23 May 2025, @mariannewest's Freewrite Writing Prompt Day 2745: global reach

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“The storm is passing over,
The storm is passing over,
The storm is passing over, hallelujah!”

Eight-year-old Gracie Trent was having herself a little praise session with the songs of her grandparents and grandparents' grandparents, not knowing who Charles Albert Tindley was but just joining the line of singing legacy … just waiting for the remnants of Hurricane Justicia to pass on by so she could go back outside.

“Well, why she should she be bothered?” her mother's mother Mrs. Velma Stepforth said. “It's not like she just had thirty years and a billion dollars of bad decisions washed away in twenty minutes.”

“A billion?” Gracie's mother's father Mr. Thomas Stepforth Sr. said. “Oh no, darling, no – that's where it starts. The storm is just starting for Lofton County! Think of all the cleanup needed north from Bayard Heights all the way to Old Big Loft, one of the county's most important historical and tourist sites – and the levels of pollutiion that will get through the water systems into the Roanoke River, so as far as Shortport!

“My head calculator doesn't work like that, but it sounds like the county could be in trouble,” Mrs. Stepforth said.

“The county has been in trouble; what washed away today was any pretense to the contrary,” Mr. Stepforth said. “We're not even counting the other damage 5-6 inches of unexpected rain might have done. But again, we are not part of those bad decisions. Gracie is on to something this time.”

Eleven-year-old Velma and nine-year-old Milton Trent heard their little sister singing and came to harmonize her, and their nine-year-old first cousin Vertran Stepforth brought out his ukelele. They just started changing keys upward because Milton said “I wonder with how high we can go with the ukelele?” That singing session would end up with Vertran ending up on top of a bookshelf playing, to be taken down by his uncle Sgt. Vincent Trent – parent to the little Trents -- as he realized the long gap in singing indicated the little ones needed his attention.

“But see, when little kids make bad decisions, all they can do is break their necks and our hearts,” Mr. Stepforth said to his wife hours later when their little grandchildren were playing Go Fish, safe and unconcerned. “But grown folks with no sense just took thirty years and broke the county!”

“Well, look on the bright side,” Mrs. Stepforth said, “Between today and Uppity Foolery Watch, “Lofton County has finally gotten the global reach it wanted in terms of brand awareness!”

“Yes, ma'am,” Mr. Stepforth said, “and it is the gift the county has given itself that will keep on giving!”