Page 33 - September 2017

Out of the Hurricane short story by Jen Turrell
Guam, October, 1976, during Super Typhoon Louise.
Connie’s body was in revolt. Her abdomen, swollen up like the great glowing globe of the full moon, showed that her cycle had come full circle. This baby was coming soon. All alone with just a stray dog beside her, Connie contracted inside the corrugated metal cocoon of an army base Quonset hut.
The shrieking wind blew up from the West for what seemed like a century. It tossed up tiles and tied down tarps, unearthing every tree, sapling, and bush in its way. The small dog threw back his head and howled, but the wind was so loud it ripped the sound away. He was left looking like a dogs with its vocal cords cut, performing a silent pantomime of panic or pain.
Connie had few things that were precious to her. What possessions she had, she dragged to the east side of the hut. The water blew and seeped in through every crack. She bent her knees to support her ever-aching back as she pulled the bed across the floor. She tightened her muscles and set her weight against the metal frame. That was when she felt a bubble burst. Her water broke and rushed down the length her strong legs. The water of her body mixed with the water of the rain, sloshing across the floor. Labor pains hit full force and forced her down onto the bed. She lied gasping on her back, like a bug beneath the weight of her baby.
All throughout the long hours of the black-out night, the winds blew and her body con- tracted. She was breathless and exhausted.
It was hard to tell exactly when the timid dawn broke, high above the boiling storm. Con- nie opened her mouth in an open-ended “O’. She screamed out against the final searing, tearing pain. The wind burst in through the door at just that moment. It tore the air from her lungs so loudly she couldn’t tell if she made any sound.
It was like the nightmare she had almost every night. The one where she opened her
mouth to scream, but an iron band closed around her lungs so she couldn’t exhale. She froze solid, unable to move, forced to watch the entire scene. The bedspread slipped down onto the floor. The sheets pinched and twisted up into little peaks and crests like white frothy waves. Sometimes she can even see herself watching them. Her body stood shock- still and pregnant by the door. In slow motion, she collapsed onto the floor.
Then it stopped. The wind wound down. Its horrible volume dropped to unearthly si- lence. The clouds parted and the pale sun came out. She radiated a wintery sort of light as she looked down to see that Alice had been born. “Pick her up, Connie,” the sun whispered to her. “Hold her to you, make sure that she breathes and sucks and cries.”
But Connie hung limp and silent, like a wash rag wrung out, and her open eyes stared like two pale, dead moons. Her womb twinged, her breasts ached. The baby cried and Con- nie’s body responded. Her mind was elsewhere, but her arms picked the child up and held the girl to her damp, sweaty breast. The girl sucked and something small and tight opened up inside of Connie.
The respite didn’t last long. Soon the serpent of the storm wound itself around the other way. The winds blew from the East now, but Connie didn’t have the strength to move furni- ture anymore. The floor flooded with water, but she stayed afloat on the raft of her narrow bed with the baby and the dog.
If this story was a myth, Alice’s father would be a god. Or some other kind of supernatural being who periodically impregnates mortal women and then abandons them to their fate. If this story was a myth, Alice would be a hero. Like Hercules, like Achilles, like Perseus. If Alice was a hero, what would her special power be?
The power was out. The phone lines, dead. There was no one to hear Connie holler for help. It was hours before anyone found her. By then she’d lost a lot of blood. She dipped in and out of consciousness as they brought in the stretcher for her and the baby. No one bothered about her dog. When human lives are at risk, dogs get left behind. Months later she wondered what happened to him.
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