The End

Episode XII of the Storm chaser saga:

©Mark H. Pillsbury

Rick instinctively recalled feeling as he once did at Six Flags® over Texas, where as an eager young kid he rode The Rotor; an amusement park ride where victims stand against the inside of a cylinder, and once the cylinder is spinning fast enough, the floor drops out. The dark, dingy cylinder slowly achieved proper speed and with screaming and crazy looks, one could almost predict the exciting moment.

Instead, this JetRanger® fell at once with no culmination or thrills, just killer rotors snapping through intertwined steel cables of a hoisted elevator, plummeting the yellow cage terminally on its side into the water. The concussive blow was slightly relieved by the shallow tank, almost completely dry due to the longest drought in Texas history.

News photography later showed the wreckage at a deceptive angle; what appeared to be a lone helicopter resting sublimely in a Canadian glacier lake, actually was the yellow bird dumped in a dying pond of an east Texas ranch. Placid, shallow, and mossy, their wet grave was surrounded by burning wilderness and a flat clearing designated LZ (Landing Zone b.) Bravo.

The jarring crash hit Rick so hard it knocked him unconscious momentarily, but he revived quickly to see two of Jessica. The double and blurred vision didn’t keep him from finding her across the passenger compartment, blood oozing from her scalp. Jessica looked still and ashen, he thought, as he sloshed through the warm pond water to pull her up to him.

The quiet was deafening, his shock complete, the devastation total; but Rick quietly cradled Jessica’s limp body in the half-submerged compartment of the downed rescue helicopter.

“I am so sorry Jess.” Rick, almost sobbing, softly, lovingly spoke to her bloody face, gently patting her head. Despite the carnage, this was a tender moment; however she was either unconscious or dead. Rick began to conceptualize the suddenness of their fall was due to hitting the wires overhead. At the same time, it was painfully clear the momentum of his love had also crashed. Far-off dreams of weddings, suburban bliss, even children, just as surely were destroyed.

With so much unfinished business, regret, and terror processing through his shaken psyche, his natural urge was for action; however, he sat there listlessly in the murky green water comforting his lovely partner Jessica, “There, there, babe—it will be OK now; you're here in my arms,” he paused, holding back the flood of emotions, “I gotchu safe babe, you’re gonna be fine—just take it easy now, Jess.”

Time stopped for the storm chasers, and it was still like a sanctuary.

“God, take her from me now, please, I love her so much… Keep her safe for me, I love her so…” Rick could barely whisper, his eyes clenched shut. Grief robbed him of his voice.

He looked at her now in a daze, smiling sorrowfully, “Jessica girl, you get to ride the wind now, sail above the big storms and keep watch over me—will you watch over me, Jess?!” Rivulets of tears watered his pain.

Finally, Rick broke down and heaved with silent sobs, holding her closely to his heart, muttering, “There, there, Jess… it’s OK now...” But for Rick it was over. She was gone.

©Mark H. Pillsbury (Aug. 19, 2011)

The Crashing Conclusion (Stormchaser Saga)

Slave-Lake-helicopter-crash.jpg (758×495)

Part XI (A Time to Die) Fiction ripped from the headlines...

©Mark H. Pillsbury (2011)

A yellow JetRanger emergency helicopter pulled away from the smoky scene nose down, trying to attain the necessary lift in order to clear the tree line, rotating slightly during ascent.

The whirring high-pitch ring of the reliable jet engines combined with rhythmic slapping of each blade against the air. It deafened their ears momentarily, and along with the swirling wind and jet wash coming in the open rescue door, disorientation reigned over the the stormchasers because of the skirmish they were having with gravity.

Either the heat blast from the fires or lack of acceleration seemingly blanketed the aircraft in opposing thrust as if it were escaping from under a cap of pressure.

Because the passengers quickly jumped into the vehicle not properly secured, Jessica fell into the back of the pilot’s seat grabbing for a strap, looking straight down out of the wide canopy windshield back into the fiery pit of burning trees below.

Gripped with fear again, the exhilaration of rescue and survival dissolved into airborne dread. Even as light as the helicopter was, less than a ton after the drop, rising at over 20 feet per second; the ascent illustrated the simple concept of hubris.

Helicopters were aircraft that defied the concept that a bulky, wingless shell of metal should not be able to break the bonds of nature and imitate a bird. It was more human than avian, however if it flew without any impediments was perfectly safe; it was the crashing of a helicopter that was dangerous.

Jessica thought as they rose over the forest they were finally clear of trouble, but in her peripheral vision she saw a super-structure, an electrical transformer, gigantic above the pines like the Eiffel Tower. The long gray power cables were hard to see against the smoky horizon but immediately she sensed they were too low, about to be consumed by a whole universe of hurt.

