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The Storm That Made Us
It was a cold and terrifying wind that darted past our window as I knew and held on to
the anxious wait for wild that was pulling at my feet to just go outside already. The morning awaited something adventurous. Something I had planned for some time now. Ever since I was a young boy I’ve always had a great love for the outdoors and felt as if it spoke to me. I can be “stubborn” as everyone tells me, but love being alone and when I’m in a mood, nature is where I go. Growing up my parents always had a love for adventure. They would take on bigger and more risky challenges each week. I remember looking up to my father because he was always a hard- working man. He would look down at me and say “Phil, don’t ever let anyone tell you you’re not a man. Just go out there to the wild and become the wolf inside ya.” I never knew what he meant until now. I know if I can survive out there, I can survive anywhere and be that
man. I know more than the world thinks I do. Not just about why the leaves change color like they do andwhy certain animals hibernate in the winter. I know that courage needs to be fought for and earned. Like a trophy or a car you’ve saved up for so long with every dollar you’ve worked for on your own. I couldn’t
wait to take on the biggest storm comin’. My brother feared the wild like I feared weakness and giving up was not an option. He insisted on following along ‘cause he knew my ole stubborn ass wouldn’t balk. Especially after watching my parents get mauled by a bear when I was only eight years old. They lived until they couldn’t and wouldn’t stop even the most difficult of adventures. They lived for the wild until the wild took their lives. I’m going to be brave just like my father, Papa Phil. I went to sleep on the floor by the
window, in case those damn raccoon tried to break in again. Rifle by my side for protection, even in our own home. Little shabby cabin in Hellford Hills, not too far from the bluest riverside. I slept like a child on Christmas Eve, impatiently waiting for the jolly man in a red and white suit. Except my jolly man was the grim wild and brewing storm on the cold mountains of Hellford. Morning broke with freezing temperatures and as it hit my green eyes of emeralds and jungle night, watery
tears of wind ran down my face like a runner in a marathon. We had our morning coffee right before we walked out the door. Black coffee, just like Papa Phil used to scarf down every morning and evening before his overnight hikes. Backpack on and buffalo rifle to my side. One shot right between a bear’s eyes and he’s dead like old hidden grass. I wondered why my father had only brought knives with him on his journey with my mother.. I had the gun I needed to protect my younger brother Cole and I. The storm was already starting as the skies started growing dim and tired. The dark gray sky and haunted winds were already following us like that of a shadow of a man with guilt and regret. We walked slowly, our husky boots cracking each stick like an impatient kid with a glow stick. It kept getting colder and colder as the skies got darker and darker. This storm was doing its very best to shut down our adventure, but we knew what we were in for before we put those tough and eager hiking faces on. Cole kept mumbling words behind me and as I blocked out the hard whistling wind in my ears, I could hear him saying with a shake in his voice “ The storm, ah um…she shouldn’t stick around for too long.. I think.” Cole was dead wrong and I knew this, but I also knew he was afraid and had a habit of finding the positive in every bad situation.. even when it was damn near impossible to do so. In this case, the grass was not greener on the other side. Poor Cole...always had hope..Men can’t always have hope. They need to know some things are to be fought and won. Animals
and insects weren’t even visible. The sound of nothing but hard wind and crackling skies. The sight of only smoke as we breathed and our footprints in the snow as we made our mark. As we looked back we noticed that the footprints were not only ours. And there goes Cole with his optimism in such a shivering
tone with his purple and cracked lips from the heartless storm . “Maybe others are here as well.” I knew his assumptions were always something one could only hope for. But unrealistic for sure. I knew exactly what followed and it was not that of man… and then I saw it. Shadowing a big tree with its small eyes, glowing like little stars, only round. It stared right through me. Like it knew who I was. Cole was frozen like a statue, scared. He stayed silent because he was afraid of what might happen if he made any little noise. Heart beating hard like a drum, fast like a fox.I knew the bear could sense how frightened I was but the last thing I wanted was for Cole to notice. I was the big brother and couldn’t show any sign of weakness or he’d think I was a damn coward. My hands shaking as I reached for my buffalo rifle on my
side, ready to shoot this fool between his lookers. I thought to myself, “ This can’t be the same bear that killed my mother and father, can it?.. I mean that was so long ago…” Even if it weren’t the same bear, this
bear still had killing on his agenda. Black like midnight, he slowly made his way to the tree we tried our very best to hide behind, even though it was obvious to the bear that we were there. Our boots giving off a very uninviting smell, wet from the snow and soggy like soaked sand. The bear came close enough for me to pull the trigger without a miss. As his eyes met mine, I got a flashback of that day where my parents took me along with them and that scared little boy that hid behind bushes only to watch that bear destroy
everything he loved. Maybe that’s why I’m so stubborn. Maybe I’m just mad at the world for the things that went wrong. At this point, and I admit, as tears were streaming down my face, rage colored my body like an angry, underpaid artist who never gets a sell. Then, I pulled it. I shot him right in the middle of his
beady, “live-to-kill” eyes. He fell to the ground. Cole looked at me smiling and said “I knew you could do it Phil.” I knew I could too and felt like a hero to my brother.
