WHERE COULD I GO?

Todays short story is all here - not continued.  It could be true !!

A New Continued Story begins soon !

Got to Move and Get Away from Here !!

 

Been on my job for eight years and we have a small but nice home on the East Coast.

My wife has to work in order to keep our heads above water but that’s okay with me. It has been that way ever since we were married and left our folks home.

Then it happened, the unthinkable, our house was broken into and our valuables were taken. It was ever so discouraging looking at the empty spaces in each room where things were no longer there. The vacant space where the T.V. sat and the hi-fi with the speakers I saved up for a year to buy, all gone.

Nothing but silence now, with a siren off in the distance. The police come and look around at what is left and say make a list of what was stolen.

The next day a trip to the local precinct and leave my list as best I can remember and get the news; you will never see this stuff again. The insurance agent is gruff and looks at our list with the purchase price and says; your stuff is only worth ten percent of purchased price.

But most of our things were in excellent condition and some almost new. Sorry says he… what am I going to be able to buy with “Sorry.”

You want to talk about sorry? I’m sorry to say this isn’t the first time this has been done and I’ve had enough. I’m moving to somewhere else. I’m on my way to visit my cousin in California and see what it is like there.

After arriving I was amazed at how sunny it is here but without the high humidity. Just add a little air condition and it’s just like the Garden of Eden.

This is our third day and I have called the real estate agent and told him to sell our place for it is California for me. Then on the fourth day right after breakfast the shaking started… my cousin shouted “Hold On.”

Hold on to what for everything was moving. Thirty seconds later it was over! I was still shaking but was able to crawl out from under the table with a little help.

I found a chair to sit in while cousin assayed the damage. He came in and said just a few cracks inside and out with a few windows to be replaced. Of course the driveway will have to be replaced after we get the wreckers to pull the cars from it for it is badly buckled.

When I could find a phone that would work I called the agent and told him to hold up on the sale of our house. For the next week every so often there would be what was called an aftershock which sent me under the table again.

I called another cousin in Oklahoma and asked if we could come for a visit and they said; why shore come ahead.

The next day we were on a plane for our car was not drivable. When we arrived we got the semi-southern welcome. There was a lot of yall talk like we’re shore glad to see yall. Outside of the high humidity the weather was nice and the people were friendly… almost too much so.

I called the agent and said sell our house for we love it here. The weather station gave the report that evening that there was some unsettled weather coming our way. As the evening went on every so often the television program would be interrupted saying chance of a tornado was possible.

The cousins went about their business  but had a radio weather channel on and were kept abreast as to what was going on. We just kept watching the T.V. and were getting nervous. The cousins saying we might have to spend the night in the storm cellar if things got more heated up.

I called the agent and woke him up and said; Don’t sell.

A few minutes later the message came across; “Take Shelter now.”

My cousin’s grabbed some water and said let’s go and started running for the shelter. We were right behind them and helped chain down the steel door and waited.

About fifteen minutes later it was so quiet you could hear everyone breathing and then it struck. It shook the earth and I thought the steel door wasn’t going to hold for it was shaking violently. Then for a minute it was hard to get your breath after which it eased. A minute later it was over and no one moved.

We waited for around fifteen minutes and then came out of our hole. It was like entering a new world. Everything was gone. The house where had been watching television a few minutes before was gone and everything in it. There were other people coming out of their holes also.

Then the rain and hail started driving everyone back down into the holes. We didn’t come out again till the morning.

Two days later we managed to get a plane to Florida to visit another cousin. I felt sorry for my Oklahoma kin but there wasn’t anything I could do to help them.

Upon arriving in Orlando we were met by our cousins and an hour later we had made the turnpike. Sometime later we were told we were home. I had gone to sleep so I don’t know how long it took us to get there.

It seemed there were people everywhere and it was worse than California. I thought I was in Cuba for a greater percentage of the people were Cuban where my cousins lived. There was a storm sweeping near the coast and for several days there were torrential rains falling. We had one day to see the major sights in Orlando and then we headed home.

After arriving home I got a call from the agent who said he had a buyer for our place. I told him to forget it for we weren’t selling.

I had decided with all it’s faults there was no place like home and headed down to the T.V. store to buy a new wide screen set.

~ ~ ~ Finis ~ ~ ~

You might enjoy this song  “Where Could I go?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlOCgQAx0wo

This post is shared at Hazel’s  “Tell Me a Story.”