“Rick! Hold on.” Jessica screamed above the hum. He was barely aware of the words but saw the fear splashed on her features. “What?!” He yelled. Jessica pointed over to the tower but Rick was slouched too low to see the danger.

The next few seconds were light, slow, and almost dawdling like an old Vietnam war movie where the thwap-thwap-thwap became part of the theater of the absurd: there was that dark middle region of time travel in her mind, when allegedly one’s life "flashes before your eyes." For Jessica it was different, like many moments in her surprising life. She strangely thought about what their child would look like, and even whether they would find out the gender before the birth. That was the true measure of compatibility, not political or religious or regional, but what a couple agrees to do with information from a sonographer.

“We’re too low!” Jessica shouted to Rick. The pilot heard and turned around to question the pronouncement, but deadly accurate in her assessment, they plowed underneath the electricity cables spanning the distance between two high-rise transformers. The angle of the ship caused the contact to be direct, the span of the blades extending at least 15 feet outside the turboshaft.

When a rotor-blade strikes something other than the air, it makes a perverted thud: metallic, crashing, tearing, and echoing as the rest of the blades whip around from behind, like a multi-car pile-up. One thing also stops on the dime and that is lift; which is like taking the oxygenated blood out of the left ventricle right before it pushes red goo into the circulatory system.

“Gawd-amighty!” was all Rick could muster, the toxin of fear suddenly released into his system, a combination of snake-bite and lethal injection. They lurched forward and then fell. He reflexively looked out the open door and could see the water rushing up toward them.

“Jessssssssiccccccaaaa!” he yelled back toward the pilot as he tried to grab onto a strap or something to brace the fall. He fell through space with the whole motley confusion of regrets, hopes, omissions, and chance rattling around in his head.

Without lift provided by the rotating blades helicopters stay airborne for only a couple of seconds, in a wondrous moment where gravity and acceleration are in total equipoise. Next it took a methodical, disastrous roller-coaster down to the earth; however, once again luckily, the golden machine mercifully collapsed into a shallow tank that used to be an acre-lake mostly devoid due to the drought. It could have been worse.

Jessica dreamed of her homeland: Oklahoma, where she saw so much natural beauty; although it was a gauzy, ephemeral, cloudy dream, jarred loose by the massive head trauma she received during the crash at the sharp corner of the pilot console.

From the vistas of Black Mesa to the crests of the Ouachitas that led into Arkansas, she had a birds-eye view north to the Great Plains with Indian lands in between. In the distance there was a massive tempest, a super-cell wide and gray-black with intermittent lightning, the outer bands aqua-marine, layered, extending upward to the boundaries of the horizon. Jessica knew these storms, seen many, but this one was gathering, twirling, rumbling, blasting, somehow calling her ominously as nothing had before in her memory.

She could not tell if it was drifting toward her or vice-versa, Jessica was too tired to decide. She just wanted to dissolve into nothingness as her attention faded, her very life leaking away. It was time.

“Fear no more the heat o’ th’ sun,
Nor the furious winter’s rages,
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone and ta’en thy wages.
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Fear no more the lightning-flash,
Nor th’ all-dreaded thunder-stone,
Fear not slander, censure rash,
Thou hast finish’d joy and moan.
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to Thee, and come to dust.”
--Shakespeare (from Cymbeline)

©Mark H. Pillsbury (this is a work of fiction, any similarities with factual accounts or other creative pieces is purely coincidence. Composed 5 August 2011)

Rescue over the Rainbow (Part X)

part 10 of the storm chaser saga [fiction ripped from the headlines]:

©Mark H. Pillsbury

Rescue over the Rainbow (rating: PG-13)

Comparing these two free-spirits to some sort of weather phenomena would be too simple; a spring breeze blowing hard, unpredictably, and fresh; or a fierce hurricane gale with wet fury and the damaging ebb and flow of a storm surge. Weather metaphors don’t do justice to the mercurial ways of the two young storm chasers trapped in the east Texas wilderness during the massive wildfires of summer 2011.

Certainly they lived an exciting, romantic life on the road; except summers which were usually reserved for relaxation and retrospective of a successful spring of capturing tornadoes on video, preferably reminiscing with an icy-cold drink in their hand. The “long way” through Texas had proven to be an egregious error, one for which they might pay with their lives.

Jessica caught the breaks growing up, being smart, perky, and curious, the constant-learner of her friends, popular and yet more mature in many ways than her high-school crowd. She was beautiful but never dressed to draw in the boys like a siren; she was smart but never too cool or too busy studying to have fun with the rest of her gang. Her interest in weather came from Jessica's relationship with her father, who taught not be afraid of the big storms that raged through the Midwest, taking her outside even as debris flew through the air during a storm. His calm demeanor and respect for the power of God shown in nature was at the root of her curiosity, and it gave Jessica the confidence to study what could never be controlled or reduced to something stared at through a microscope. Meteorology was majestic, mysterious, meticulous, but at the same time it was grandiose.