I made sure the bear wasn’t breathing and carried on. I threw my rifle back around to my side, feeling like I earned the right to an award for killing such a beast. My courage and strength were shown, but we had bigger problems now. We had nothing left to eat or drink and we were stuck in this terrible storm.
It had only been one cold night and we were so hungry. I guess I didn’t realize how hard it would be to survive out here. We were two grown men. Athletic and strong. We needed food. Needed something to keep us awake as we were growing exhausted. Luckily, we had tents in our backpacks so we decided to pick a
resting place and pitch a tent. It was too cold and windy and the wet snow was slowly pulling the legs of the tent. Then I thought of something. “What if we built an igloo in the snow and tried to make fire to keep us
warm just for tonight?”… Cole thought this sounded like a great idea as well. We took big clumps of powder white snow and built the igloo as quick as we could. Took a good two hours for two men to build a big enough home out of snow for the night. Surprisingly enough it felt warmer in the igloo, though we
should’ve bundled up better.Each of us wore a thin jacket, a hat and gloves. Maybe I was wrong.
Maybe I didn’t know as much about surviving in the wild as I thought I did. If I had known a lot, I would know the simple logic of bundling up in the cold. Wearing Layers of clothing like an intelligent person would do… especially in such a deadly snowstorm. The wind grew fierce and unkind. Our
hats kept flying off our heads and our ears were growing red and numb. We sat next to each other to try and snuggle up to keep the warmth going. We tried to start a fire with sticks and it just wasn’t working out.
We just sat there hoping the storm would soon pass. We talked for hours. The cold and the sound of the storm keeping us awake. We talked about the summers we had as kids when we would stay out all day trying to build a time machine we swore we’d finish one day. We talked about the nights we would lay there
listening to grasshoppers and looking out at the stars. We talked about how excited I was to take this dangerous adventure knowing of what could happen, but still insisted on taking it anyway. Just for proof. Just to earn courage and prove I really was a man and to find the wolf inside me, just like my father told me
to. But after Cole looked at me with those bright baby blues filled with honesty and said, “Phil, there ain’t nothin’ ya could ever do to make me think you weren’t tough enough”, I felt like I could do anything and like I was born the man I was trying so hard to become. Cole always looked up to me after all. I guess I
just tried so hard to be this guy who should always be the hero in the end, when really I was already someone’s hero. The wolf inside me that my father was telling me to find was really just me. I had to find myself and the true man within me. The man who didn’t have to fight so hard for something he already
had. The next morning, we were so exhausted. Tired from getting about one decent hour of sleep the night before. We felt like zombies, but we had to keep moving. We slowly drug our feet, now walking and both stopped and looked at each other. “Let’s walk back home, Phil”, Cole said confidently and I strongly agreed with this now. We turned around and started following our footprints in the snow back to where we came from. Home. And as the sky was still gray and gloomy from the storm, fog filled the air.
