Manuelito & Poseidon

Even as thunder boomed mighty overhead and power lines on San Domingo Avenue outside faltered and succumbed to the tempest the Ortegas stood breathless in the family room, gaze transfixed upon the television screen like so many deer in the headlights of a truck. Finally a flash from without, and a snap extinguished all light within the household. Ten seconds passed without a sound. Then the father uttered something and the family members scattered, each returning a moment later bearing possessions of infinite value. Within a minute, all had crammed into the station wagon, evacuation route ingrained within their minds like a seed of hope. All but one. Manuelito had been lost. The mother howled and flied back into the house, tears streaming down her face hard as the rain. She reached the back porch, and to her eternal shock found Manuelito standing alone on the beach like a mannequin eyes locked upon the Cyclops-eye of the storm. The mother cried out through anguished sobs in vain, for the howling drone of the wind overpowered all and when Manuelito turned around to face all that he loved he did so with all the finality of a grown man resolved upon his course of action. The mother abruptly ceased her crying, and her countenance briefly matched that of her son as she, too, turned her gaze upon the jewel center of the storm and was hypnotized by the awesome power of the divine. At length she regained self-consciousness, and her eyes darted back to that segment of the beach where her son had been standing but his figure, like a stream of sand on the dunes of time, had been replaced by nothingness, the allure of the unknown and Poseidon’s call of wild fury too strong to resist.