We are happy to share yet another submission from our 2025 WGI Invite to Write Challenge!
Last summer, we asked our talented cohorts to create a piece on this prompt: Write a story where the end is also the beginning.
Next up, we are sharing Mark Haviland’s piece entitled, “Straight Line Winds.” He participated in our workshops with those affected by Hurricane Sandy.
Stay tuned, as we will continue posting the submissions!
Straight Line Winds
(October 1981; Asbury Park, NJ)
The school’s public address system crackled loudly and came to life with a prolonged burst of status. Dad had said the school alert system had improved since the days of Fidel Castro. Vito always felt that bearded men in military fatigues and boots, could very well be
just around the corner or the next block over, out of sight.
Sister Eustace has told Vito he would have to come clean at the next confession. In every interaction Vito had with Sister Eek (as the other kids called her), there was demands for accountability, confessing your sins no matter how horrible they might be. The light over the booth flickered, as another lost soul opened the door scurried away; it was now Vito’s turn, but all he could think of was how the candles and incense were bothering him.
Time to face your Maker, or at least your Maker’s temporary surrogate, who controlled the territory along this section of the Jersey Shore. Vito was inside the booth, and the screen between Father Anthony and his own wayward soul, slid open. Father Anthony sighed, which meant for Vito to get on with it.
Vito hated the confessional experience, but always thought the best strategy was to list the “wiffle ball sins” first, because his fervor, he would forget the harsher, more complicated sins.
“Yes, Father, I did talk back to my mother… three times this month (was that accurate?), and pushed my little brother off the swing…” Vito said. “But I did apologize to him, right afterward.”
Confessions in church always seemed transactional, as if you were setting the accounting books right with Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Vito had rolled up the sleeves of his uniform shirt, and his arms stuck to the padded area at the top of the kneeler. The entire 4th grade of Holy Agony was on tap for the confessional today, so Father Anthony had his work cut out for him today, Vito reasoned.
After a pronounced sigh, that said we are all sinners in the displeased eyes of God, Father Anthony muttered some prayers (was that Latin?) and passed on a light sentence of six Our
Fathers and one isolated Hail Mary.
“Yes Father,” Vito said, with a quick blur of movement crossing himself, as Father slid his confessional screen closed with a smack. The booth light flickered on as Vito scurried away, relieved the priest had not thrown the book at him.
Vito made his way outside the church side door, to make the short walk across the parking lot to his school. As he approached the school building, lightning flashed with a deep rumble of thunder across the sky. The kitchen radio had said something about the chance of storms, at breakfast this morning. Shore storms had their own trademarked intensity, as if the sky was cleaner along the coast.
Sister Margaret, the assistant principal, spotted Vito as he walked along the inside hallway.
“Shouldn’t you be in class, Vito?” Sister Margaret asked, the ruler of intimidation clutched in her right hand.
“Just coming back from confession, Sister,” Vito replied.
“Well, don’t dawdle in the hallway,” she said firmly.
Vito re-entered the classroom, just as Miss Hampton, his lay teacher, was closing the tall heavy classroom windows. “The storm is really picking up,” Miss Hampton said. “I really hope the other kids have a shorter list of sins, so they don’t get caught in the storm.
With that comment, the rain came down heavily. Vito hoped his Mom would have an umbrella or rain slicker, when she picked him up.
—-
(September 2024; Asbury Park, NJ)
Matthew hurried from the church, back to the school building, knowing he had one more short class, before Uncle Vito picked him up in his truck. Uncle Vito may be pushing 70 as his Mom said, but he always kept the truck interior neat and clean. He had retired from his home building business, his Mom had explained to him last year.
In his class earlier, they had been studying Aberrant Weather Patterns on their iPads, and on the video screens at the front of the classroom.
The class had been restless, frequently checking their iPads and the screens, for any new weather updates. They had played the YouTube video, “Great Atlantic Storms of the 1980s” earlier. The class was smaller than the teacher had last year, but they did get into an online discussion on their computers, using the StillMore Teams app.
The White House had issued a decree that mentioning climate change in public could result in heavy fines, or imprisonment. Matthew had discussed the storms with his Uncle Vito, and they would whisper the words climate change between themselves.
One of his classmates, Mary, posted a DM on their group discussion.
“It’s true Marcus, and everyone,” she posted. “Everyone knows tech companies using their orbiting satellites and WiFi transmissions to force the weather to be bad.”
“Yes” Mary stammered in her DMs. “That way the Forever Software company, makes sure we are glued to our computers and tablets all the time. Next year, we will have to upload it directly into our frontal lobes.”
Uncle Vito had explained how the roof of his childhood home had collapsed in 1981, and how his cousin Alice (who was Matthew’s mother) had to move in with all of them. Uncle Vito always talked about his childhood, and later years, and Matthew really listened to his stories. Matthew’s mother had been injured, and had really taken months to recover.
Matthew’s mother never talked about his father, and Matthew just liked to believe that he had been blown out to sea in another storm. And that was really the only possible explanation for his absence in Matthew’s life, that he ever wanted to hear. As Matthew was
leaving the school, a crack of thunder sounded.
Uncle Vito was waiting for him outside the school, his truck idling. Inside the truck, the satellite radio was providing the weather forecast. The weather experts said a derecho was approaching the Shore, an intense storm of vivid lightning, thunder and straight winds. There was a risk of some property damage, but the experts, were trying to allay concerns.
At Uncle Vito’s home in North Deal, just outside Asbury, there was a fortified storm escape room which his Uncle always kept stocked with batteries, food provisions and heated blankets, their digital thermostats glowing red.
Uncle Vito had explained to Matthew and his mother, most of the power grid was now in cables, buried deep underground. But there were still some trees left, and older buildings that no one bothered to fortify against the storms.
Matthew’s mother sat across from him, her arms crossed on her knees, her digital cigarette adding a slight glow. The storm was loud, audible even from within the bunker; the lights flickered just once but stayed on to the storm passed.
“Matthew… did you know there is some good that comes out of storms?” his Uncle asked, peering at him from across the room.
“Yes, I agree there is often damage,” Uncle Vito said. “And yes, people sometimes get hurt or worse, like the elderly.” “But then…” and Vito paused, “…the sky clears and we understand where we are in the landscape, and in the universe. And that is a great thing.”
