A Calculated Risk Escape Claus

Reedsy.com Writing Prompt  #268 : Center your story around a character’s attempt to escape a bad situation that inadvertently leads them back to the source of their problems....

I have often wondered if I’d have been better off with a different name. Bronson Steele. Sounds like the name of a double agent in a spy novel. A daring, chivalrous, sword wielding hero who faces the enemy and rescues the people from doom. My parents may have believed in the power of a name, hoping I’d live up to it. I must admit I've let them down.

Thrill seekers to the max, my parents lived up to their names. The Steeles, Rowan and Jade. Outdoorsy. Adventurous. They were the couple who did every extreme adventure that came their way. Skydiving into the rain forest, catapulting across canyons, bungee jumping off the tallest buildings. It surprised nobody when they left me as an infant with a nanny to embark on many daring excursions. Later, they left me home when I was old enough to join them because, by age four, it was apparent I did not share their love of the outdoors.

The danger, the uncertainty. Sunburn, the leading cause of skin cancer. Ticks and mosquitos, delivery vessels for every deadly pathogen known to man. All these and more happened outdoors. My folks went off, and I stayed home to worry. By the age of twelve, I knew all the statistics and the chances of tragedy coming to my parents. Their failure to return following a freak helicopter accident over the Hawaiian volcanoes, though tragic, was not a surprise.

To leave a young boy orphaned at the tender age of twelve was damaging enough. My paternal grandfather took over parental guardianship. For Bronson Steele, being nothing like my parents, their untimely demise threw me into a pattern of risk aversion. An auto accident that took the life of my grandfather when I was away at college strengthened my resolve to continue calculating and avoiding risk. I came home for the funeral and never left. Isolated in my room, I thought that by applying fear driven calculations to my every move, I could avoid all danger and thus began my life living under actuarial rule.

Grown up now and living in town, my home is a third-floor apartment of a four story building with five units on each floor. The numerical pattern provides a little whimsy among the more strict controls I place myself under.

I prefer to live in a highly controlled environment and rely on the internet to eliminate any unnecessary risks from my everyday existence. In my simple minimalist home, I can observe the world outside descending into chaos, while I skillfully avoid any calamity. At least, that was my belief until disaster found me.

Imagine a serene Thursday in October, the safest day of the week and month of the year, where my tranquil story begins, with no hint of the adrenaline rush about to come. By the evening of this expectant quiet day, the news is grim. The Pacific Coast is being shaken by earthquakes, entire towns are being devoured by wildfires in the mountains, and mysterious winds kick up clouds of stifling dust in the Midwest. In my apartment, I sit and examine each wave of disaster coming across the news feeds. My routine keeps me calm, removed, but the increasing number of reports soon smothers me in fear.

A build up of trepidation follows hours of strategizing my next step. Treating it like a matter of life and security, I start a list of questions. Should I stock up on food? Ammunition? My pantry remains well stocked with survival kits, but what if the next batch of news reports is from disease? Should I flee the city? Picking up and running to the family ranch in the country would be a foolish decision, as it goes against my long-standing avoidance of uncertainty.

I hear the faint rumbles of thunder in the distance and peruse the weather channels online. Monsoons in the desert. Nothing unusual about that, but like a scene in a movie, the ruckus outside builds with foreboding. The sky turns menacingly dark as the clouds boil higher into the atmosphere. I’d weathered many storms in my day. It was a matter of staying indoors, and I’d perfected that practice. A string of notifications on my phone sends my sensibilities careening: Tornado Watch. Take shelter. Arizona was not tornado country.

My heart beats faster as my mind makes rapid evaluations. Below ground level is the safest place to be during tornadoes. To get to the shelter of the basement in our complex requires a risky sprint across the courtyard which is now drenched in rain. I take a deep breath and ready myself mentally for falling trees.

