Dave replied with a strong London accent ‘I don’t know mate. But I have heard something terrible is coming.’
John left the stall sipping his coffee wearily aware of how hot it was, thinking of what Dave had just said. What could he mean?
John entered his workplace, greeted by his receptionist, Rose.
‘Good morning Sir’
‘Morning Rose. Do you have any messages or news for me?’
‘Well your wife rang. Asked you to call back, something about your children’
‘Okay. Thank-you Rose, see you later.’
John’s wife was called Kath; they had one son, Luke who was twelve and one daughter, Lauren who was 10. This was the ‘King’ family.
John entered his office and went straight to his desk and picked up the phone. Thoughts were flying around his mind, Kath only rang in emergency’s, nevertheless, he tried to stay calm.
Ring, Ring…Ring, Ring. If anything rang more than three times John got worried. Where is she? Why isn’t she answering? Finally, she answered. ‘Hello?’ she didn’t sound very worried.
‘Hello Kath, are you okay?’ John on the other hand did sound worried. There was a pause for what felt like minutes. ‘Erm, yes, yes. Will you be coming home at all during the day?’
‘Well, when I’ve finished work I will be, I have a meeting today and a lot of work so I can’t get away. Why? Kath is something wrong?’
Kath answered sounding scared rather than worried.
‘We were all fine yesterday, now we all have banging headaches, the children are off school, the sky is going strange colours…’
‘Kath!’ ‘What are you talking about the sky for?’
‘It looks bad John, like something bad is going to happen.’
‘Listen…’
‘And have you noticed birds are migrating? In April!’
‘Yes, I have actually. And you’re the second person this morning to say something bad is going to happen.’
‘Really? Who else said it?’ She sounded surprised.
‘Dave from the coffee stall. He said something terrible was coming’
John was still on the phone to Kath, when out of nowhere there was a crash of thunder, so loud John jumped and dropped the phone. Just as he picked it up there was a flash of lightening. ‘Kath?’ ‘Kath?’
Rose hurried into John’s office. ‘Sir, the lines are down.’
John sighed and walked over to the window. Kath was right; the sky had gone very strange colours. He wanted an explanation, so turned on the television and put the News Channel on.
‘News just in. Weather experts have been working out why the weather is like this today. We have some unfortunate news. Everyone must get prepared for a very large snowstorm due to hit us in no more than thirty minutes. We strongly advise you not to leave wherever you are now, not even for loved ones. Please make sure you have food, water and torches because very soon all power will be gone. This snow storm is expected to last three days at the least. Please be prepared.’
By now most of John’s work had gathered around televisions to watch the news report. Everyone was silent.
John spoke up loudly. ‘Right, come on. Shut all windows and doors, bring torches in here on my desk and bring all the food and water we have, up here.’
Everyone hurried to do what their boss had asked. ‘Rose. Can you get me a list of everyone in this building please?’
‘Yes, Yes. Why?’ She sounded a little confused.
‘I need to see how long our supplies will last and make sure the same amount of people get out of here when this is all over.’
‘Okay.’
John stood still staring out the window looking out towards his home. He said quietly to himself, ‘Be strong Kath for the kids. Love you all.’
The silence was broke by people charging in and out with food and water putting it all down around the office. Fifteen minutes past and all the supplies had been collected, John was now studying the list of people and every few seconds glanced up at the supplies and then to all the people around him. After a few minutes he sighed.
‘Looking at what we have here. We have enough supplies to last us two days. Unfortunately, this storm is meant to last three days at the least.’
The news was still on and they had just announced that 20 inches of snow was to fall every hour.
People were crying and hugging each other. Some were praying for help.
Then it started. The power went off. Crashes of thunder, flashes of lightening and, snow began to fall.
“Nature has no mercy at all. Nature says, ‘I'm going to snow. If you have on a bikini and no snowshoes, that's tough. I am going to snow anyway.’”
-- Maya Angelou