On the other hand, Rick was the average all-American daredevil Oklahoma show-off, under-sized and a bit geeky for his contemporaries growing up in the rural state north of Texas. He never cared much for sports in a town ravenous for football glory, just one of the ways in which he felt misunderstood. He would sooner study on Saturday than waste the whole day in the scorching sun without being able to “move.” Even though Rick never really competed in sports, he was as mobile as a point-guard, aggressive as a middle-linebacker, and as swift as a soccer-midfielder attacking the ball. Rick poured his time into studying meteorology because he had a plan: follow big storms until he got close enough to record HD video, which he could sell like Blue Fin Tuna off Cape Cod, premium catch paying premium dollars.

There are thousands of so-called “storm-chasers,” just like thousands who think they can make money playing golf. However, being a “professional” storm-chaser takes the same stamina, will, and accuracy of a man who shapes a 7-iron tee shot from 200 yards, placing a tiny white ball on a postage-stamp green; with the cameras rolling! It takes skill, preparation, planning, intuition, courage, luck, and patience to go to the right point and wait for a hurtling freight-train without tracks to barrel toward your intersection when everyone else in the county is running for cover. Guessing the direction of a mesocyclone is tricky business, staying put so it comes to hit you square in the mouth is an act of bravado or insanity, whichever way you look at it. But Rick was willing to take just about any chance to nail the “money clip,” as they called the short snippet of footage networks and news agencies were willing to buy for large coinage.

They worked so hard together chasing weather for about a year that love had a hard time squeezing in between Rick and his mistress, Miss Tornado Alley. He sought the next storm with a relentless fervor, as if pursuing a lover. Jessica followed along as an able assistant, good at whatever she was asked to do; but never with the intensity of the president and CEO of T&A, Rick Tarleton, the rising entrepreneur of extreme weather. As they grew to rely on each other more, and when the money was short in the first few months, Jessica thought it was alright to stay with Rick in one motel room on the road. Infrequently they would also have a trail car of some OU-meteor buddies, the “subs” as Rick affectionately called them, however he would never let on that they were an item; she had to get her own room on those occasions. Their liaisons were physical and inconsistent, yet they deeply cared for each other in an immature way. They were too busy to define their relationship or really talk about what was coming next; which is why this vacation was pivotal in the evolution of their lives. Jessica was ready to take their connection to the next level, but she was uncomfortable with an existence on the road chasing tornadoes.

She felt some independence with the extra pay she received doing the weekend weather on the local FOX TV affiliate, channel 25. It was nice being a small-town celebrity, but how much creativity went into reporting Oklahoma weather? Really, it was hot for so long, then bitter cold reigned for 3 months bringing some snow, finally the excitement of spring showed Okies the only extreme weather drama they could see in a year. Once again, her reporting returned to the dust-bowl heat of the 6-month drought known as summer. Jessica wanted people to be happy, so she treasured the few times when her enthusiasm for weather was a positive force in the community on a beautiful weekend. She enjoyed telling her neighbors to go out and make it a great weekend when she knew the weather would cooperate, and just the fact of her being on TV made her, unnatural as it was, bigger-than-life. Jessica treated that role with honor and respect, like a rainbow. Maybe in the background, Rick was a little bit jealous.

Their mission was to slowly make it to the new cruise ship terminal at the Port of Houston known as Barbours Cut, then taking a “party boat” out into the Caribbean Sea, where Rick and Jessica loved to scuba dive. It gave them the same thrill as chasing God’s creation above the ocean surface. Stopping in Liberty County was a chance detour, but Rick wanted to see his cousin Clay who had some land, a pond on which to fish, and a small bunkhouse. The wildfires were uninvited guests. Actually, they listened to country music driving down through east Texas, and did not pay attention to the headlines about the massive Texas drought or the local fire plague. This was a lazy time of year when they both decided to “unplug.” As quickly as a tornado strikes an unsuspecting town asleep during an unstable spring evening, wildfires have consumed over 3 million acres of Texas forest almost 16 thousand times in separate incidents of reported fires. Almost every Texas County had a burn ban, rural areas a tinderbox for indiscriminate flames.

Strangely, Rick used none of the tools of his previous success reacting to this emergency. Clay was forceful and confident but ultimately he did not stay together with the team during the most critical time of their escape. Jessica, dutifully compliant and contrite until overcome by smoke and exhaustion, was this tragedy’s character least likely to take risks or ignore the danger in which they found themselves. Wildfires seem isolated and small compared to a tornado’s fury, but their lack of respect for the power of fire put them in a compromised position: it was like someone thinking that staying underneath a beach umbrella will keep them from getting sunburned; at the end of the day, without sunblock, the heat, pain, and burning sensation can ruin a vacation!