Stepping just outside the threshold on the bottom floor of my building, I hear the faint plea of a stray cat huddled in the entry's corner. Should I save it? Wasting precious seconds thinking about it, I fear we’d both perish if I try. I stand frozen in a stare, then shudder when I consider the many feline born illnesses I could contract by touching the scrawny beast. The sum of the risks is exponentially greater than the parts.

The cornered creature’s eyes reflect my panic. Shaking sense back into my head brings comfort and reminds me I still have alternatives. Relying on avoidance, then running from disaster when faced with the inevitable, is my go-to response. Why would I change it now?

As the drenching rains continue and the winds howl, I hear the sirens in the distance, carrying what my imagination concludes to be the tortured screams of the dying. Compelled to run back inside as the front doors rattle in their frames, the world blurs into a swirling nightmare. A strange compulsion grips me and, with seconds to spare, I snatch the cat just as a wind driven branch crashes at my feet. I know if I don’t save this cat, I will never forgive myself.

Time slows as I shove the cat under my coat, cringing when I feel his wet fur dampening my shirt. I rush across the lawn, now a minefield of debris, toward the main complex of offices, the community gym, and the recreation room under which is housed the basement with storage units. While not its intended use, it now doubles as a tornado shelter. A group of folks wait by the elevator as if unaware the power went out. I can already hear the wailing cries of other tenants making their way to safety.

“Over here,” I shout and hold up the traplike emergency door to the lower floor for a mother and her child. The little girl’s tiny face can barely contain her wide eyes when she looks at me with sheer terror, then she sees the cat I still hold in my arms. I hand over the cat just as the rec room ceiling above us cracks. It may have been a slight tremor, but it had enough strength to rattle my bones.

Shoving the girl and her mother forward as more residents cram past, I hear a low rumble that swells to a roar. Once all the retreating neighbors are safely inside, I close and lock the hatch and feel the ground shake. The raw grip of the tornado’s fury closes in as nature’s wrath grows stronger. We made it just in time, and I even saved lives.

Crawling out of the shelter after a terrorizing night huddled with near strangers, the rubble we encounter doesn’t bother me, and the wreckage we face registers as normal for a tornado. Forgotten at the moment is how statistically unlikely it is to even experience such weather here.

Having lived meagerly, I hadn’t a lot to lose. Grateful to be unharmed physically, in less than a week, I find a place in a nearby town where I plan to get back to normal. However, the newfound tranquility disappears once I realize I am trapped in a different routine.

Disasters of increasing chaos seem to stalk me around every corner, giving me less and less time for risk management. Every time I try to find safety, the next violent act pulls me in: a building explodes, flood waters sweep away families clustered at the river’s overflowing banks, a sudden firestorm sweeps through a neighborhood.

With no time to prepare, I run only to come face-to-face with the next calamity. Without my usual actuarial skills to protect me, I feel even more trapped by my fears and sink deeper into despair. I see fellow victims giving support to men with bandaged heads. I want to, but can’t look away at a woman with a leg twisted in the most unnatural way being carried away on a stretcher.

Surrounded by people who have lost everything, I witness the loss and injury first hand, and a new feeling settles within. Coiling tightly and threatening to turn me inside out, I think of how many chances my parents had taken with their lives and wonder if this was their karma coming back to me.

With the weight of their burden dragging me down, I know I could let it overcome me and remain enslaved forever. While others move forward, embracing whatever life throws at them, I have been running away. How do they do that? I thought escaping reality in my dreams would bring me tranquility, but it intensifies my fear of what lies ahead. It is time to break free.

Relishing my epiphany, I sit at the community shelter amidst people who share in the predicament and experience a kinship I’d never felt before. I’m proud of my revolutionary development and feel confident in my new insights.

It has been almost a week now since the last disaster, and I feel a sense of relief. Relying on resources provided by the kindness of others, I feel the worst may be over. Have I exorcized my fears, and broken the chain? In liberating myself from debilitating worry, have I spared any more innocent victims caught amid my life lesson? As soon as the thoughts clear my mind, my theory is proven wrong.

