He remembered something he read in a book, “each year about nine thousand people die from tornado related activity”. Jeff was sure that he did not want to be one of them.

He thought there was something wrong when he saw debris falling from the sky. He remembered that before he went to bed, the sky was a sickly greenish or greenish black color. Then there was a strange short burst of hail. The clouds were moving unusually quickly as well… It was only now that he realized that these were all signs of a tornado forming. He should have seen it coming. His home area was also known as “tornado valley”…

But this was no time to be thinking of what clues he had missed. He had to get himself and his mother out of the house as quickly as possible.  He remembered a technique to keep calm. It was called alpha state. He quickly recited the steps in his head

Close your eyes

Think of a place you feel at ease

Breathe in deeply

Again

Breathe in and as you breathe out find your eyes opening

It always worked. He described these steps to his mum. It was difficult as there was a raging tornado about five kilometers away from their house and would be here any minute. His mum was opening her eyes when he realized that if he and his mum tried to run away from the tornado, it would catch up with them fast. His mum decided to leave the house and head for the city. He tried to explain to his mum that she could not move faster than the tornado but she wouldn’t listen. She drove off and he ran off and went down into the cellar. As he sat there, the thought that he just left his mum to be killed by the tornado was constantly eating away at him. He was tempted to go out and try and save her and eventually he left his hiding place and went out to look for her.  He ran wildly out the front door where he would go and try and persuade his mother to just follow him into the cellar which was the safest place to be during a tornado. The tornado would toss the car like a toy. But by the time he got up to the top, his mum was gone…