After the Storm

Daylight was a long time coming that day, but when the sun finally arrived and I looked around the yard, I was shocked at the power of the storm the night before. There were broken trees everywhere. Those not broken off were generally pulled up by the roots. Debris scattered from God knows where covered all the yards in the area. Dirt, mud and torn leaves covered the sides of the houses, the windows and everything else. There was strange fluffy stuff all over ... something like the seeds that fall from the poplar trees, or dandelions, but it was the wrong time of year. Clearly some kind of vegetation though. I didn't give it much thought as I made my way around the fallen debris and headed for the city to collect my husband from the ship. The rain had started again so surely it would rinse some of the mess off the houses. We were in for the big job of cleaning up the mess. Powerless and without water for ninety-six hours, it never occurred to us that we and others like us were being invaded by naughty little creatures who, through no fault of their own, had been scattered far and wide, and were simply looking for warm places to live. All in all, we were lucky the weather remained warm for the next week and it was a bit like camping out as we did our best to clean up our properties. The whole time we were working, we were oblivious to our new housemates. When things started going missing, we simply thought we were getting very absent minded in the wake of the tragedy of the hurricane. Perhaps our age was catching up with us and we just couldn't remember where we were putting things down. We literally spent a month blaming each other for hiding the car keys until we realized that someone, or something was messing around with us. Woolfins!