I started out at some sort of mall with Em (wife). I think it was supposed to be the Harrionburg Mall, but I'm not certain. We were in a Sears, and I believe that we were walking around looking at clothes or something. We may have stopped off to look for a bathroom for Em. While she was in there, I started looking around a bit, and I realized that I needed new art supplies.
I started looking around, and I was finding the stuff I needed. I was getting a new art supply carrying case , and I was putting all sorts of things into it, such as pens, pencils, oil pastels, etc. At one point, I was also putting things into a cardboard box that was about a foot and a half long, about 9 inches wide and tall. It was a bit funny because even though the bottom of the box was not taped up, (it was just the flaps folded over each other) it wasn't giving me any problems with holding the stuff I put into it. The art box, on the other hand, was giving me problems because some how the bottom of it was also folded-over flaps, but they kept coming undone and dropping things out the bottom.
At this point, I was no longer with Em in the store. She wasn't there anymore, as if she had never been there in the first place. Also, the store was now more like Walmart, and not Sears. There were other people shopping there, too. They were mostly women around the age of 35 to 45, and they were all getting their art supplies. There weren't many of them around, but I remember talking to one woman briefly in the aisle about what I was getting versus what she was getting. It was actually during this time that the red art box was giving me trouble.
Soon after this, I found that I had filled the cardboard box about 1/3 full with pink wintergreen candies like what mom used to get, and Eric (brother) referred to them as "Medicine Balls" because they tasted like Pepto Bismol. I also had a third item with me, and I think it may have been just a basket for shopping.
I eventually wound up at the check out counter, and things were moving along well, when all of a sudden I realized when I sat down the shopping basket, that I had set the cardboard box and art box down somewhere in one of the aisles. I turned to the dark-haired woman behind me and I said something like, "I feel really bad about this, but I need to get out of line and get something I left in one of the aisles. Could I get back in line when I get back?" She laughed and said, "I left something down one of the aisles, too!!" There was a second lady behind her, but neither one of us said anything to her as we broke out of line and went to get our stuff.
I left my basket there at the checkout, but instead of actually leaving it on the counter, I took it and set it up on top of a big stack (about as tall as me) of soda 12-pack boxes that was by the exit. I then went back and got the cardboard box and he art box (which was still giving me troubles with the bottom falling open. I got back to the checkout, bought the stuff (making sure they opened the boxes to get all the stuff inside) and then I went home to the house that used to be Grandmamma Miller's.
Mom was in the kitchen, and I talked to her briefly about something. I'm thinking it may have been the news or something, but I'm not sure. I heard this strange sound outside, and it seemed like it just kept going. It was like a train in the distance or something. I was walking out of the kitchen and through the dining room when I looked out the window towards the Garber's farm, and back behind it I saw a tornado.
Right at that moment I yelled, "A tornado!" and went to run back to the kitchen to tell mom, but mom had just seen it, too, and also yelled. Even though we knew it was serious, neither one of us went running down to the basement or anything. Actually, I mentioned to her, "Maybe I should go upstairs and get my camera!" I think she replied with, "What!?", thinking that I was crazy to even consider going upstairs when there was a tornado around.
Somehow I was able to know about local news and reports from local people about reporting on the weather, and how it was online. What I mean is that I knew that there was a girl somewhere close that had gotten pictures of the clouds outside her house when she knew the tornado was coming, and posted them on the Internet, before I even got on the Internet.
But I got online, and I checked out the pictures, and she had made a comment about catching the eye or seeing the eye in the clouds. When I looked at the pictures, I saw that there was actually a formation that looked like an eye in the clouds. (whereas before I thought she meant "the eye of the storm"). She had a picture of some blond woman celebrity right below it, and was comparing the two.
The more I looked at it, the more I realized that there was more to the formation than the eye. There was the other eye, the nose, the mouth, and eventually her entire head, just like in the picture, was also in the cloud formation. After this I got offline, and I went and looked for the tornado again, but I couldn't see it. I didn't really hear it either, but for some reason, I didn't think it was completely gone. I thought it had just moved around so that it was in a different location that made it hard for us to hear. I went and looked out the window in the dining room towards the Garber's farm again, and it wasn't there. It looked like it was now dark off to the right, but if the tornado was there, it was out of my view around the corner of the house.
I think I went outside to look for it, and I still wasn't hearing it. I somehow still didn't believe that it was gone, and I was watching the dark area that was over past where the "Big Barn" normally was. In thinking about it, walking out the front door, there was nothing there except the road. No barn. No big maple trees. No dairy barn. Just the road and the field beyond. It was dark there, but I wasn't seeing the tornado. I think I saw it kind of sputter to life again for a brief moment, but it didn't last long and it was gone, at which point I woke up.
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