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to go that would offer shelter. A pine tree zipped past us at fifty miles per
hour.
"That way!" Tabitha pointed in a direction that appeared to be orthogonal or
at a ninety-degree angle to the direction of the tornado's path. The hope was
to not be in front of the tornado when it passed by.
The tornado was maybe a quarter mile away from us and was cruising at probably
forty miles per hour.
No way we could outrun it. Maybe we had time to get out of its way. We started
running. Fast! Tabitha clutched her side as she ran.
Lightning struck to my right about ten meters away.
"Shit! That was close!" I said.
"Shut up and run!" Tabitha was holding her left side. She had said she thought
her ribs were cracked.
It had to hurt but worry or talking about it couldn't help the pain and
staying here in front of that tornado was not an option either of us liked.
We ran hard through an endless pine thicket just ahead of the sound of
breaking trees and limbs. I
soon realized that this was no natural thicket. The trees were all about the
same age and they were all growing in lines. We were in a timber company's
pine grove and fortunate for our bare feet that there was a nice sandy path
between each row of pines.
I looked over my shoulder and noticed that the large tornado had spun off
three smaller ones that were in a merry-go-round circling it. The large
central storm had to be a four on the Fujita scale at least.
Maybe even an F-five.
We came to a small creek that cut through the pine grove. We were running too
fast to stop easily so
Tabitha and I jumped and landed right in the middle of it. Fortunately the
creek bed was sandy or we could've twisted or broken feet and ankles. The
creek wasn't more than knee deep in water, but the banks were five or six feet
high.
"Let's dig in right here," I yelled. The wind was still so loud we could
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barely hear one another.
"Good. I can't run much more." She gasped holding her side.
We crawled up as close to the bank of the creek as we could and grabbed onto
anything we could hold. The lightning was getting closer and the sound of the
storm was getting louder. I thought of rising up
and looking over the embankment, but then a tree trunk whooshed by inches
above the ground. It would have taken my head off. I hunkered down and stayed
put. Those tornadoes were only a quarter of a mile or so away and I never once
heard the sounds of a damn freight train. All I could hear was an intense wind
and the sound of trees breaking. There was thunder, but no freight train.
The storm turned away from the crash site and away from us. As the tornado
sounds got further and further away I decided to brave a peek over the edge of
the creek bank. I could see the tornadoes ripping through the trees in the
distance.
"I think we're out of the woods for now." I stood and offered Tabitha a hand.
I looked around and remembered that we were actually in the woods and laughed
at the pun.
"What a day." She grabbed and kissed me hard. "That's for marrying me." She
kissed me again.
"That's for getting us back to Earth alive." She kissed me once more and said,
"That, is just for the hell of it."
I gazed into her eyes and commented on how beautiful she looked.
"Phew! You're blind." She shrugged.
I started to respond to her when the world suddenly started spinning. I tried
to keep focused on
Tabitha's face, but I couldn't. Everything spun around and around as if I was
on a merry-go-round moving at fifty miles per hour. Then I lost my balance and
fell sideways into the creek. I struggled to keep my head above the water
level, but I had no connection to what up or down was. My sense of direction
had completely vanished. Tabitha pulled my head above the water and grunted
from the painful effort.
"Anson, what's wrong?"
I was able to make it onto all fours with my face slightly above the water.
Then I vomited violently.
Tabitha didn't move. She made sure my head stayed above the water. Several dry
heaves later the nausea subsided somewhat and I was able to get to my feet
with Tabitha's help.
"Your inner ear isn't used to the gravity yet," Tabitha told me. "That
happened to me the first couple of times." She tried not to laugh. "Can you
stand on your own?"
"Sure I can." She let go of my shoulders and I fell flat on my face. This time
I was able to pull myself from the water without her help. I rested on all
fours for a couple of minutes. "Just give me a minute or two. How long does
this take to pass?" I cupped creek water in my hands and splashed it in my
face several times.
"It took me a good couple of hours before I felt okay the first time. But some
people it never bothers.
Motion sickness is weird that way. Take your time. What else have we got to
do?"
We sat at the edge of the creek for another ten or fifteen minutes while I
regained my equilibrium. I
should have realized that I would be affected. I had such a hard time
adjusting from gravity to microgravity that it just makes sense that I would
have some difficulty with the reverse process as well.
"This is about like getting the drunk spins. Did you ever get so blasted that
all you could do is just lie on the bed with one foot hanging off and stare at
the ceiling? You know that if you move you'll throw up."
"I did a few times in undergraduate school and when I was accepted into the
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astronaut program."
She replied. "I had an inner ear infection once in high school that made me
just as sick. I remember sleeping in the bathroom because I was afraid I
wouldn't be able to make it there if need be."
"Yeah. I had an ear infection like that once. That's exactly how this feels.
It is slowly subsiding though." I shook my head hard a few times hoping to
reset my inner ear. The first time I did it I thought I
was going to heave again. The second time the spins stopped. I saw stars for a
split second and then I
was better. "That is much better," I told Tabitha.
"What are you doing?" she laughed.
"Trying to reset my inner ear gyroscope system. Friday does it whenever she
falls a long distance or gets tumbled. I figured if it works for cats, why not
humans?"
Tabitha laughed at me and said, "I've heard flight surgeons suggest that to
folks before, but I've never
seen anybody do it." She laughed again, "You're weird."
"Well, it seems to have helped." I stood up with no help.
I reached to my EMU pockets and realized that I wasn't wearing my EMU.
"Tabitha. We have to go check out the probe." We helped each other out of the
creek bed. I will always remember thinking that we must have been quite the
sight, two people wearing white Spandex long underwear, covered with mud,
soaking wet, and traipsing practically barefoot through the woods. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]