We could barely see where we were going. Wind threw itself at our face and trees blew like they were soon going to fall, and the fog made our sight feel useless. We pushed through the fog and wind only to find
ourselves going in the wrong direction, which made us try another way. This storm felt like it was trying to take us down to the ground. We could barely see any prints in the snow now so we had to work together
to try and remember the way. Eventually we got closer and we only knew this because of the dead bear lying there buried in snow with nothing but his big feet sticking out. Who knew hope actually existed? That is until we heard a medium growl coming from the left. Suddenly, we could see something slowly moving toward us through the fog. I couldn’t believe what we saw next.. another face of danger. A wolf walking our way just looking for trouble. Cole looked over at me and you could see the fear in his eyes as he so softly
whispered, “Phil, that ain’t just some big ole dog Phil.. it’s a.. a wolf.. and it has hunger written all over it.’’ And here I was..feeling like a fool. I’ve been trying so hard to impress.. to protect my own flesh and blood
and I didn’t notice that ain’t nobody been there to protect me. I was scared too. I didn’t want either of us to get eaten alive. I didn’t want either of us to be here in this moment..right now. Cole felt just the same as
I did. He stood there shaking, one foot on top of the other, bag hanging off his back, unknown to where he should even put his hands. He wasn’t sane. And as much as we both wished this were some sort of bad
dream or story, this big bad wolf wasn’t going anywhere unless we made him. As I stood there thinking of what I could do now that I was out of bullets, this wolf stood across from me, only about 10 feet away. Cole made a move before I even did. While the wolf was busy staring at me, Cole threw a huge stick far
behind his back; in the opposite direction. The wolf turned and ran towards the direction where the stick was thrown and we both looked at each other, nodded and ran. Ran to the closest hideaway, which was a
dark tunnel close by. I used to play hide n seek with my brother here. Back when we played with toy soldiers and stole my mother’s matches off the table. Lit paper and pretended to smoke it like some silly ole boys. We’d play hide n seek and I’d always find my brother outside of the cave. Hiding behind bushes
because he was too much of a coward to even step a foot into that dark place. I hid in it a few times as a boy when the rain would fall hard. Finding this dark cave meant that we had to be close to home. This was a good sign. Even had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t just dreaming. We sat there in that cave all night, using our flashlights for light and sleeping up against the hard walls of the cave. Daylight came the next morning and we woke to find no sign of the wolf or anything else lurking about. We left the tunnel cautiously and made our way toward home. The closer we got to home, the happier we became. My mind started teasing me with unrealistic scents. I could smell mama’s peach muffins fresh out the oven and the rum raisin bread she would make for my father. I could even smell the cigarettes she smoked. I looked at
Cole as he looked at me, smiled and said “ it feels so good to be back home, don’t it Phil?’’ And then all those special scents disappeared. I guess I forgot that when we came back home our parent’s wouldn’t be there anymore like we wanted them to be. This wasn’t Cole and I coming back from our time machine building and our parent’s welcoming us back with big warm smiles and dinner on the table. This was
different. This was coming home to silence and emptiness. This was realizing that man will always be man, even if he’s afraid to face certain challenges. And the hardship we faced couldn’t be told to no one or no
other than in a short story…
© All Rights Reserved
the anxious wait for wild that was pulling at my feet to just go outside already. The morning awaited something adventurous. Something I had planned for some time now. Ever since I was a young boy I’ve always had a great love for the outdoors and felt as if it spoke to me. I can be “stubborn” as everyone tells me, but love being alone and when I’m in a mood, nature is where I go. Growing up my parents always had a love for adventure. They would take on bigger and more risky challenges each week. I remember looking up to my father because he was always a hard- working man. He would look down at me and say “Phil, don’t ever let anyone tell you you’re not a man. Just go out there to the wild and become the wolf inside ya.” I never knew what he meant until now. I know if I can survive out there, I can survive anywhere and be that
man. I know more than the world thinks I do. Not just about why the leaves change color like they do andwhy certain animals hibernate in the winter. I know that courage needs to be fought for and earned. Like a trophy or a car you’ve saved up for so long with every dollar you’ve worked for on your own. I couldn’t
wait to take on the biggest storm comin’. My brother feared the wild like I feared weakness and giving up was not an option. He insisted on following along ‘cause he knew my ole stubborn ass wouldn’t balk. Especially after watching my parents get mauled by a bear when I was only eight years old. They lived until they couldn’t and wouldn’t stop even the most difficult of adventures. They lived for the wild until the wild took their lives. I’m going to be brave just like my father, Papa Phil. I went to sleep on the floor by the
window, in case those damn raccoon tried to break in again. Rifle by my side for protection, even in our own home. Little shabby cabin in Hellford Hills, not too far from the bluest riverside. I slept like a child on Christmas Eve, impatiently waiting for the jolly man in a red and white suit. Except my jolly man was the grim wild and brewing storm on the cold mountains of Hellford. Morning broke with freezing temperatures and as it hit my green eyes of emeralds and jungle night, watery
