Story - Storm Waiting

    The battery light kept flickering. The engine squealed with every blink. Rain hammered the windshield.
   " I think it's the alternator belt," the young man said.
   " What does that mean?" asked the young woman.
   " If it goes, we're pretty much fucked."
    They were fleeing north from the approaching hurricane and had hardly traveled forty miles before their car turned them back into the path of the storm. A wasted trip across the Ponchatrain bridge and sixteen dollars later, they were headed back to New Orleans, their battery draining all the while.
   " I hope we make it," he said.
   " Don't worry."
    The young man had but one neurosis; if his VW was broken in some way, he could think of nothing else. The storm was of little concern. He was worried about the car. Having never been in a hurricane before, death by its hand was an abstract and therefore distant threat. Breaking down on a rain pummeled highway, or worse, flipping the car or swerving into oncoming traffic or sliding into the concrete barriers... these were scenarios far more immediate that carried the real possibility of death.
    But there was no death. They arrived home. With the VW intact in the driveway and the rain pelting their apartment, he turned his thoughts to death by hurrican. He still couldn't fathom the idea.
    Weather had never truly impinged on his life. A northerner, his childhood had been filled with snow days and school closings. When he was seventeen, an ice covered road spun his car into a snowbank. Lightening had even once fried all the electronics in the house. But those were all superficial, he thought. Weather was of little consequence unless life and death were at stake. He just couldn't believe that they were.
    The young man peered out the window. Half the road had been eaten up by a growing puddle. The gutter, jammed with mud and leave gave no release. The wondered how high the water would rise. The scent of baking cookies distracted him. He turned to the kitchen where the young woman removed a batch of cookies from the oven. For a moment, he forgot the hurricane.