An Unexpected Fatal Wind

It was five-thirty in the morning, and I was determined to get some kind of breakfast, and coffee before I started on another twelve hour day of inspecting the devastation left by hurricane Katrina. It was beginning to get to me. The last couple of weeks were a blur. There were just too many people expecting me to survey their destroyed homes, and tell them everything was going to be alright. I push paper, piles and piles of paper required to process insurance claims.

In Gulfport, MS, there was little of nothing to survey. I’d stand in front of repeated piles of rubble, take a few pictures, fill out another set of forms, and look into the faces of people who had just lost their homes, and ask for their signature on various forms to start their insurance claim process.

Late last night I saw an announcement that the Blow Fly Inn would be serving coffee, fried pies, and anything else they could manage to throw together, which was certainly not their forty year traditional fare. I’d been to the Blow Fly Inn dozens of times, now I wondered if it was possible that this long established restaurant had managed to survive unscathed through Katrina. When I was told I’d be in Gulfport, Mississippi adjusting insurance claims I was also told to bring everything I needed, especially food, and water. I knew it was going to be a difficult situation when the company gave me a rather nice camper trailer to live in while processing claims. I was not prepared for the isolation.

Too many of the Gulf Coast businesses did not have electricity, or running water and most would not be open for business for months. Public restroom facilities were few and far between.

The thought of having any kind of breakfast and coffee among other people, who expected little or nothing from me, was strangely exciting. As I approached the Blow Fly Inn I could see that I was going to be among good company. The exterior of the restaurant looked a little rough with piles of tree branches stacked around the parking lot. The Blow Fly Inn was using its large mobile catering trailer to prepare what food there was to serve so many homeless patrons, and others, like myself, who were here to work.

There is always a constant salty breeze blowing off the gulf. Just as I opened the restaurant’s door to enter the main dinning room, the light salty breeze turned into a healthy gust of wind. The wind swirled through the parking lot like a miniature tornado, and as the wind swirled it created a sort of vacuum effect inside the restaurant. Napkins and other assorted paper began to fly around the room and some out the door as I was trying to enter. The door had barely closed, when one woman leaped from her seat, and made a hurried attempt to catch the papers that had just been sucked through the door, and out into the parking lot.

As I found a table and was about to take a seat, I noticed the woman was now on her hands and knees, over a storm drain in the parking lot, trying desperately to reach down between the metal grates of the storm drain. Within seconds it was obvious her efforts to retrieve whatever she was after were fruitless. Her shoulders dropped noticeably, and her whole body seemed to sag with a kind of hopelessness. I felt a sudden nagging sense of guilt.

I watched as she walked back to the restaurant door, opened it, and as she passed my table, her eyes met mine, and she said, “You’ve just killed me.”

Stunned by her words, and the ominous tone of her voice, I sat for what felt like an eternity speechless.

I managed a weak and stuttering reply, “Wh, wha, what?”

I noticed tears welling up in her eyes. She was an attractive woman, but distraught.

“I’m sorry, but it can’t be as bad as all that?” After having witnessed so much trauma over the pass few weeks, I was exhausted. My own growing sense of uselessness was beginning to irritate me. “I don’t understand, how could the lost of one little piece of paper kill you?”

“You’re right, you don’t understand. I’m sick, very sick. That little piece of paper was a prescription. I’ve been without it for days. I lost my bottle of medicine. There are no pharmacies able to open here. I could have possibly gotten to a pharmacy or hospital in another state unaffected by hurricane Katrina. I finally found my doctor at one of the shelters, all he was able to give me was that prescription. My medical records are inaccessible. The medicine I need is not available at any of the emergency medical services set up by FEMA. The hospitals are shut down. I don’t have the time to be screened, prodded, and poked at some other medical facility. ” She did not sound angry, just hopeless.

Feeling compelled to help to relive my own nagging sense of helplessness, I asked what kind of medicine she needed so badly as to accuse me of killing her.

Her reply was alarming, “It’s an anti-rejection medication that prevents my body from rejecting my newly transplanted heart.”

For the first time since our encounter, I took notice of how frail she appeared. Neither of us noticed that other restaurant patrons were eaves dropping on our conversation. Suddenly a man walked over and introduced himself. He was a doctor. He made a call on his satellite phone, and made arrangements to have this woman flown by helicopter to a medical center in Tennessee that very afternoon.

A few weeks later I saw that doctor again, and with a pained expression on his face, he informed me the woman had died shortly after boarding the helicopter to Tennessee.

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Word count: 986

Written for

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The Writer's Cramp  (13+) Write the best poem or story in 24 hours or less and win 10K GPS! #333655 by Sophurky

Prompt:
As you enter a café, the wind blows a piece of paper off a woman's table and carries it out the door. She pushes past you but is unable to grab it before it goes down a storm drain. When she returns, she looks at you and says, “You’ve just killed me.” What was so important about the paper? What happens next?