Game of Thrones Workbook

House of Black & White: Not Dorothy, Not Oz

Getting stuck in a tornado doesn’t always transport you to a magical and far-off land. Sometimes it just dumps you in the middle of nowhere, miles from home. Or at least miles from where your home used to be.

When Dorothy landed in the magical land of Oz, she told her dog Toto that she didn’t think they were in Kansas anymore. Truth be told, I think that comment applies to my situation as well. Close as I can tell, the tornado transplanted my house from its previous residence in Overland Park, Kansas and carried it right over the Kansas-Missouri border where it transplanted my beloved house into Longview Lake.

The reason I’m pretty sure that’s what happened is because I was in the house at the time... and I apparently now have waterfront property just a few inches past my porch. The water lapped at the planks outside my front door, the waves caused by the residuals winds of the tornado slapping against the boards and sloshing water into the house.

The thing you have to understand about midwesterners is that we get a tornado warning just about every damned week. Most of them don’t amount to anything; they have a whole category scale and everything. But the truth is that tornadoes are kind of like earthquakes for Californians... the really dangerous ones that cause serious damage are very and far between. There could be a hundred little ones that barely rattle the windows for every bonafide twister that really rips things up. So some folk, especially stubborn ones like me, have a tendency to not take tornado warnings too seriously. Oh sure, we all have storm cellars and keep an eye out when the news announces that they think a bad one is coming, but some folk, myself included are often obstinate enough to stick out the storm topside just because it’s such a pain in the ass to climb all the way down to that storm cellar for what ultimately turns out to be a couple hours of no big deal.

Of course, things are no big deal until they aren’t, and I just plain misjudged this one. It came on fast and furious, and before I could even properly pray to God to save me, the foundations of my house were already being torn out of the ground, with me still on top of them!

The windows blew out and roof shingles peeled off, along with most of the siding on the house. My son and his construction buddies were going to be pissed; they spent a good long time fixing the place up so that it looked like a semi-modern residence rather than something out of the last century.

They say that your life flashes before your eyes in life-or-death situations, but I think the word “flashes” implies that they’re quick glimpses. In my experience, I had a good amount of time to think and reflect on the things I’ve done and said, the places I’ve gone, and the relationships I’ve had. Some of that might also be owed to the fact that I was in the air, circling around the eye of the tornado, for who knows how many long minutes.

During the time I was in the storm, I was profoundly grateful for the fact that I didn’t get motion sick. Most of my family members can’t handle roller coasters or revolving rides like merry-go-rounds, the Disneyland teacup ride, or the Tilt-A-Whirl at the state fair carnival every year; I’ve been blessed with a sturdier stomach than most of them and was appreciative of the fact that the extensive damage to my home didn’t include ruining the inside of it with my own vomit.

After a couple of minutes swirling around high in the air, it occurred to me that I was going to have to land eventually, and chances are it was going to be a rough landing. I did the only logical thing that came to mind, which is find a tight, secure space in the house and pray that I survived the landing.

As luck, or more likely God, would have it, the tornado decided to set me down in a lake rather than on solid ground. It was apparently the right combination of wind speed, angle, and the fact that I was hiding in the closet under the stairs that saved me. With a thunderous crash, the rumbling of an earthquake, and the sound of my personal effects ricocheting around my house, I miraculously survived the impact.

Emerging from the closet under the stairs, I was treated to my current waterfront view. As I made my way out to the porch, I received quite a few curious stares from people on the shore who were just starting to make their way outside after the twister dissipated. I’m sure it was quite a sight to see an old man venturing out onto his porch in the middle of the lake, with water lapping at the floorboards and beginning to spill into the house. Between the damage from the tornado and landing, and the fact that my house wasn’t really waterproofed or built for sustained floatation in the first place, I was sure it would only be a matter of time until my floating house became a submersible.

At this point, I had to shake my head at the irony of the situation. At any point in the last several minutes, I could have died. The tornado could have sent shrapnel through me when the house first got hit. I could have been torn from the house through the broken windows while I was in the funnel cloud. I could have easily died upon impact when the house came back down to earth. But I managed to survive all that only to find myself in the middle of a lake standing on my sinking house... wondering how the hell I was going to manage getting to shore when I can’t swim.

(1,000 words)