HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN’S THE NEW TEMPEST

© 2004 Antonio Hopson
All rights reserved.

The storm had come in from the north. While it moved slowly, seemingly cautious over the corn fields, it soaked absolutely. Dark clouds doused out the last remains of twilight on the horizon. Raindrops glimmered behind lightning in the distance.

"This's only rain, honey."

And for the first time since the lights had gone out, the father was able to look into the eyes of his daughter. In them he saw the coming of many monsters and demons. He feigned a perfect smile. The father would say anything to reassure her, even if it meant he had to lie through a smile. But the ever-sad eyes of his daughter only continued to watch into him for a suitable explanation, one that would explain away the storm.

"The nice thing 'bout rain is it can't hurt you, sweetie."

Though he dared not look, he could sense the storm's growing presence. The flashes of lightning seemed to be getting closer and he could see them reflected in his daughter's eyes.

Why does she look at me this way?

"Now baby," he tried to tell her more confidently, "this is only water, like in your bathtub. It's nothin', honey, and daddy needs you to be strong, okay?" His words had come out as plea—a plea that that ended with a clap of thunder, and the shock rumbled through the small farm house, its vibrations shaking the window in front of them. Suddenly, the hundred-and-thirty-two acres of leafy green corn stalks surrounding them began to seethe. On the window, a few heavy drops, let loose by the oscillations, veered their way into waiting veins of water. The veins looked strikingly like lightening as they danced erratically and elusive. Once he calmed his daughter's nerves, he would let down the awning to conceal the creepy display.

She spoke.

The words fell from her pink lips so effortlessly that the father's smile had loosened into genuineness. Perhaps, he thought, she might gather the strength to calm herself after all. He knew that this strength would be necessary for more than his own moral support. The equipment needed to save them—a canoe, life jackets, flash lights—were stored in an old barn a hundred yards away. While he gathered the supplies, she would be alone in the relative safety of the house for a minimum of five minutes. Could she do it? Would she remember the last time he had left her alone in a storm?

While she spoke, he watched into her mouth as if the words were frozen, fallen snow come gentle to the earth.

"Daddy," she breathes, "is the storm gonna hurt us? Is it gonna hurt us like it hurt Momma?"

More lighting, closer now, more intense—and with it comes an image of his wife. She is underwater, her mouth perched slightly open as if in sigh, and dancing over her milky skin, thick tendrils of red curls stir smoothly in the river's current while her silvery eyes stare endlessly out. Even in death, all broken and beaten by the flood, her body was able to retain the angelic beauty it had captured in life—sweet and subtle beauty, stored like latent energy, slowly released into an envying abyss. How can this be happening? Why? Why has this thing come back to visit us? This wind! This storm! This rain has visited here before. The howl. The viciousness of it! The chill in my bones. The father recognized the deep thuds of the thunder and marveled at how it felt on his skin; charged static. The radio even blared the same warning that had come two years before:

A storm will hit central regions of Nebraska this evening. The national weather service is advising all residents to take immediate precautions for possible floods accompanied by high winds. The storm is caused by a northern cold front colliding into a warm tropical air mass....

A cold pang of fear froze him, shooting into his heart as if to stop it. Now more than ever he needed his wife's presence, to touch his delicate daughter, to hold her and explain away the storm.

"The rain can't hurt you."

The words were all the comfort he could manage, then. And now, in the midst of the same ugly monster, his word reverberated in his ears, looping around and around like a sad note. Was it only two years ago? Surely it was more than that before the rain had come. When love was alive. The father thought of his life up until that dread-filled moment—the point where fate had caught him by the heels and by contrast there was no pain and no fear in his comfortable life. He silently prayed for his wife to summon the power to spare him his daughter and convince whatever force that may be in charge of the howling monster outside to find its repose and die.

The darkness grows.

Tell her, a voice demands.

As father, he held supreme power over his daughter. She trusted him more than the god she prayed to every night. Tell her not to fear! The voice breezes. Face your daughter and tell her! Surly I cannot do this now? Do not fear, I would say, and still the rain will come.

At bedtime she would ask of monsters, and he would kiss her hand and explain that monsters are afraid of pretty things. "Sweetie," he would tell her, "monsters can only hurt you if you believe in them." And his daughter would smile, believing completely.

On the night of her mother's death, he had explained that a storm can only hurt you if you allowed it to. "A storm," he declared, "is like a monster—a monster without a mind."

Could she believe this again?

"But what about the wind?" she had asked astutely. "Can the wind hurt you, daddy?"

"Go to sleep, honey," he had told her. "When you wake up, it will all be over."

He kissed her on the forehead.

The next morning her mother was gone.

The father knew that his wife was alone when she died, cold and frightened. This is where he found the center of his shame; the fairy tale! The lie.

"There is nothing that can keep me or your momma away from you, our baby."

How arrogant! To underestimate the wind. To dismiss the power it held over the clouds—holding them still, squeezing out every bit of moisture in them—enough to flood a river, enough to surround a small comfortable house. Torrents of muck! Torrents of stained water! The lie that life is eternal.

