I'm a Survivor

So the past few days Knoxville has been under attack of bipolar storms. The initial storm, about two days ago, was unbelievably sudden, more so than the storm in Mary Poppins. I was at Trio, the restaurant at which I am employed, and I was making a salad right beside the window looking out to the square. I put some lettuce in the bowl and looked outside. The sun was shining, I could faintly hear birds chirping through the glass, children were running through the fountains, parents were eating ice cream on the benches. I looked down to add some cranberries to the bowl, and not three seconds later looked back up out the window. The atmosphere was a haunted gray shade; no sunlight, just the cold glow of the bright storm clouds above. Lakefuls of rain were blowing by---horizontally--by the second. Wet leaves flew around, smacking into windows and sticking to every surface, the entire square was covered in hundred of leafy twigs. The power went out, customers panicked. I had to avert my eyes from the monsoon outside to comfort everyone and help them find seats in the restaurant. After a few minutes of bright lightning and cracking thunder, the power returned and the rain slowed to a drizzle. Throughout the evening, storms exploded and drowned the square, then immediately disappeared again several times. By the end of the night, about twenty cars on campus had been damaged by fallen trees, four of them totaled. No lives lost.

...That was two days ago. Yesterday was mostly peaceful, then today happened.

Today, mother nature came back for round two. Unhappy with her lack of homicides, she returned with a vengeance, perhaps a jealous attempt to outshine Katrina. So, again I'm at work, storms attack, blah blah blah, crazy winds, golf-ball sized hailstones, my phone is blowing up with people telling me about their broken cars and windows and flooded houses. Around 9 or 10, whenever I got off work, the storm seemed gone; it was barely drizzling. So I decided to not make my sister drive 10 minutes to come pick me up, and I walked home (just two miles away.) Thankfully, I put all my stuff in a plastic ziplock bag before leaving just in case, because halfway through my walk--right after I crossed Chapman Highway, the storm picked up again. It grew slowly this time, gradually getting stronger and stronger until I had just entered the Fort area (the college neighborhood right outside campus) when the wind and rain were so crazy that I couldn't see anything. I walked into the wind, head down, leaves flying all around me, a gallon of water in each raindrop all smashing into my face. My glasses had fogged up as well, making me even more blind, but I kept struggling forward, darting away from tall trees and poles every time lightning struck, as if I could outrun the lightning should it decide to strike the object near me.

I could hear trees whooshing all around me, branches cracking and sticks breaking, then out of nowhere I hear a significantly louder gust of wind and a feel a sudden bang on the upper side of my forehead, just above my hairline. I am knocked to the ground, and I stay there on my hand and knees, hiding my head face down, and holding the spot where I had been struck. Upon impact, the pain was incredible, but almost immediately subsided to just a sharp burning. So I arose and continued walking, much faster now with my head even lower, and my hands tense and ready to protect my face from any other projectiles. The wound on my head felt warm and unusually tender, as if my hair had disappeared and my raw scalp was exposed. My entire head was dripping from the rain, but the upper right side of my face felt much warmer than the rest of me. I suspected I was bleeding, but I couldn't see enough be sure, and if I touched my head the waterfalls of rain would immediately rinse the blood from my hands before I could even bring them down to eye level. I was almost home and as I started running, the storm eased to just a heavy rain.

I ran through the lobby hiding my head in my hands, receiving a lot of rude looks I'm sure, and didn't check for blood on my hands until I was in the privacy of the stairwell. Yes, there was blood. A lot of it. Just touching my head covered my entire palm and dripped down my wrist. I don't know if I was actually wounded that terribly, or if my running increased my pulse, and combined with the rain, thinned the exposed blood. I ran into my room, luckily not encountering anyone else on the way. I immediately grabbed my roll of toilet paper and squashed three miles of it into a bunch upon my face, wiping as much blood as I could. By this point, my head was throbbing, and I could feel the blood pumping out of the gash in my head. I removed my wet clothes and continued removing as much blood as I could. The bleeding was slowing very quickly, probably a product of my fat-clogged veins, but nevertheless, I was healing already. Pacing around for a few seconds, I decided to check facebook, and in doing so noticed many people posting pictures and complaints of their broken cars. So I decided to join the fun and took a picture of my head. Then I ran to the shower and washed what I could out of my hair, and tied a towel around my head for the night, and returned to my computer to post the picture.

Anyway, nearly four hours later, here I am, tired and sore with a searing headache, appreciating my invincibility. Yes, God could end the life He gave me in an instant if He wanted to; but should He simply provide me with lethally dangerous surroundings, leaving my life to the chance of my own actions, with no intention of interfering Himself... well, let's just say I'm a survivor.