photo credit: WGB Photography on flickr

Indoors, with the windows open and suddenly the wind picks up.  Clouds loom overhead, cooling the air.  Doors rattle with the passing gusts and an eerie feeling settles.  Outside, the tree shakes its branches, letting down a shower of leaves.  Only the strong ones hold on as the dying ones drift to the ground, creating a loud rustling noise.  It’s too dark to not turn on the lights, but too bright with them.  The air thickens with the gloom of a potential storm, heavy with unseen particles.  Everything feels ominous.

On the drive home, an ambulance approaches from the right at an intersection, howling to get vehicles out of its way.  Stopped at the intersection, you wait for it to make its turn towards the buildings behind you.  The ones you just left.  As firetrucks honk their way from the opposite end, turning in the same direction as the ambulance, you wonder if they will go near where you just had been.  Did the weather bring along with it trouble?  A foreboding sense creeps up on you as you drive off towards home.  Away from danger, away from trouble, you hope.

At the next intersection, leaves swirl in furious spirals in front of you as you wait for the red light to change.  All the excess from nearby trees has been brought down to clutter the curbside.  With each car that passes, another puff of dust is left in its wake, blurring your vision.  You watch as the palms sway vigorously, so high up.  One has even thrashed down a frond that lies forlornly in the road, being run over by the traffic passing by.  For a moment you wonder if the apocalypse could start like this – just a dreary, troublesome day… much like when the Santa Ana winds blow and bring with them strange behavior.

Unexpectedly, you feel your car move.  Did someone just bump into you?  You check in your mirrors and find nothing wrong.  All the cars are a safe distance away.  The car moves again.  This time you recognize it – the gentle rocking from a surge of wind.  You didn’t realize the rushing air had reached down low to shake your car.  After all, it was just the treetops that were affected, right?  But no, the undeniable push of the winds tells you otherwise and you wonder if this is how it feels to be in your car during an earthquake.

What an odd day.