Their laughter a terrifying testament to the power of unified joy on a mission to and fro.

The brave grass broke first under little feet that trampled and scraped a small arena of dirt where the battle raged for weeks, back and forth, spinning in a chaos and clamor of wind and heat until the summer sun set each day and the tire grew tired and retired, pacing slowly in a dizzy, battered haze back to the calm of its evening rest where it hung on to be swung on another day.

Until today.

The rope groaned.
The branch bowed.
The tree stood.
The tire fell.
The children cheered,

“Let’s hang another!”

—{t}—

Considering this unacceptable to my middle-class existence, I arise and don a t-shirt and pajama shorts, also grabbing a soon-to-be laughably useless umbrella.

I look outside.

Everything is a swirling wind-wet death.

Julie mumbles something from her side of the bed; something like, “You’re not going out there, right? Are you stupid?”

I exit the house.

Immediately pummeled by horizontal rain, I run forward toward my car, the umbrella attempting to carry me into the clouds, the wind screaming something like “Imma kill you! You gon die!”

It has a southern accent and seems grumpy.

I enter my car,
roll up the windows,
exit my car,
forgot about my back windows,
reenter my car,
roll up my back windows,
reexit my car, and pray the dead tree in our yard isn’t already at this very moment falling, ready to crush Julie’s stupid husband.

I run back toward the house.

By this point, the umbrella is inexplicably dryer than me, which I attribute to the East Bay apocalypse presently occurring. My t-shirt and shorts have become liquid attire.

I enter the house and hear the wind say, “Just kidding, but I am gon slap the s#@% out these trees.”

I don’t know why it felt the need to cuss.