"Your mother is dead, honey."

"I'm cold, daddy."

"Did you hear me? Your mother is dead."

"I know," she said softly. "The wind told me so."

A great wind had blown through Nebraska....

Bored of a polar existence, the North Wind picked up clouds the size of cities and carried them over central Canada, blowing from the mountain peaks, icy snow that glittered in morning's light. Its cold inertia moved like a centrifuge, circle upon circle.

"I am the North!" it proclaimed. "I haunt the human walrus hunters that live in my land. They are cautious of me, for I frostbite them, kick them about like shuttlecocks, blow them into deep crevasses—then I crush them with my mighty icebergs! For pleasure, I freeze their smashed bodies, and like jewels of red sapphire, they sink to decorate the bottom of my cold sea!"

When the North Wind dipped into the Midwest, splinter currents pawed at Minneapolis and Chicago like an animal.

Near the equator, cool and delicious, the South Wind lay atop a downy cloud rejoicing in the fact that he was loved by so many; he knew his sweet breath brought coolness and confection onto the land, and that the people of the earth savored it, basking their naked bodies in his warmth and tenderness.

"I wonder what my brother the North Wind is up to today?" he asked aloud. "For certain, it is nothing good!"

Here, the South Wind had blown one great breath and soon he was looking over the great panhandle of the northern continent. Seeing the North's rough and ready move, he rolled out a warning: "My eyes are quick, Brother! What do you do near honest folks' houses? Go! Go! They do not want you here any more than I want to trounce you! But I will, Brother! And you will pay for the mischief that you intend to cause."

The North Wind would not hear any of it.

"I am to have some fun!" He swaggered. "Now be quick to stand fast, Older Brother!" He then tore into a hillside, stripping the birch trees of leaves, sending them spinning in a funnel.

"You do not frighten me, Young Brother," the South Wind taunted, "and you will stand down!" The South Wind quickly blew himself across the forested land that smelled of sweet mahogany. He saw that the North Wind was nearer to his victims. "Dear brother," he began to plead, "can't you see that it is too early for a frost? The people here have planted corn, and still it waits on long, tender stalks to be picked and put away. Brother! This land does not belong to you now! I have given you fair warning!"

The North Wind only howled after hearing such scolding, and said, "And you, Brother! You will not interfere, for I have brought with me the sweet and feathery clouds that you are so fond of!" His voice boomed and rumbled as he spoke. "Ummmm!" he tempted; "Ahhhh" he teased; "So very beautiful ... so fair ... and shaped to your liking."

Now the North Wind began to tug violently at one of the frightened clouds. He brought it close to his face and it moaned while trying to escape.

"OOO! Who will save me, please?"

He bit at the soft, white flesh with his icy teeth.

"Sooo cold!" it cried.

"Brother!" The North Wind said with a delicious mouthful, smacking as he spoke. "Your friend is so sweet! I can hardly stop myself from devouring him." The North Wind then smiled a little smile and began to gobble the cloud's downy pulp. Each time he bit into it, a twirling wisps of flesh vanished in to steam.

"AAAAh! I am dying!" It finally succumbed, and a pathetic little shower of rain fell from the North Wind's mouth. And he thought to himself, "I am pleased." Here the world below heard a thud of thunder.

Stunned by the death of a lover, the South Wind hissed but stood fast. Soon the sorrow he felt would explode into fulgurant rage, but first he would allow for a serene moment of sorrow to pass. "I am sad," he admitted. And to sooth the pain, he recalled a woeful song sung by the tall and lithe people of the Amazon when they had lost a friend:

"Float on to tomorrow,

we have lost what is our sum.

Your loneliness, your dreams can wait

until the whole does come:

Breaking

up

your

unending

forever."

When first he heard the song, it had come floating up through the thick green canopy of the jungle like butterflies. "Aaaaaah..." he told the notes, "my ears doth like you: the clicks and bassi rumbles!" A slow drum, hit heavily between each verse had pounded into the night, carrying the soft song ever higher—to heaven, it seemed. The South Wind lay on his back listening, letting the song penetrate him. Soon, he begun to feel the sting of it—seeing the unending tunnel of death, he realized that for mortals, it was long and without stars, black and forever.

When he could no longer stand their pitiful woe, he had taken in a great breath and blown out their puny little fires, sending them all to sleep.

"Zephyr! Fiend! Killer!" The South Wind cursed."Draw your strength, Brother! This is me talking to you," he bellowed, "THE WIND OF THE SOUTH! Loved for my breath by many, feared for my fight by more!" And the clouds around him began to seethe.

The North Wind liked this immensely, for it was a rare occasion that his tepid brother was goaded into a fight. And such discourse from him! And such bragging from him! The North Wind prepared himself for battle. He howled. He spun in a tempest. To show his great power, he ejected daggers of lightning from his throat; he caterwauled great breaths of cold icy air.

Below him, rabbits stopped where once they ran. Trees cringed. The air thickened. And then, in a sudden climactic seizure of rage, he stopped, and all fell quiet.