This was the same consistently smart, diligent, serious young lady she had always been, even though Jessica had avoided dozens of close scrapes with menacing threats over the years since the tranquil days at OU. Inexplicably, she found herself boarding a yellow fire helicopter with her boyfriend Rick, lacking control, disoriented by the past few hours of running, and weakened to the point of giving up; however, even at the last minute as she boarded, Jessica flashed her 1000-watt smile to the pilot which gave him the little boost of courage he needed to perform under such harrowing circumstances, under which he had never before flown. Finally, everything was going to be alright. They were rising upward, soaring, pulling ascendant against gravity to the heavens, away from the fiery furnace below.

to be continued in chapter XI...

©Mark H. Pillsbury (2011)


[Legal disclaimer: no part of this blog, any idea, line of fictional characters, or publication of written materials (a/k/a "intellectual property" or IP) may be reproduced or retransmitted in any form. It is arguable whether in fact, any permission in advance is even possible within the legal "fair use doctrine." The full extent of the law may be used in defending copyrights and trademarks, if necessary. Therefore, copying, quoting, crediting, or any reference to this IP, is permissible only under certain circumstances but should be done carefully after consulting legal counsel. Thank you, but a lawyer friend suggested this could be a problem if the storm chaser saga really went viral, or "caught fire," pardon that pun. You gotta keep your sense of humor when dealing with the Law?]

Part VI (fiction ripped from the headlines) The storm-chasers saga...

Thwap

At last, turning onto this back road only made matters worse. The anxiety felt when you miss an important exit, or stall behind a wall of traffic, knowing you will not make the meeting just touches the desperation beginning to set in, even for optimistic Clay.

Thick, smoky air swirled like a heavy dark curtain rolling down over the last night of a performance; the fuel-rich heat seared the moisture out of their eyes as they all reconvened for the last time. Coughing, crying, panicked Jessica held onto Rick’s sleeve as they discussed options. He loved her just then, she rarely showed weakness during their adventures. Rick thought it showed a true care had burrowed into his aching heart, despondent as it was that he could not give her comfort.

“We are so lost, Clay! What good is this doing?!” Rick pleaded. “I got no connections over any of my devices, no GPS, no clue where this wildfire will turn!” He continued, “I got nothing, man, how boutchu?”

Clay shrugged. “What the hell do you do when you get trapped by a twister?”

“We don’t!” Rick barked. “We usually run a lot faster the opposite direction! There’s a way to know which way to run--it’s called radar?!” He was frustrated by the helplessness. Just then they heard a tall pine crack and crash to the ground. It was an ominous punctuating scream from the forest’s death throes. The hot shear blew at them like an oven opened, but as if they were sticking their heads inside.

Feeling that reversing their path would only complicate their position, for just a moment they stood together as they would at the tee box of a round of golf looking down the verdant first fairway full of hope. Instead, they contemplated their dangerous location in the middle of this hot cauldron of fire. No one admitted it, but this was the point where these friends reached the end of themselves.

Clay did nothing more than drop his head. He silently prayed that his Lord would deliver him from this fiery trap, and that he would be given the ability to persevere and not give up hope; he even gave thanks that his hope was not in this world but it resided in heaven. Clay kept faith that this was not the end, although he was out of ideas for rescue.

photo credit: Chris Carlson, NCDFR

Thwap, thwap, thwap. They lifted their heads to the heavens and saw a beacon of hope. Thwap, thwap, thwap beat rhythmically over the horizon as the Sikorsky helicopter flew closer to the worst portion of the fire wall. The pilot watched his instrument panel, but the storm-chasers looked up with amazement.

“Lord have mercy,” Clay exclaimed with a chuckle. With a mind cleared by hope, Rick leaped to the back of the Tahoe, where he dug into the wheel-well. He remembered that he picked up once a complimentary flare-pack at an extreme weather convention. Finding it immediately dusty and dirty from neglect along with the spare tire, he ripped the pair open eagerly while trying to read the symbol directives for operation. “Maybe someone will know we are down here!” Jessica gasped.

photo credit: Red Cross

At a nearby fenceline, the raging inferno came out from behind the trees like a robber, finally playing his hand. It was as if all societal boundaries had been breached and the devil was welcoming them to his party. They felt so exposed, insecure, helpless, even weak like children, facing this wall of flames; Jessica fell in behind Rick and wrapped her arms tight around his torso, peaking out around his wide shoulders.

Unfortunately, road flares only sparkle on the ground, not able to shoot directly at the helicopter. After its first pass the huge ship flew out of sight and no longer cut the air with such whipping force. Clay thought of the old saying in Ecclesiastes, “there is a time to live, and there is a time to die.” They did not know which one it would be.

photo credit: WSPA

(...to be continued in Part VII)

©Mark H. Pillsbury (17 July 2011)

[this is a work of fiction, any similarities to other works of fiction, TV, or film, are purely coincidental]