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A Science Fiction Fanzine | Winter 2008 |
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A Science Fiction Fanzine | Winter 2008 |
In the Bottom of the Tornado is a Woman With a
Metalic Face
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I. The two of us leave town, wander through fields as an orange sun sets. We feel like Reapers looking out over the golden grain sheaves and haystacks majestic in the stillness of Harvest. II. Suddenly! Thunder! Thunder! from somewhere but how can this be? We raise our heads, a Storm in the West; dark gray funnel dropping from an Angry Sky becoming a Tornado moving toward us, swirling, whirling, shuddering, clattering with debris; closer & closer. III. We stand alone, unprotected, in this open field, nowhere to go, no place to hide. It threads it's path heedfully around the simple houses, around my house too. I'm stiff with fear, mouth open. It stops before us, whirling, clattering, Wind |
V. |
are unheard. She tells me if I don't choose, She'll destroy every house, including mine. I want to cry, but don't. I want to run, but can't. Taking a deep breath I decide to choose troubled houses for purification. Yes! That's reasonable, choose houses already with problems -- drugs or poverty or crime or HIV. I name names, point out these homes. VI. Off She goes in Her clattering Tornado leaving the path clean in Her passage through the town. She guts some houses. They vanish or remain only rubble; others She merely strips off clapboard or removes the roof. VII. And we remain standing, watching, helpless, in the open field at Harvest knowing we have the Power, but not knowing how to use it. |