The storms are more abundant this summer. I am only at peace when it rains and thunders; I like it when a dark and terrible thing falls across the sky and screams. Nothing is more romantic than a day growing dark before sunset, more exciting than running from the wet, wet wind. A true storm can set a wayward ship straight on its course, and I think almost everyone needs something as heavy and loud to wake them up this way. It makes one value a dry and safe inside more than ever; the privilege of protection.
I, like anyone else living or dead, have experienced storms first-hand. Once in a sacred room I woke to find my face wet and the outside world howling through my window. For a brief and stupid second, I wondered if someone was photographing me through the glass until I realized that the flashes were indeed lightning. I needed to slam my window closed but, my luck; this fenestra was the kind I’d have to crank shut, my hand on conductive metal, fighting a chance instant to survive. I could see it then, the white-hot electric striking at the moment I grasped it tight, frying me alive and melting me dead to my bedsheets, which that week had grown coarse in the wash. I had to close my eyes and count to five and breathe hard and heavy before spinning the crank closed, making sure that I was turning it correctly: righty-tighty, lefty-loosey. The next morning, my storm had passed and the closed window would not budge (the crank had rusted shut and never moved again). On disarmingly calm days, I roll this memory over in my head, knowing that it is meaningless and sundry, but also wondering if I should not have denied my guest and instead had a midnight dinner with the storm. It might have made me a more open person, I metaphorize; or the wet air might have done nothing but molded your sheets, the voice of reason responds, and I no longer regret.
The way these summer storms work, they push north-east, so nowadays I watch them blow in strong and go out empty from the windows at the front of my room. Being on the second floor, I have a decent view of the sky when they come to town. It always quietly alarms me how quickly clouds can move, and how heavily they can roll, but there’s some comfort in it; storm clouds are shaped like the sounds they make. A cold front begins one game of guessing when the world will go gray with rain, another to count the seconds between the purple flash and the crash. I must cover my ears and close my eyes; I never ironed out my fear of thunder, but that’s just humility in the face of nature, taking the fetal form of primal instinct.
I remember that terribly good story, The Storm, by Kate Chopin. I read it my junior year of high school and blushed for it. Sex always seems more glamorous when it’s busy being had by people with names like Calixta and Alcée. The growl of the thunder was distant and passing away. The rain beat softly upon the shingles, inviting them to drowsiness and sleep. But they dared not yield. You see what I mean, how the lightning and the rain sets things right; how a good summer storm shakes things into their proper places.
So the storm passed and every one was happy.
Finit.
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