Pure ~ A Collection of Poetry

Hurricane Girl [Short Story]

Hey guys! I felt like writing and FINALLY had time (it's been a long few weeks), so I wrote this. I really hope you like it! I wrote it based on what I imagine it was like for some of the areas that got grazed by Hurricane Katrina (but not super bad like it was in New Orleans),  but I wasn't actually there for any of it, so please feel free to let me know if there's anything I could change/add to make it stronger!!!

There may also be some spelling/grammar errors--I'm too tired to edit right now, but please let me know if you so any so I can fix them!

As always, thanks for reading, and don't forget to comment, vote, and follow! 

Love you guys,

--Earthstone

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The rain hadn't stopped in three weeks.

It felt like months had passed since she last saw the sun, and it was the dreary skies that pressed down on her as she sat on the cracking, uneven pavement that formed what her grandparents had loosely referred to as a "driveway". No one in her family had a car, though, so she wasn't sure what that was supposed to mean. What was good was a driveway if you didn't have anything to drive on it?

A steady trickle of water was still falling from the sky, though it was nowhere close to the seemingly solid sheets of rain that had poured down just two weeks ago. Her feet were bare (all of her shoes had been wet enough that it wouldn't have mattered, so she had given up on footwear about two days ago), revealing peeling nail-polish depictions of palm trees--the last shreds of a salon day her best friend had treated her to on the last day of summer vacation.

Well, they had thought it was the last day then. When Hurricane Katrina hit, it had summoned several extra weeks of break--no one was really sure when they'd go back, with half the schools destroyed and more than half the students still evacuated.

At first, she had welcomed the break. Who would have wanted school to start back up?

Now, she was mostly just bored. Power had been out for weeks, all the ice cream in a fifty-mile radius was long gone, and all of her friends had left days ago. Even her usual summer entertinament--trying to count the number of ants cris-crossing the pavement--wasn't an option. The storm had washed away all of the anthills within the first day it hit. She'd tried counting the number of roof tiles and general debris that got swept past her house into the storm drain, but even that was more depressing than fun.

She let out another sigh, daring a glance upwards at the monotonous sky and curling her legs up to her chest as she itched at a mosquito bite on her ankle.

At least when the lightning had been flashing, she had something to watch for. Now there were just gray clouds stretching in every direction.

A crash echoed from inside her house, and she cringed, wondering whether that glass was the victim of her mother's clumsiness or frustration. After a moment of silence, she stood, stretching out the knots in her body as she turned and glanced back towards her house. She added "check out a yoga DVD from the library" to her mental list of "things to try when this stupid rain is gone and we have power"--it had always intriqued her, but she always had too much going on to look into it. Now, she would've done just about anything to get her hands on a DVD. Or anything entertaining, really.

She stood for another moment, letting the rain soak her hair to her head, her gaze locked on the green door that lead into her house. She should proabably go in, but the idea was even less appealing than another day without electricity. She knew they had a nice house--and that they were lucky to have it, even if it was kinda squat and awkward looking and smelled like old people--but more and more lately, it had felt like a prison. It had been keeping her tied to this stupid little town while all her friends and everyone she knew drifted away, like the water was carrying everyone else to safety while she just sat there, drowning.