The children were left without power for only a few days. They had to suffer in the sweltering heat in the house with nothing to do except toss around the old pigskin and sleep. The hurricane was only a category 2. The mother sat on the couch and watched all of the devastation of the surrounding area on her portable battery TV. It was horrible, the houses all down the beach were no longer on their foundations, and the boats in the Marina were slung across the street in a heap. The local beach shops that outstretched over the beach were in rubbles in the middle of the six lane boulevard. Half of the yacht basin was under water. She was lucky that her two story apartment was still standing and had little damage.
The children and adults of Dickinson were still cleaning up the debris from the storm weeks later.
As the sky grew dark the mother ushered in the children as curfew was nearing its reign over the night time world. Of course some would never settle in the aftermath of the natural disaster that crippled nearly everybody on the Gulf Coast. And this, you could tell.
The children would complain, every night, all night, all week, about the situation with the power and sewage. The mother told the children if they went to bed early, she would get them some candy at the store whenever it opened. But even the kids knew that that was a false promise. That it would never happen, for they had seen the destruction on the TV. They knew that the nearest store that was opened a few days after the storm was almost in Huntsville. They had known it would be bad, they had known how hard it would be to go and see their grandparents in Sante Fe. They knew that there were people that they knew, that they would never see again. That there were things that they wouldn’t understand until they were older, but they had knew the whole time that it was coming, and still refused to go and evacuate with their other family members. They had thought that the storm would eventually move far enough North to where they wouldn’t get touched at all. But nothing ever happened like that here in this family of seven. They never thought about the consequences, they just felt that it was up to them to stay behind and watch the destruction as the storm blew over the city and destroyed everything.
The boy, the only boy, got on his laptop and looked up all the recent places he had been. The most recent, a beach house on the Bolivar Peninsula. He found a recent picture of the estate from after the storm, and the only thing left was the stairs that led up to the second story. They had a picture of the street, and in the bush on the side of the street, was the same white leather couch he had slept on after a long day of playing at the beach. A few minutes later he found a picture of a half buried vanity, and realized it was the same vanity he had used to clean himself up after the days of laughter and carelessness, and now, it only brings tears and pain. A few pages later on the screen, he found a picture, from about five miles down the street, a small box. The next picture over, was after they opened the box. In the box was a digital camera that the boy had used to capture his memories, and now, the only thing that was left, was a cracked screen, a shattered lens, and a box of ruined memories. After looking at the pictures, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to eat or sleep for days. He knew that if he tried, the pictures would haunt him after each toss and turn in the heat of the small powerless apartment.