Hurricane Writing

Nothing relativizes a hurricane like the walking dead.

Or The Walking Dead, as the case might be.

I'm sitting in our common room watching bad TV with my housemates. This particular bad TV involves zombies, which really makes the as-of-yet mild roar of Hurricane Sandy seem harmless. Of course, this is just prelude. It's overnight that the winds are going to pick up, or so they say.

I don't know a thing about surviving a hurricane. I remember Isabelle at Washington College. We stayed on campus when everyone else evacuated, and enjoyed generator power and an open dining hall. In the aftermath we played in the trees that had fallen and one student kayaked up the main street in town to take photos.

Yesterday I bought a Street Sense from a woman in Tenleytown. I've bought papers from her before. She has a slow, sad smile.

"You going to stay dry these next couple of days?" I asked her. A stupid question. I regretted asking it as soon as I opened my mouth. "Yeah," she said, nice and slow. I don't know if she will.

So here I am, in a dry house, with our power still on, watching a television show about the zombie apocalypse (which actually would mean "zombie unveiling," not "zombie end of the world," but maybe that's a story for a different time) and somewhere out there there's flooding and the guy who I bought a sandwich for by the AU metro is who-knows-where (I bought him a bacon turkey bravo from Panera. He told me he had no idea what a "bravo" is but that it sounded delicious. I told him I didn't really know what a bravo was, either).

So that's what I've got for you on Hurricane Sandy. Zombies, and wondering. And hoping for the day when we don't have to bow our head and pray in church for all the people who won't have shelter these next few days.