By Viper Diamondback
Editor’s Note: This story was written for The Gateway’s annual April Fool’s Day joke issue. The story is false and does not present factual information to readers. It is meant for entertainment purposes only.In a proud show of heroism and self-determination Friday, all 603 surviving residents of Mayfair, Neb., declared they would not rebuild after last week’s devastating tornado.
An F-3 tornado destroyed every single building in the tight-knit farming community Thursday afternoon, causing $20 million in damages, or twice the town’s gross income.
“In times like these, you just hitch up your belt, put your socks on one foot at a time and completely give up,” said 82-year-old Mayfair resident Curtis Wallace.
With the town’s only remaining streetlight shining on him in the purple dusk, Mayor Russ Paustian tried to rally demoralized residents at what used to be a Subway.
“We are a strong people,” Paustian said. “That is why we have to muster every last ounce of courage in our bones, paint a smile on our faces and reach out to help our less fortunate neighbors make it to Norfolk, where they have a bus station.”
The mayor continued: “As for those of us with cars intact, we need to leave here as quickly as humanly possible. The rats are eating our rubble.”
Mayfair is situated in “Tornado Alley,” an area of the Midwest stretching from Minnesota to Texas that sees frequent tornadoes during spring and summer. Despite catastrophic annual supercell thunderstorms that often destroy small towns and farming communities, area residents proudly refuse to leave their homes and move to a safer part of the country – unless, of course, a tornado pigfu__s their entire way of life.
All things considered, homemaker Debra Wanderlust remained in bright spirits Saturday.
Outside the mess that was her home, Wanderlust waxed inspirational: “There’s no telling what we can fail to accomplish together. Why, just last night, I was sifting through the mess when I found Baby D’s rubber ducky under a pile of ceiling tile. It got me to thinking about his sweet voice, his first steps and how I should just throw in the towel and move to Newfoundland.”
Pocked with freshly dug plots, the Mayfair cemetery served as a makeshift relief station for hordes of the injured and the near-dead. At press time, authorities guessed the number of casualties to be somewhere around 47, give or take a family or two.
The decision not to rebuild was arrived at lightly, an almost knee-jerk reaction by a traumatized people. However, the exuberance of impending escape charged the air with a weightlessness that residents likened to the feeling that comes just before a tornado.
Thursday’s devastation was blamed on everything from gay marriage to a crack in the sidewalk 9-year-old Cathy Byers accidentally landed on playing hopscotch with her friends. The deity known as “God” was also fingered as a possible culprit.
“Obviously, God is not on our side,” Former bowling alley owner Milo Dale said. “Why else would he just take away everything we know and love?”
Still, most Mayfair residents agree that, without their steadfast faith and reliance on God, none would be so disillusioned and depressed by Thursday’s tornado.
Instead, residents said, they would attribute the event to the interplay between moist air from the Gulf of Mexico and a stalled Canadian cold front. Such interplay, known as weather, would receive most of the blame for last week’s storm.
“Tornadoes are stupid and so is rebuilding,” Dale said. “I would lose my manhood if we rebuilt.
