Little six year old Veronica was bracing herself for the storm that was about to hit. That is how she thought of the fights that her parents had, they were like human storms. The winds of anger would start to blow. The shouting was like the rolling thunder. Her father’s hand striking her mother’s skin sounded like the crackle of lightning to her young ears. Human storms, she had lived through enough to know this one was going to be really ugly.

Her mother had thrown all of her father’s clothes out into the front yard this afternoon.  He had not come home for two nights. Veronica didn’t understand what her mother meant when she had said, “Your little tramp can wash and iron the damn things!”.  It didn’t make any sense, especially since her father wasn’t there to hear her say it as she threw the last batch out. All little Veronica knew was that when her father did come home there would be another storm and it would be a bad one. She wondered why her mother did things like this to start the winds blowing.

Veronica saw her father’s car pull up and her little body trembled. She knew the wind would start, the thunder would be deafening, and the bolts of lightning would come with a fury.  She took her little brother by the hand and led him into her bedroom, shutting the door behind her.  They sat in the middle of the floor while Veronica cradled her brother in her arms. She gently rocked him and started to sing, hoping to drown out the raging storm in the other room.

The thunderous shouting started and a single clap of lightning sounded.  It didn’t sound right, that wasn’t skin against skin.  Veronica’s little head snapped towards the door as she realized the sound had been her father’s gun firing.  “No! No! Oh No!” her little voice screamed as she started for the door.  She stopped as she heard the second shot ring out and she knew the storm was over. Really over this time, there would be no more human storms from her parents…

© 2010, Bev Owens. All rights reserved.

When the shoulders of the other kids fell in disappointment over the report assignment, I was grinning from ear to ear and couldn't wait to get started. I've always loved doing research on topics and then writing about what I've found. My newest endeavors are blogging and writing fiction.

Bev Owens

View all posts by Bev Owens
s website

Tags: abuse, Fiction, human storms, short story

This entry was posted on July 12, 2010 at 12:20 am and is filed under Bev, Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.