On Friday it’s slightly windy as I walk to work, and the rain is oddly violent considering there’s so little of it. The weather doesn’t seem unusual though, or even particularly bad. It’s February and torrential rain and howling wind is the norm in most months here. And so the assumption is that the storm is finding its feet elsewhere.

One of our co-workers doesn’t come in because of it and we think it must be bad where he is. There’s the occasional pondering of whether we will be able to get home again at the end of the day, but the tone is more joking than serious.

Intermittently throughout the day one of us looks out of the window and says: the lamp-post is swaying slightly again.

And then someone on their phone finds a picture.

Oh fuck. Definitely worse elsewhere then. A deep pit in our stomach as we stare at the phone. The chunk ripped out of the large dome of the arena.

Was anyone hurt?

*

I leave work, stepping outside tentatively. The sky is blue. The wind a mere whisper. And I think maybe it missed us almost entirely. And then I see the branches littering the ground.

The path I walk is lined with trees and I keep a wary eye out for if any might fall. I come across a wall, broken down, bricks strewn across the pavement.

As I near my road I come to a police line. I ask the officer if I can cross as I’m fairly nearby. She asks me to explain where and I do so.

She shakes her head, pointing at a tall, multi-story building. The scaffolding is coming down. Debris is flying everywhere.

*

I walk away, turning to go the long way around. I get closer from the other direction, but find another police line: from another point of damage. I don’t need to ask this time- I can see it right in front of me- the building yawning across the street.

I turn away again, walking to come at it from yet another direction. Trepidation sits unsettled in my bones as I consider all the damage near where I live. I wonder if my home is okay. I wonder if my neighbours are okay.

There’s no police line on my third try but there’s too much on the pavement to walk on it. I walk on the road instead.

I reach my home. It’s fine, my neighbours homes are also fine. I give a sigh of relief.

*

At times I think what really matters is different to us all. We all have different drives, passions, loves, the things we know- down to our marrow- that we live for. But then comes a reminder like this, and I think: we are all just humans, wanting somewhere safe and secure, to live and love and be.

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