For Friday Fictioneers this week, I’m offering a piece of semifiction. (I’m lucky; this isn’t my own experience.)
A bit of background – a week and a half ago, October 30, 2012, Hurricane Sandy hit the New Jersey coast right about at Atlantic City. From news stories and from what I’ve heard from friends who have been to the shore to check on property, large areas are devastated, and many schools are still closed because they’re serving as shelters for people who had to evacuate.
And on top of that, yesterday the shore had several inches of snow. It’s weeks too early for that kind of weather. So, with sympathy for the people who can’t go home because home isn’t there any more, here’s my story of the week –
Weather
Frost on the window. In November. At one in the afternoon. That’s just wrong.
Sure, the kids are enjoying this snow. They’d never admit it, but they’d be thrilled to go back to regular classes. They’re bored after two weeks of living – not living, camping – in a school turned shelter, too crowded to organize any kind of lessons.
I’m ready to give up on this place. I think I am. I’ve loved boats and the bay as long as I can remember, but when the boat sails off without you and the bay moves into the living room, maybe it’s time to go.
I wonder what it’s like in Nevada.
* * *
Please let me know what you think of this story!
A Number of Things 
That is sad. There is a feeling of being there and being part of all that as gone on. Very good.
Yes, it’s a sad situation, and there are so many people still affected. Thank you – I’m glad you “got it”.
I can completely understand that feeling! I love the last sentence of your second paragraph.
Thank you! We never know when our lives are going to turn upside down, do we?
So true! Glad you’re OK.
Hi Sharon,
Nice of you to think of the people that are going through hard times and dedicate your story to them. Ron
Thanks, Ron. This was one of those stories that pretty much wrote itself, at least after the Wednesday night / Thursday morning snow down there.
Wow…so much emotion in this short piece. There is almost a sense of feeling betrayed by Mother Nature. She can be quite nasty. Thank you for taking the step to turn life into art.
Mother Nature definitely likes to show us who’s boss from time to time! I think a lot of people who love the water and the natural beauty of the shore have good reason to feel betrayed just now. 😦 Glad you think it’s a successful piece.
I think you’ve got it spot on. Even kids will be fed up with camping out in a hall by now and want to go back to normal. And snow, we had an inch last Sunday in the south west – unheard of in November but thankfully it was gone in a couple of hours.
Strange, strange weather! I suspect / hope the Jersey shore snow melted quickly too – anyway, the weather is supposed to be warmer over the next few days.
And thanks for the kind words about the ministory 🙂
Nice read and nice dedicating it to the victims of Sandy. Though I wonder if leaving for Nevada is the right move. 🙂
Oh, well, my family was talking about the problems of building in storm-prone areas like the Jersey Shore a few days ago, and realized that there isn’t any safe place to live in the whole country! But Nevada, being a high-altitude desert, is about as different from New Jersey as you can get.
And thank you for the compliments!
Those last two paragraphs were great, and the ones leading up to them weren’t half bad either! I think you expressed the mood up in the northeast well.
Thank you! Interesting that you divide the piece at the midpoint like that – I would say that’s where the speaker switches from describing what’s happening in the outside world to focusing on her own feelings about the situation.
People are doing what they can to clean up and get back to normal, but there’s so much to be done. We lost power for only 36 hours during the storm, and that was hard to put up with. I hate to think of what it’s like for the people who are still waiting for the lights (and the heat, and the refrigerator) to come on.
“…when the bay moves into your living room…” great line, Sharon. A well written tribute.
Thank you, Rochelle! I have to admit the remark about the bay is probably inspried by someone else’s description of really bad storms – “when the ocean meets the bay” – which is the last thing you want to see happen if you live on one of our narrow, sandy, flat offshore islands. (They’re typically many miles long but only about four or five blocks wide, from the Atlantic Ocean to the bay between the island and the mainland.)
i enjoyed this very much, but I’ll tell for free that in Nevada it is coooollddddd right now and getting colder. You’ve been pre disastered as Garp was fond of saying. i’d stick around.
Aloha,
Doug
I don’t know that the character is all that serious about Nevada – after all, her friends and family and job (if it hasn’t washed out to sea) are all here. And I believe you about Nevada weather – I was in the state years ago, in August, and while there was no trace of our familiar Jersey August humidity, it was HOT HOT HOT – the high was around 120 degrees.
Glad you like the story!
Can’t blame anyone for thinking like that. However, I wonder if every place has it’s own disasters to worry about. Is any place safe?
Probably not – just here in the US, New England and upstate New York and Pennsylvania and New Jersey have blizzards and occasional hurricanes, Florida has lots of hurricanes and the rest of the south gets hurricanes moderately often, the Mississippi and Ohio valleys get tornadoes, blizzards, and occasional earthquakes, the Rocky Mountain states get blizzards and wildfires (and then there’s the supervolcano under Yellowstone Park), California has earthquakes (and wildfires and mudslides in the south), Washington and Hawaii have volcanoes and potential tsunamis, Alaska has the Alaskan winter…maybe Oregon is relatively calm, though soggy???