tears of wind ran down my face like a runner in a marathon. We had our morning coffee right before we walked out the door. Black coffee, just like Papa Phil used to scarf down every morning and evening before his overnight hikes. Backpack on and buffalo rifle to my side. One shot right between a bear’s eyes and he’s dead like old hidden grass. I wondered why my father had only brought knives with him on his journey with my mother.. I had the gun I needed to protect my younger brother Cole and I. The storm was already starting as the skies started growing dim and tired. The dark gray sky and haunted winds were already following us like that of a shadow of a man with guilt and regret. We walked slowly, our husky boots cracking each stick like an impatient kid with a glow stick. It kept getting colder and colder as the skies got darker and darker. This storm was doing its very best to shut down our adventure, but we knew what we were in for before we put those tough and eager hiking faces on. Cole kept mumbling words behind me and as I blocked out the hard whistling wind in my ears, I could hear him saying with a shake in his voice “ The storm, ah um…she shouldn’t stick around for too long.. I think.” Cole was dead wrong and I knew this, but I also knew he was afraid and had a habit of finding the positive in every bad situation.. even when it was damn near impossible to do so. In this case, the grass was not greener on the other side. Poor Cole...always had hope..Men can’t always have hope. They need to know some things are to be fought and won. Animals
and insects weren’t even visible. The sound of nothing but hard wind and crackling skies. The sight of only smoke as we breathed and our footprints in the snow as we made our mark. As we looked back we noticed that the footprints were not only ours. And there goes Cole with his optimism in such a shivering
tone with his purple and cracked lips from the heartless storm . “Maybe others are here as well.” I knew his assumptions were always something one could only hope for. But unrealistic for sure. I knew exactly what followed and it was not that of man… and then I saw it. Shadowing a big tree with its small eyes, glowing like little stars, only round. It stared right through me. Like it knew who I was. Cole was frozen like a statue, scared. He stayed silent because he was afraid of what might happen if he made any little noise. Heart beating hard like a drum, fast like a fox.I knew the bear could sense how frightened I was but the last thing I wanted was for Cole to notice. I was the big brother and couldn’t show any sign of weakness or he’d think I was a damn coward. My hands shaking as I reached for my buffalo rifle on my
side, ready to shoot this fool between his lookers. I thought to myself, “ This can’t be the same bear that killed my mother and father, can it?.. I mean that was so long ago…” Even if it weren’t the same bear, this
bear still had killing on his agenda. Black like midnight, he slowly made his way to the tree we tried our very best to hide behind, even though it was obvious to the bear that we were there. Our boots giving off a very uninviting smell, wet from the snow and soggy like soaked sand. The bear came close enough for me to pull the trigger without a miss. As his eyes met mine, I got a flashback of that day where my parents took me along with them and that scared little boy that hid behind bushes only to watch that bear destroy
everything he loved. Maybe that’s why I’m so stubborn. Maybe I’m just mad at the world for the things that went wrong. At this point, and I admit, as tears were streaming down my face, rage colored my body like an angry, underpaid artist who never gets a sell. Then, I pulled it. I shot him right in the middle of his
beady, “live-to-kill” eyes. He fell to the ground. Cole looked at me smiling and said “I knew you could do it Phil.” I knew I could too and felt like a hero to my brother.
I made sure the bear wasn’t breathing and carried on. I threw my rifle back around to my side, feeling like I earned the right to an award for killing such a beast. My courage and strength were shown, but we had bigger problems now. We had nothing left to eat or drink and we were stuck in this terrible storm.
It had only been one cold night and we were so hungry. I guess I didn’t realize how hard it would be to survive out here. We were two grown men. Athletic and strong. We needed food. Needed something to keep us awake as we were growing exhausted. Luckily, we had tents in our backpacks so we decided to pick a
resting place and pitch a tent. It was too cold and windy and the wet snow was slowly pulling the legs of the tent. Then I thought of something. “What if we built an igloo in the snow and tried to make fire to keep us
warm just for tonight?”… Cole thought this sounded like a great idea as well. We took big clumps of powder white snow and built the igloo as quick as we could. Took a good two hours for two men to build a big enough home out of snow for the night. Surprisingly enough it felt warmer in the igloo, though we
should’ve bundled up better.Each of us wore a thin jacket, a hat and gloves. Maybe I was wrong.
Maybe I didn’t know as much about surviving in the wild as I thought I did. If I had known a lot, I would know the simple logic of bundling up in the cold. Wearing Layers of clothing like an intelligent person would do… especially in such a deadly snowstorm. The wind grew fierce and unkind. Our
hats kept flying off our heads and our ears were growing red and numb. We sat next to each other to try and snuggle up to keep the warmth going. We tried to start a fire with sticks and it just wasn’t working out.