Disaster strikes again—this time another out-of-control fire raging through the neighborhood towards the industrial section of town and the community center. Driven by unnatural winds, the flames are fast approaching a Compressed Natural Gas storage yard. My heart thumps, but the calculating part of my brain urges me to hold firmly to caution. Knowing that the tanks of gas each have an escape valve, which would prevent an explosion if the heat of the fire threatens, I reason I have time to get away. I am one of the few who still have wheels.

Forgotten was my vowed proclamation to change. I turn the ignition key and, to my relief, the impeccably maintained engine purrs. The full sized pickup offering the largest crunch zones was one of the safest vehicles on the road. In the cab's safety, I turn onto the main street, heading away from this new town.

Contrasting with the comfort I feel from the seat of my truck are the faces of the people I pass. Horror reflects in their eyes and I hear the screams and shouts, “It’s gonna blow up!”

I look in my rearview mirror to see the wind driven flames are burning towards me like a torch. I floor the accelerator pedal and the truck springs forward. When I reach the crest of the hill on the outskirts, my rate of speed and the incline sends the truck into the air. In that state of suspension, I feel the truck sucked backwards, then thrown forward. It’s then that I hear what must be the blast from exploding tanks. The failure rate on the safety valves was an unavailable stat.

When the truck wheels come back to the ground, I am skidding through gravel. The paved road had turned to the right, but I, while airborne, continued straight. Fighting to stay in control, I turn into the skid and the truck straightens and comes to a jerking stop.

I have to go back. Even if it means I may not survive, I have to try. I remember the gleaming eyes of the frightened cat, and the tear-stained face of the terrified child. Like a flash, all the faces of the scared and injured are in front of me and I shout, “I’m coming!”

This time, I don’t run. I turn the truck around in the dust storm that erupts beneath my spinning tires. Returning to the scene, I want to stay and help. Instead of calculating my escape, I want to evaluate the effort needed to evacuate the families still in their homes, unaware there’s an apocalyptic event unfolding. I imagine finding a fire extinguisher to put out any spot flames. Deep in the chaotic maelstrom, I see myself instructing volunteers to carry the children as a surge of courage slices through my instinct to flee.

I throttle the pedal harder, and the truck lurches forward beyond the cloud of dust like a vessel of hope. As the dust clears, I see before me not the flames of doom, but a quiet street in a peaceful community. In disbelief, I search for the folks I’d seen fleeing moments ago. I roll through town and wave back at the barber sitting on a bench under his twirling red and white helix striped pole. The sun glows from above in the now clear sky. Gone are the dark billowing plumes of smoke I expect to see.

Pulling over near a side street, I see nothing out of the ordinary. I stop and regroup. What just happened? Am I crazy after all? Who am I and where am I going?

With the disaster I had been living in evaporating right before my eyes, I think about the principles of motion. My constant worrying that led to chronic aversion from reality created the one thing I try to avoid; disaster. I had synchronized two motions, fear and courage, and created the opposite result. Courage isn’t available only to those who have no fear. My proclamation to have changed wasn’t enough to break the spell. It had to be tested. Only when facing the worst disaster of all was I able to prove my words.

I, Bronson Steele, labeled even by myself as timid, am no longer driven solely by risk assessments. I have found the balance between personal safety and community responsibility. As I reflect on those doomsday weeks, I realize that fleeing from my fears only landed me in the middle of the next catastrophe. Fear may still linger within me, but by embracing it and aiding others during catastrophic events, I’ve become an unexpected source of hope.

I have finally lived up to my name, Bronson Steele, a man of courage, a hero. Maybe my parents would now be proud.

Using my actuarial science degree, I now help others with personal risk management practices. No longer am I holding up in my apartment doing online consulting. I work in an office despite the risk of random acts of violence in the workplace. I walk the streets back and forth, ignoring the statistical averages that a hit-and-run driver’ll mow me down. Today, on the way home from the office, I stop at the animal shelter to adopt a cat.