"Irene," from the ancient Greek "εἰρήνη," meaning "peace."
And peace the storm brought to the restless city.
An eery, uneasy peace, a mandatory peace, as
the cells of the apple battened down the hatches
and the circulatory system, aka the MTA, froze
well in advance of the buckets of rain and the winds'
lashes and kept so well after the fury (thankfully much less
intense that initially feared) abated to leave the streets
to dogged pet walkers, stray tourists, and boastful runners.
Twenty years ago almost to the day I was captive of Hurricane Bob,
grading summer session final exams. The department was
not deserted. One could easily partition the population hurrycanned
in that solid university building into two: on the one hand there were
those who could not get their fill of weather advisories. On the other,
there were the Europeans, who glued their ears to the radio
desperately seeking news of the Soviet coup d'état.
At that time I squarely belonged in the latter group.
And now?
Now I am musing how singular for the first hurricane in a generation
to follow on the heels of the first quake in a three generations.
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