song could be heard throughout the coastal valley, alluding to some sort of imminent danger. It was a reminder for some of terrible times not yet so far in the past to have been forgotten, though the children were too young to recognize the oscillating pitch and its significance. Instead, it was with blank faced terror that the children reacted to the deafening sirens that pierced through the sound of crashing waves and rolling thunder. The voice many were greeted with when they switched on their kitchen counter radio that blistery morning was not that of their normally jovial disk jokey but of an eerily calm woman who told residents to “Stay inside, this is not a drill.” The winds whipped up the coastal waters as thick smatterings of rain smothered the once dry soil. Reports of such a storm had not been on the previous nights weather forecast, which William watched religiously for the past several decades, biding his time. There was little else left to do in life, he truly believed, other than the waiting. It was only the sound of waves lapping at the window of his red brick house that alerted the old sailor of the worsening weather outside. He lived in one of the oldest structures in the entire county, and had been one of the first residents to call this seaside community home. He’d built this abode out of red fired brick and cheap chipping mortar some fifty years ago, right where the sand and soil met some hundred feet from the waters edge. It was then no great surprise to him that the ocean seemed poised to swallow his red

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85 brick house, for he had seen the same thing happen several times during his life and lived to tell the tale. He had constructed this home with his own unwrinkled hands, before the railroad made travel into the coastal canyon more assessable to the general public. Back then he had been a handsome enough man, thick black hair combed to one side, heavy with pomade to reveal an elegant line of scalp. Nowadays he was a grey approximation of that man, sporting more sun spots and pock marks on his face than there was strands of grey hair on his head. He predated most every one else in town. The only people who had lived on the salty soil prior to William had long since been buried at the local cemetery or moved to one of the nursing homes in the big city that held the last of his acquaintances. When the not so soothing sounds of sirens wailing infiltrated the dried clay and mortar and entered the old timer’s hairy ear holes, he reacted with a calm indifference. In fact he reacted with such nonchalance one might have been forgiven for thinking he was deaf. As the haunting song continued he set the rusted kettle to boil, hanging it with care in the chimney before starting a fire beneath it with kerosene, crumpled newspaper and wood chips. He blew gently on the embers as the storm raged outside, the waves pressing themselves up against the one ocean facing window in an attempt to gain entry. Built long before contemporary building codes, Wililiams house stood much too close to the waters edge and was assaulted time and time again by the furious surf until cracks began to form on the glass that had warbled with age. Still William had seen worse, had been through worse, and so he simply put on another coat and made his first cup of insta-coffee and got on with the waiting. The unleashed vigor of el Nino battered the town, brought on by some invisible air current that crossed the pacific or, the all mighty hand of God himself depending on who you asked. The two lane highway was blocked or made otherwise un-drivable going both of the ways out of town. The southbound section of road had a given way to the raging ocean that heaved against the cliffs underneath, while the northbound section of highway bad been blocked by a fallen eucalyptus. Torrents of rain assaulted the citizens in their own homes and the relentlessly pounding waves threatened to swallow any house built too close to the shoreline, which included Williams red brick home. The waves grew to a size that even William had not previously witnessed though he did not react with anything more than mild amusement, lighting the hand rolled

cigarette with a red phosphor match he struck to life as Seaspray began to spurt through the cracks in the glass of his window. He watched the sea pull away, leaving many planks and two by fours somersaulting on the wet sand, pulled seaward by the currents powerful grasp. William stood up slowly from his chair by the window, coffee in hand and cigarette in mouth, and staggered forward toward his simple spring loaded cot. It was the kind of bed used in hospitals that came with little wheels on it, like a shopping cart. The spindly metal legs creaked under Williams meager weight as he sat on the quilt covered mattress with a weary sigh. Smoke would exit his hairy nose before the cherry of his cigarette would glow orange in the cloudy midday darkness. This action he repeated without ever removing the cigarette from his lips as the stone tile floor of his home became slick with salt water, his feet not quite touching the ground from his perch on the hospital bed. The irregular rhythm of of bits of wood and runaway rowboats against the pylons that kept his red brick house somewhat drier than it would be otherwise lulled him to sleep, and the still lit ember of the cigarette continued to glow as he dreamed fondly of youthful, sea faring days.

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