If you could go back to that day, which you probably could, now that the laws of physics have been destroyed. And if you were still alive to make the trip, you'd realize that although no one saw it coming, some of us at least, should've. I now know, looking back, with the 20/20 hindsight so maddeningly supplied for all historical situations, that I missed the boat completely. The signs of a doomsday cataclysm were everywhere. All that was needed was to look. Still, what good would it've done? Other than inciting terror, and possibly mass suicides, it couldnt've been prevented. There was nothing any of us could've done to prepare for it either. About all that could be done would've been to say goodbye.
To say that the day began like every other day, would be absurd. It would also be true. I had become so complacent with life, that mornings were just a practice run for the routine. Auto pilot was engaged, as I showered, brushed my teeth, combed my hair and shaved. My conscious self became alert briefly, when I opened the front door for our girls, two miniature dachshunds, and an errant cattle dog who'd recently adopted us as her new pack. Rather than assaulting the front yard in a rush while insulting the neighborhood with a high decibel verbal barrage, they instead slunk and cowered away into the gloom of the back rooms.I remember pausing to think that it seemed odd, but cruise control hit override, and I did no more serious thinking 'til after breakfast.
I work in the city as a paramedic, but I live thirty-eight miles south in the country. This makes for a long commute to work, and an excrutiatingly long commute home. Because of traffic in the city, rush hour, bumper to bumper, it often takes several hours either way. As I drove in to work that morning, I suddenly realized that I'd been noticing something, ever since pulling out onto the main road from off the lane on which we live. First it was a herd of cows in a pasture that ran alongside the road. And then it was horses. Cats, dogs, pigs and chickens all came next, and whether it was the glimpse of the first sunshine we'd had in several months, or whether something was bothering them, I couldn't tell, but their behavior was a tad peculiar, bordering on downright bizarre. I pulled off to the side of the road, and I watched a small group of goats. They seemed determined that something was after them, 'cause they'd appear startled, and make as if to run, but they musta been that particular breed of fainting goats, because just as they bolted, the startled look on their simple faces gave way to astonishment, and with that they'd just topple over. After a few moments of lying still, scattered about in whichever odd formation fate'd randomly picked, they'd stagger to their hooves and repeat the entire experience. It was as if each time they fainted their brains would reboot. I puzzled over this for a few minutes, Finally I turned the key in the ignition and started the engine. As I let it idle, I remembered the odd behavior of the herd of cows that I'd passed. They were stampeding. Frantically, furiously, as if something were after them. the weird thing was, they were stampeding in a circle, inside of which, nervously stood the sum total of the herds calves. It was as if the herd were "circling the wagons" around them for protection. I shifted it into drive, checked the road behind me and began to pull back onto the two-lane. But, that was when I saw the sky and froze.
Mike Bellingham, had been a medic back before I had even considered being a volunteer Fireman. He'd started out working for the nationally run city Ambulance service, where the high volume of calls had polished his skills to a razors edge. But it had also caused an extreme polarity change in Mike, turning him from an eternal optimist, into a critical pessimist. When at work, Mike expected the worst from people, and from his perspective, at least, they didn't dissapoint. But Mike and I had hit it off, pretty much from my first day there. And If you asked anyone who knew him, they would tell you that he was a great person, and an even better Paramedic, He was as different as night is from day depending on the setting. Off work, he'd relax, and let his optimism flow, finding faith again, in the people around him. His sense of humor, which idled for the most part while at work, engaged with close friends and family. You knew he'd accepted you as a human being when he finally began joking with you, and with that came a sense of having earned something worthwhile.
When I came in that morning, Mike was standing at the window frowning. He was looking out at the sky, with one of his boots dangling from his hand by the laces. His uniform shirt was open, and untucked, while his other boot unlaced, flapped loosely in abject abandonment. He turned as i pushed through the door and stated, "looks like tornado weather out there!" As I opened my locker and put my gym bag inside I asked him, "how would you know? How many tornadoes have you seen?" After all, Oregon isn't known for it's tornadoes, or really, for that matter, extreme weather of any kind.
