One of my several means of gainful employment is writing a feature called Mystery Speakers for English Journal magazine. Every month, I morph into some sort of object and describe myself. It’s a listening exercise. The words get recorded onto a CD that comes with the magazine and then the following month the text is published along with a translation and the answers to the questions. In honor of what turned out to be today’s weather non-event, I thought it might be appropriate to publish this one.
When I woke up three days ago, I was nothing but a puff of air above a small island in the northwest Pacific Ocean. I stretched and took deep breaths and, little by little, I started to get stronger. I picked up moisture from the ocean and that made me stronger still. The moisture formed into thick clouds and the sky started to darken. As my strength increased, I let out a gale of laughter and started to move north. Some of my fellows and I have been known to cause a great deal of damage. But we just laugh.
When I hit land two days later, I had grown very powerful. The wind inside me gusted and blustered. Some of my gales went as fast as 100 kilometers per hour. My thick, heavy clouds were bursting with water. When I came to a city, I blew laundry off people’s balconies. I tossed trash cans around and turned people’s umbrellas inside out. I tore branches off of trees. I poured bucketfuls of water down on people’s heads. My winds howled and screeched and lashed against the windows of people’s homes. “Stay inside!” warned the television news. People ran for cover but I just laughed.
In time, I started to lose my strength. As my power melted away, I got tired. I moved back out to sea. My clouds lost their moisture. My winds slowed. In time, I became a puff of air again. I think I will go back to sleep now. Yawn.
Q1: What did the speaker pour on people’s heads?
A. Rain
B. Wind
C. Clouds
D. BranchesQ2: How does the speaker feel at the end of the story?
A. Powerful
B. Strong
C. Happy
D. SleepyQ3: Who is speaking?
What a lovely little piece. No ads BTW
very good, I’m having to think about the third question 🙂
Oh fun!
Very interesting!!!
When I saw the third question, I really understood the whole sentence.
Glad you liked it, Akiko!