Natural Disaster Incoming

        The entire structure trembles with utter terror every time these things come along. Or perhaps it shakes with the earth-rending tremors caused by the oncoming disaster. I don't know, it's probably both. Every time one comes through it just obliterates the entire top of the structure. Anyone still up there is wrenched away right along with it. Unfortunately, we're so stuffed in here that some just have to sacrifice themselves at the top, unable to come down.

        Thankfully, this time my family and I made it near the bottom before it filled up too much for any more to crowd down, but who knows how it'll be next time. We're huddling together now as the thunderous sound grows more deafening every second. More try to run down, but some guards at the entrance shove them back, apologizing and forcing them up; the room is full. Of course, they leave utterly distraught, as that's pretty much a death sentence. From the distance of the sound, I figure the disaster has probably just hit the other complex. It's still a good ways away, but it always, inexorably, makes its way over here, too. I shiver, thinking of how the screams of the other complex must have sounded as it swept over. My wife turns to me, noticing my shaking.

        "Are you okay, honey?"

        "Yeah. Mostly. I'm thinking about what probably just happened to the other complex. That, and I don't see Antony anywhere down here. I think the last time I saw him was near the top. He might not have made it down." I sigh, the weight of the potential loss of a friend forcing a vice on any positive emotions. My wife, without an idea of how to answer that, simply pulls me and the kids close again, offering the only comfort she really can. I glance upward, toward the top floors, wishing something could be done – almost wishing that I could give my place so that someone could live. Of course, I have a family, and a full life ahead of me still. In the end, that's an option I really cannot choose.

        "Daddy, are we going to be okay?" My daughter looks up to me, and I give my best attempt at a smile to her. I close my eyes and bob my head up and down just once, trying to spare her my thought of, 'sure, we are, but everyone else near the top won't be.' I can see my grimace of a smile still communicated those thoughts.

        Sometimes I wonder what the purpose of all this is. Every time this season comes around, this sort of natural disaster hammers us over and over without warning. I work on the rebuilding squad, so I suppose it creates a job, but still. Why do we linger here when we can always pack up and try moving somewhere else? I suppose our leader has reasons for making us stay – food is pretty easy to find around here and all that. I just hate the clean-up after this. Bodies litter the remains of the top sections, most mutilated and unrecognizable. My first time up there, I couldn't bear the sight. I lost my lunch in an instant and fled to the infirmary. Even the most ironclad heart and stomach cannot help feeling some pang of sadness, and and at least some nausea  at a sight like that.

        Well, except Rembrant. I just know something in his mind is not quite right. Most days he struts down the halls and brags about how much fun he has on clean-up. Seeing him standing over there now with that grin on his face is enough to piss me off. Each newly mangled body is completely fascinating to him, and it makes me sick. I really can't quite hate him, though; he saw one too many of these clean-ups, I guess. He worked on the crew long before I ever began. That scares me. Will my mind one day shatter like his has, and start deriving some sort of horrifying joy out of this? I hope I never do, but now that I think on it, that feeling of disgust is a little weaker each time this happens. Maybe desensitization is the first step.

        God, I need to get my mind off that or I really will snap. That roar and tremble is close enough now that the structure feels like it could shake itself apart. 'Like the roar of a train passing by,' our cousins who live in a distant land, next to a set of train tracks, once described the sound of this disaster. They tack on, 'except it always hits you,' to the end of the description every time they use it. I never heard a train passing close by, personally, but I figure they probably know what they're talking about.

        Here it comes – everyone mutters nervously, bracing themselves for the impact. It hits like a train, as they say, sending powerful vibrations through the entire home, and every lets out a cry, all at once, filling the air.

                                                                              - - -

        The lawn mower swept over the ant pile, sending the top layers up in a cloud of dirt. The mower walked on, whistling a tune to himself, barely audible even to his own ears over the mower's bellowing motor. After reaching the end of the row, he turns the push-mower around and continues on to the next row along the yard.