We just sat there hoping the storm would soon pass. We talked for hours. The cold and the sound of the storm keeping us awake. We talked about the summers we had as kids when we would stay out all day trying to build a time machine we swore we’d finish one day. We talked about the nights we would lay there
listening to grasshoppers and looking out at the stars. We talked about how excited I was to take this dangerous adventure knowing of what could happen, but still insisted on taking it anyway. Just for proof. Just to earn courage and prove I really was a man and to find the wolf inside me, just like my father told me
to. But after Cole looked at me with those bright baby blues filled with honesty and said, “Phil, there ain’t nothin’ ya could ever do to make me think you weren’t tough enough”, I felt like I could do anything and like I was born the man I was trying so hard to become. Cole always looked up to me after all. I guess I
just tried so hard to be this guy who should always be the hero in the end, when really I was already someone’s hero. The wolf inside me that my father was telling me to find was really just me. I had to find myself and the true man within me. The man who didn’t have to fight so hard for something he already
had. The next morning, we were so exhausted. Tired from getting about one decent hour of sleep the night before. We felt like zombies, but we had to keep moving. We slowly drug our feet, now walking and both stopped and looked at each other. “Let’s walk back home, Phil”, Cole said confidently and I strongly agreed with this now. We turned around and started following our footprints in the snow back to where we came from. Home. And as the sky was still gray and gloomy from the storm, fog filled the air.
We could barely see where we were going. Wind threw itself at our face and trees blew like they were soon going to fall, and the fog made our sight feel useless. We pushed through the fog and wind only to find
ourselves going in the wrong direction, which made us try another way. This storm felt like it was trying to take us down to the ground. We could barely see any prints in the snow now so we had to work together
to try and remember the way. Eventually we got closer and we only knew this because of the dead bear lying there buried in snow with nothing but his big feet sticking out. Who knew hope actually existed? That is until we heard a medium growl coming from the left. Suddenly, we could see something slowly moving toward us through the fog. I couldn’t believe what we saw next.. another face of danger. A wolf walking our way just looking for trouble. Cole looked over at me and you could see the fear in his eyes as he so softly
whispered, “Phil, that ain’t just some big ole dog Phil.. it’s a.. a wolf.. and it has hunger written all over it.’’ And here I was..feeling like a fool. I’ve been trying so hard to impress.. to protect my own flesh and blood
and I didn’t notice that ain’t nobody been there to protect me. I was scared too. I didn’t want either of us to get eaten alive. I didn’t want either of us to be here in this moment..right now. Cole felt just the same as
I did. He stood there shaking, one foot on top of the other, bag hanging off his back, unknown to where he should even put his hands. He wasn’t sane. And as much as we both wished this were some sort of bad
dream or story, this big bad wolf wasn’t going anywhere unless we made him. As I stood there thinking of what I could do now that I was out of bullets, this wolf stood across from me, only about 10 feet away. Cole made a move before I even did. While the wolf was busy staring at me, Cole threw a huge stick far
behind his back; in the opposite direction. The wolf turned and ran towards the direction where the stick was thrown and we both looked at each other, nodded and ran. Ran to the closest hideaway, which was a
dark tunnel close by. I used to play hide n seek with my brother here. Back when we played with toy soldiers and stole my mother’s matches off the table. Lit paper and pretended to smoke it like some silly ole boys. We’d play hide n seek and I’d always find my brother outside of the cave. Hiding behind bushes
because he was too much of a coward to even step a foot into that dark place. I hid in it a few times as a boy when the rain would fall hard. Finding this dark cave meant that we had to be close to home. This was a good sign. Even had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t just dreaming. We sat there in that cave all night, using our flashlights for light and sleeping up against the hard walls of the cave. Daylight came the next morning and we woke to find no sign of the wolf or anything else lurking about. We left the tunnel cautiously and made our way toward home. The closer we got to home, the happier we became. My mind started teasing me with unrealistic scents. I could smell mama’s peach muffins fresh out the oven and the rum raisin bread she would make for my father. I could even smell the cigarettes she smoked. I looked at
Cole as he looked at me, smiled and said “ it feels so good to be back home, don’t it Phil?’’ And then all those special scents disappeared. I guess I forgot that when we came back home our parent’s wouldn’t be there anymore like we wanted them to be. This wasn’t Cole and I coming back from our time machine building and our parent’s welcoming us back with big warm smiles and dinner on the table. This was
different. This was coming home to silence and emptiness. This was realizing that man will always be man, even if he’s afraid to face certain challenges. And the hardship we faced couldn’t be told to no one or no
other than in a short story…
© All Rights Reserved
