DIVINATIONS 
MAGAZINE

When my body sweats and tosses in a restless sleep, my eyes scanning back and forth beneath my eyelids, my breathing quickens. My breaths come out hot and—

—cold fronts mix in front of me, high in the sky as I stand still by my bedroom window. Red-hot and icy blue meet each other despite my begging. Roiling black clouds move together and a swirling monster of wind and debris touches the ground. A car flies into the house across the street.

I pull myself from the window like a sentient sticker and run downstairs. I have to hide. The man on the radio said the weather would be bad today. He told me about the tornado, and now I have to hide in the pantry in the kitchen, wide eyes set on the growing tornado on the other side of my house. The window is so narrow, and I hear the voice of the man on the radio telling me—

—about the man who escaped. There’s a murderer on the loose. I know he’s going to come. I curl into a ball in the corner of the pantry, pressing myself against the wall as much as I can. The window on the door is so narrow, but the man’s face fits perfectly in the frame when he sees me.

The yellow kitchen door slams open, and there’s no hope for my hiding place when the monster has eyes. I’m in the corner and the knife he’s carrying is so big. I cannot possibly move. He stabs me with the giant knife and I scream—

—at myself to wake up. I can see myself sleeping on my bed. I’m looking down from the ceiling of my childhood bedroom; I notice the full pattern of my old green and white duvet. It’s clean, not a single stray thread. My little self is still, my eyes—

—open. I sit up in bed and whimper. Cool tears flow down my heat-flushed face, and I toss my ratty duvet aside and run to the sounds of my family in the living room. I need my mom, because I’m six years old and I don’t feel good, and I know what’s wrong

Tornado dreams make me sick.