Very Short Story - The Eye of the Storm

As ever, this was a challenge piece written long ago for the prompt "storm".  It seems to have relevance at the moment, though to be fair these days the fashion is more to brazen it out than take one's medicine...

The Eye of the Storm

All around his home, the storm was raging.

He could feel the windows rattle with the sheer force of its power, the tumultuous thunderous noise without deafening even through the glazing. He felt a man under siege, lost in the vast maelstrom from which he knew there could be no escape, flashes of vicious, vindictive light arching constantly towards him, towards his family and their last refuge. The force of it was shaking their very foundations.

  They were trapped.

  And only he could save them.

  He glanced over his shoulder as he swallowed hard, turning away from the window and moving slowly, relentlessly towards the door with the gait of a man condemned. He saw his wife’s tight lips and sallow face, his son’s cross-armed defiance in the face of this assault, his daughter’s tear-stained and terrified face. They all knew that the moment he stepped into the arms of the storm, he would be torn to pieces.

  But what choice did he have?

  With trembling fingers, he reached out and opened the door.

  The power of it struck him full face like a slap across the jaw, the noise stealing his hearing, the blinding light snatching his sight, the sheer energy of the monstrosity before him almost overwhelming. It took all the strength he had to step down into the face of it and at once the fury of the storm front surged towards him, camera light-bulbs flashing, microphones thrust out as a cacophony of voices screamed for him and all but burst his eardrums.

  “Minister! Minster! What do you have to say in regards to these allegations?”

  He sighed deeply, extending his hands in a probably futile gesture for calm.

  “If you will quiet down!” he declared. “I’m prepared to make a statement…”

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