Today I spent a good bit of time rushing around getting ready for the arrival of an unwanted guest by the name of Earl. Hopefully he won’t actually make it here, but it’s going to be a near miss, nonetheless. While forced to wait in carpool for my son, I rolled down my windows, checked the latest forecast on my cell phone and closed my eyes for a breathing moment.

While living on the coast, I’ve seen a few hurricanes. Bonnie and Ophelia come to mind. Ophelia was another storm that wasn’t supposed to be “that bad”. A category 1 hurricane by the time she hit the shore of North Carolina, she lingered for hours, tearing up piers and ripping off roofs. I remember sitting up that night thinking how very wrong man can be when he tries to predict the will of God.

When I see the spectacular whirling disk of clouds that is a hurricane, I know there is a God. In fact, I would say these are my greatest moments of faith. What else could create such a massive force and send it spinning across the globe, crashing through our creations?

So today I watched the clouds spinning counterclockwise and thought of the huge storm they were a part of. I took a deep breath and remembered the story I wrote a couple of years ago. It was part of a competition called The Long Write in which several writers participated. We were given a prompt and a certain amount of time (two days, I think) to write a story. As you can imagine, the finished product was not highly polished. However, we got a lot of good stories, or at least kernels of ideas from it. I’m printing The Wheel in the same condition it was in when I turned it in for the contest. I’m off to batten down a few more hatches. Enjoy!