Graphic Essay: Tornado
Storyboard Text
- I waited in the bathroom during a tornado warning with my mother and brother.
- Let's pray so God can take this weather away.
- Okay.
- I was the oldest, darkest. Standing by the side of my mother.
- If that bolt struck me would I turn into Static Shock?
- My perfect boy!
- She stood above me consoling the lighter version of us all. The jewel. The cream of the crop.
- Where do they go?
- I always thought tornadoes were terrifying, swallowing people up and taking them far away, never to be seen again.
- The endearing strain of our socioeconomic status that I could feel deep in my skin.
- It would have been nice to have a tornado shelter, but we only had a bathroom.
- I wanted to cry and shout, but my brother took that activity.
- Hey! Hey! That is mine now. Got it!
- For moments, I could feel a storm god lifting the edges of our domain.
- Foolish mortals! Muahahaha!
- The house rattled and the wind whirled into gray and black matter.
- And there I was! Hand picked by the mother of tornadoes, lifted from my home. Traveling through dimensions.
- WOAH!
- In one, I was the queer black boy-dorothy. Let's say Doro. Punted from this reality to another dimension over the rainbow.
- What happened to Dorothy?
- He SHOULD have went to THE WIZ DIMENSION!
- She quit. They need people to fill their diversity quota.
- I was to meet my crew and defeat an evil force.
- Back to life, back to reality!
- But she took me back...
- IT CAN TALK?
- And I was still standing there, tucked by my mother's thigh.
- The wind howled and spat and I remembered the vivid dream of klansmen outside with burning torches.
- I grabbed my mother tight and stood as still as air. We bowed and prayed.
- And that is the power of prayer.
- In moments prayer became our ask, our want in life. That automatic answer to our prayers gave us reassurance that there is someone listening, something good scheming above those vexed clouds that see us.
- I traveled again through the mother of Tornadoes and found myself growing familiar to her. She was my travel guide. My second home.
- She was rough and edgy, confusing and loud but she was mine and I cherish her. I traveled to a destination, a dimensioni never knew I had the guts to travel.
- Although my nature is rough, you will find that we have much in common.
- I knew my role was not confined nor limited.
- My mother was right about God. She was always right. My brother always special... but me...
- I always knew my worth extended beyond or between, intergalactically.
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