ERASURE
by JC Hemphill
Cooper Hurst watched as dark, oppressive clouds overran the blue tranquility of the afternoon sky, casting a gloom over Aberdeen, Georgia. A breeze accompanied the low-hanging ceiling, filling the neighborhood with a frenzied sough and an unmistakable energy as a seething behemoth named Hurricane Madison moved in.
He stood on the front lawn of his family’s white colonial, waiting for Dad to return with nails so they could finish covering the windows. Leaning on a sheet of plywood, Cooper watched as the neighbor across the street made room in his garage for his Acura, and wondered if Mr. Finely knew the National Weather Service had upgraded Madison to a Category Five.
His gaze moved to the two moss-draped oaks flanking the sidewalk, and he worried about the ancient tree’s network of branches surviving. He had made the varsity baseball team at school as a sophomore, which he attributed to two things. First was Dad’s tenacious dedication to practicing with him, but the second were those trees. During the overbearing heat of summer when most teens traded baseball mitts for air-conditioning and video games, he and Dad would throw the baseball in the shade of those trees for hours.
It’s In The Bag,
