Lucy Survives a Tornado

MORNING OF MAY 18, 2008

To begin with, I was looking out a window down at an area that had been devastated by a tornado. Even though I was looking at it through a window, it was more like I was watching a report on TV, because I could hear a voice describing the damage, and the "camera" would even "zoom in" on certain things.

The voice described how the place hardest hit by the tornado had been a certain bus station. There was, of course, much debris, but I noticed that the debris looked unusually tidy for tornado damage--it almost looked like a construction site. The voice pointed out that the one thing from the "bus station" that had survived was "this TV set"--and my attention was drawn immediately to a lone shelf with a small TV on top of it.

The TV looked like an old 1950's model, and it was still playing an episode of I Love Lucy. I watched it for a few moments, the signal occasionally interrupted with static. There was something really eerie about this TV sitting out here alone, blaring an old comedy show, in the midst of the tornado's destruction.

Then my attention was drawn a little further away, to where there was a cemetery (now I was walking through the place, no longer peering through a window or a TV). The tornado hadn't done much damage to the cemetery. In fact, it seemed especially lush and green. There was a garden hose lying on the ground and it was slowly trickling water. The water made a little trail that flowed far ahead down the slope of the lawn.

I stepped in this flowing puddle and suddenly felt chills go all up and down my body. I felt like there were ghosts here. And I woke up.