Our brittle world provides certain guarantees:
Every cat believes he is the Pope. If your granola bars arrive in ruins, an Amazon chatbot will apologize and make it right. Asinine observations will cover Facebook like locusts.
If there are thundershowers in the forecast, your kindred shall behold horsemen in the sky.
Your day begins with an orange screen, a fresh-squeezed “eyes on the skies!”
“Moderate chance of severe weather.” You think little of it. The radar undulates in yellow and green potatoes, but you know those taters will take many detours on their way to reality. Why fear the flashes that may never crash the party?
Oh, you gentle creature, you truly think you can escape.
You think you can escape the text from your mother at 5:45 AM: “They say tornadoes tonight. Please keep an eye.”
You confirm that your eyes remain installed. You try to enjoy your cottage cheese.
Your colleague is curdled. “Thank you for the spreadsheet of August expenses. Please be safe out there. It’s supposed to get bad.”
You confer with the window. The sky is white. The sun is a truffle covered in coconut.
Your upstairs neighbor shape-shifts from a slumpy turtleneck into Thor. “I am battening down my hatches.” You contemplate what this means in a 700-square-foot condo.
“We’re in for a terrible night,” he promises. You remember why you dodge him at the mailboxes. “All hell! LOOSE!”
You try to convince him that the potatoes may part, and the screen may return to the green, green grass of home. He frowns as though you have proposed a guerrilla mission to retake Eden. Perhaps you have. You regret nothing.
You build an ark for your peace, but your boss rappels up the side with a sledgehammer. “Afraid we’re in for a night of terror.” She is grim in her age-appropriate Chico’s suiting. You have always wanted to administer a zestful fuchsia makeover. Perhaps today is your last chance.
You call an emergency meeting with your cat, who declares some dogma about spray cheese and bares his belly. You eat a granola bar but cannot enjoy it. The sun is a surly truffle.
The screen is red now, handing you a Tornado Watch like a rose. You scroll Amazon. You purchase velvet scrunchies and a cat toy shaped like your least favorite politician. These would be good decisions under any circumstances, but especially under a red screen.
Your best friend texts you. “Good luck not dying tonight!” These are not her exact words, but you minored in Apocalyptic Translation. You remind her that you are a thunder-cat with eight more lives. She responds “WTF?” These are not her exact words, but everything other than your own serenity and amusement is of minor concern.
The radar potatoes are small, but the screen is maroon. “NOAA Update: You are all going to die tonight.” These are Weather.com’s exact words.
You decide to write about it. Fear turns you into a metaphor machine. If you are literally going to die from brimstone and coconut, allegory will stroke your forehead in the meantime. You describe your upstairs neighbor as a half-eaten jar of peanut butter. You Zoom your mother to read your poem aloud.
“Why are you calling? It’s dangerous to be on the computer in a storm.”
You assure her the sky is white. You read your poem. You describe your boss as unsweetened nougat. Your mother says something nice, but that flick of her eyebrow asks if you have taken your medication today.
You post your poem on Facebook with a picture of your cat. The incoming apocalypse has caramelized your kith and kin. Friends respond to your Pulitzer-worthy masterwork: “Your cat is orange!!!” Perhaps they are yelling because they are going to die.
You wonder if the Pope is praying for your corner of New Jersey. You hope the world will remember your name. You reassure yourself that your poem will outlive you.
Your administrative assistant calls. “Are you ready for tonight? Do you have enough lanterns?”
You contemplate lighting a fire in the parking lot and inviting your neighbors to a final feral dance. You contemplate calling the rumpled, buoyant boy you never should have dumped in grad school. You put on the tutu no one knows you own.
You get angry. You eat spinach directly from the can. You flex your fettuccine arms in front of the mirror. The cat vomits.
You count the potatoes on the screen. There are only three yellow blobs within eighty square miles. Where is the fourth horseman? The sky is turning blue. Someone has meticulously peeled each maggot of coconut off the sun.
Your stepfather texts you. “Stay away from the windows. You know you’re safest in the bathroom, right darlin’?” You put the cat in the bathroom.
You stay angry. If anyone has a right to despair, it’s you. Your first apartment lost electricity anytime more than two sparrows sat on the electric wire. You learned to live on shelf-stable puddings. You bought miner’s lamps in lavender and pink. You stockpiled back issues of Real Simple to read while eating granola bars for dinner. You know how to handle the suburban apocalypse without smearing your lipstick.
Everyone has been jiggling their handle on life simultaneously, and it has broken off. It is not eligible for return on Amazon. The cat howls in experimental Zydeco to get out of the bathroom.
The sun is yellow, and the screen is green. The pale rider sends out a group text: “Decided to go to Walmart. Sorry for change of plans.”
Your endocrinologist emails you. “We dodged an atomic bomb tonight.”
Your pastor emails the full flock. “Praise the Lord for mercy!”
You walk to 7-Eleven and eat an entire sleeve of Hostess Sno Balls on the way home. You realize you don’t particularly like coconut anymore.
has been the Development Director at Tabby’s Place: a Cat Sanctuary for sixteen years. She graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary and Vassar College. Her work appears in Cagibi, Fathom Magazine, Hawaii Pacific Review, Porridge, and The Razor, among others. She is a 2023 Best Spiritual Literature nominee. Angie has lived with Type 1 diabetes for 33 years and laughs with her poet mother every morning.
