An awful vacancy

I've been working down along the south Gulf coast of Texas. It's hot and humid, the work is boring and useless, and I'm counting the days until I can return to the Pacific Northwest.

But every so often I look out across the immense expanse of flatland that is this part of North America and shiver with fear.

The idea of being caught here, in this featureless plain, in this vast expanse of nothingness, as a gigantic storm birthed in the fury of the tropic seas howls ashore, driving before it the remorseless surge of the waters of the sullen Gulf beyond, fills me with an almost inexpressible terror.

This really is an awful place.