North Wind had grabbed ahold of another frightened cloud. "O! How angry is he! How furious!" he whispered into it. "Just wait until my brother sees what I really desire!" The cloud trembled from the wind's icy breath and then turned into snow.

It is back, the father thinks, and if there is a God in heaven, this time it will pass.

The wind began to pick up again, and in the distance, the barn door slammed shut.

"You got to believe Daddy this time." He shook his dazed daughter. It seemed that through those hazy eyes of hers he could see a horrible future. "Nothin' bad's gonna happen." The words left his mouth sounding again like a plea, and he found it ironic that he needed her strength more than his own.

"If I don't believe...." she was speaking again, and her voice seemed to come from another dimension "If I don't believe in it, like the monsters, will it go away, Daddy?"

He wanted so desperately to lie, to ease his own pain, to tell her 'yes,' but now, in this storm, he found that he could not.

"No, baby," he said simply.

The father watched into her deeply, watching for some type of response, or the registration of the circumstances that spiraled about her like dancing demons, but mysteriously she only turned away from him and faced the window. More flashes of lighting erupted, and now the storm seemed to be right on top of them. Another clap of thunder thrust through the house, this time shaking it to its foundation. Undaunted by the clamor, she began to pace out tiny steps toward the window. He found it awesome that as she walked to the window, he could only watch as she approached the trembling glass. The tempest barked at her approach, but she stayed her course, soon spreading her fingers and pressing both palms to the cold pane.

"Easy does it," he cautioned. If he should breathe, she might hesitate, lose the courage she had gained. Moisture from her flesh began to rise in fine wisps of smoke, and for a moment, her spell seemed to ease the storm. Somewhere he knew that his wife was watching. Look at our girl, he told her. Look at our girl, so precious and brave.

"I will not let it hurt you," he assured her.

A puncture opened in the clouds, an aperture that widened as if to aim, and from it came a wind so fierce that it sank instantly to the ground. Rolling heavy along the fields, it thrust at the house.

"Baby, move away from the window!" It was too harsh a tone, and his haste had stunned her back into a trance. "Come to me!" he said, scrambling toward her, but the wind was upon them and hit with a whomp! the air in the house compressed, his ears popped and the pane of glass shattered.

"No!" he cried.

The father jumped into the direction of his daughter. Wind-, rain- and glass-tattered curtains hid her from his sight. Time slowed. His heartbeat could be heard over the howling wind, loud and clear. In that instant he had lost her, his starved arms only reaching into the sting of glass and the ache of windblown rain. He screamed out in agony. In want. He desired a restart of his life, a resurrection of his wife.

"Daddy!" It was a shriek through the baritone howl, and he hurried to it, arms reaching out.

"Baby!" he hollered. Blood seeped into his eyes and mouth. "I can't see you, baby, come to daddy." It was a desperate tone, low and hoarse so that the wind sucked it quickly away. He was spinning in a world without light, lost in confusion and noise. Soon he was touching a chair, then a desk. He reached for where the door must be. "Daddy's gonna save you, baby!" He found the doorknob and turned hard. The door wheeled open and he blasphemed against the wind. Through a long, dark tunnel, he could hear his daughter's shrieks of fright.

"I'm coming! Do you hear? Daddy's coming!"

The father took big, stumbling steps toward the front of the house and found the rope that would release the awning over the broken window like a shield. He fumbled with it for only an instant, his fingers unknotting the wet nylon cord. "Daddy's comin', Daddy's comin', just hold tight, baby. Daddy's comin'." Blind, he wrapped the fluttering cord around his hand and tugged hard, but the awning did not fall. "Daddy's comin'!" Again! He leaned into it, strained, pulled harder. Click! And the awning fell loose, its shutters clapping over the broken window as if it were a vacuum. "Nothin' bad's gonna' happen to you, baby...."

A flash! A stab of pain!

It had started in his shoulder and grew steadily until his body and mind could not comprehend such an outrageous sensation. Distinctly, he heard a man bellow out a scream in such misery that it was sure to give him nightmares. Odd, he thought, I hope the stranger will be all right—then he could help me save my baby.

The bolt of lighting danced upon him, saturating his senses in an explosive rupture. Midway through his fantastic suffering the father realized that it was not a stranger but he who had let out the mortifying scream. By then the lighting had retreated, drawing away from him silently, like a serpent into the night's void. He fell to his knees, then to the ground, just as the sky roared like an animal. Smoke faded from his mouth, his clothes. Rain pelted him, drenching his fallen body. The wind howled, but the daughter would always know that it was laughter.

BUFFALO COUNTY, Neb.—A Ravenna man was killed by lightning in the freak storm that hit Buffalo County yesterday. Jack Edison, 35, died immediately after being hit by lightning outside of his home, according to the county coroner's office.

Edison's 6-year-old daughter, Annie, was found in a closet early last night by a deputy sheriff who turned her over to child protective services.

The surprise storm that swept through the county yesterday was caused by the early arrival of a cold Arctic air mass that dipped into the Midwest, according to Robert Koon, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service. The storm's high winds have caused an estimated $15 million worth of damage to Nebraska's corn crops.

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