The tornado.

Midnight. March 3. 2020.

The human brain has another gear that it goes into when it learns it is in danger. Time slows down, or the brain speeds up, and seconds feel like entire lifetimes.

For a moment, just one single moment that somehow also felt like an infinite forever, I stared down the Universe itself.

It was just past midnight and I was dead asleep. My two kittens were curled up next to me. Gatsby, named for his extroversion and the tuxedo he wears, was asleep at my feet. Rosie, the tiny tabby, curled up on my chest. All three of us were deep in a REM cycle.

I was dreaming, as I often do, of trains. They are a background noise that blends into both my real life and my dreams, I assume because of the constant noise they supply in my life. Trains, with their schedules and importance, make excellent sources for anxiety dreams.

I am late for the last MARC train of the night that would take me home to Baltimore. I have no money in my bank account to pay for a hotel room or a taxi, and I am desperate to make the train home. I’m sprinting through the grand white marble halls of Union Station in DC, a place that I have been hundreds of times and know well. Yet, somehow, I can’t find where I’m supposed to go. There is no track list, and all the trains seem to be leaving at the same time. I have to find my…