What is happening?
I have to stop these warm ocean waters and low wind shear, but I can’t, and now I feel myself exploding in strength and size. Whoa! Whoa! I can barely even make it out of my eyewall without being knocked around by my 100+ mph winds, but I’ve circled it a few times today, and so far, I’m remaining over the ocean. Why are these Hurricane Hunters so brave? They’re bracing my strength with me.
I can’t monitor my impact on humans by hiding in my eye, so I leave it and push through my eyewall again, examining the ocean below. It looks so different compared to the sea in my eye: enormous waves that can easily take out a tanker or that cruise ship, whereas there are almost no waves in my eye—only sunshine and peace. Not here, though.
My eyewall slams into me—I can’t see anything—but I keep going and eventually find myself on the other side of the tall, spinning clouds, marking the start of my tropical storm-force winds area, now stretching a few hundred miles.
I have a long journey ahead, but I need to learn the truth about humans. I shouldn’t have reacted that way to the sailor, but I did, and now I’m a Category 5 storm. It shows just how powerful grief and nature can be. I can’t be grieving that sailor, though. I hate humans, but at the same time, maybe there is just as much good in the world as there is evil. I think about this while I travel through my spiral like an arrow.
A few hours pass, and then I see a cove and a stretch of rocky islands through my wind, rain, and lightning—the Virgin Islands. As I get closer, I recognize St. Thomas’s hilly landscape and tightly clustered buildings, most of them white with red roofs. A few shingles fly off in the wind, and a tree crashes into a pool on my right.
For a second, I’m proud of myself, but then I remember the sailor and notice something on a few of St. Thomas’s roofs—solar panels, new ways to protect the environment from greenhouse gases. The humans put them there, the humans.
Not again! Not again! Not again! Humans don’t deserve mercy.
Give them a chance, Erin, screams my inner voice.
That sailor was only twenty-five, I return.
Give them a chance.
I can’t be tamed!
Yet, I back away and carefully watch St. Thomas to ensure the humans are safe in their homes. There are a few stragglers, but for the most part, the town is empty as I rage and grow stronger, though I never surpass tropical storm-force winds here.
Mother Nature is trying to tell me something, and I believe it’s that there is just as much good in the world as there is evil.
Still... I can’t be tamed. I’m an Elemental Spirit, a hurricane, but not Helene.
I am just me.
ns216.73.216.174da2
and then Add to home screen.