The Storms I’ve Been Before a Hurricane by Ben McCormick
Associate fiction editor Olivia Kingery on today’s bonus short: When I found this piece in the queue, I could feel the storm swelling inside me, churning truth before taking me over. The intricacy in which the years and places are laced together is wonderful. Through every stage, the storm takes us there with it. I'm still stuck in the eye.
The Storms I’ve Been Before a Hurricane
Los Angeles, 1938: I flooded Glendale, drowned phone lines in crosswalks. Rapid City, South Dakota, 1972: tumbled over a dam and slept in a shag rug at Sears. Soon after, Rapid Creek: turned over a canoe on account of they were in my way. But how did I get Category-Five angry?
Maybe Lake Mendota, Wisconsin, 1988: Took a wrong turn and made my home in a twenty-year-old’s lungs, and later, as a penalty, a mortuary drain. Or the backseat of a Jeep Grand Cherokee, summer 1994: Hot drops of beer left in an overturned can. I should have been savored like royalty.
Or over the Pacific Ocean, 1970s, in clouds hundreds of miles wide—dense—making night: I floated up through my mothers and fathers before they dropped me, and I tasted salt. Arctic Ocean, 2012: I’m early summer ice, dreaming of American sprinklers. Underwater, the mountains look naked without snow. Others would feel cheated, but my years haven’t been living-and-dying, just bonding, breaking, and bonding again. Anger thrives on a deadline.
Maybe I’ve always been ripe for a threatening storm. The Big Bang, 13.8 billion BCE: when darkness became cycle, and gravity blew wind in my face. Or what’s now Ukraine, 90,000 BCE: A hunter spilled me over a bleeding stomach gored by mammoth. I understood my job was to keep up appearances, though I’d rather spend a day in stomach acid than make a promise I can’t keep. But no one’s ever asked me.
Also unnoticed: romances with roots over the years, suckling me suckling them, and does it even matter how old we get? Aren’t we all just babies? Fifth Avenue, Manhattan, 2004: I fell loving the skyline and splashed in a storm drain, wishing my nine divided drops to explore every direction. Various years: the supernova at the center of an ice cube. Super Bowl XXX, 1996: Gatorade shower. Bordeaux, 1944: grapevines hugged me and said “Thank God you’re here,” and never let me go. Part of me is still bathing in a wine barrel.
I’m angry in the way when you’re ready to be angry about something, then there’s a thing to be angry about. Know this: I don’t care for what you’ve done with the place. Last winter I was all set to be Rocky Mountain powder stuck to a snowboarder’s beanie until I melted at the nighttime fire, but it was too warm, and they mixed me with this annoying compound that whined its name over and over: “sodium polycarbonate”—whimper—sodium polycarbonate.” They whipped us onto a hill, and I got run over by a snowmobile.
Before this, my biggest storm was the Yellowstone Caldera, 640,000 BCE: I bubbled and coiled, ready with possibility. Then pow!—prehistoric fireworks. We drove up and up until molten rock broke off. It waved to me on its way down, knowing it’d flow, and sear, and settle itself into history while I watched from the sky. I wish I would’ve said then what I know to say now, what I will not waste by saying quietly: I am here! And I am letting it all hang out.
Ben McCormick is a Wisconsin-bred writer. He is an MFA candidate at Texas State where he is the nonfiction editor of Porter House Review. Tweet him nice things @caseofthebens.
