Summer Storm

The wind picked up and the rains came. Thunder shook in the air and lightning streaked across the night sky in long, jagged flashes - the weather station advised yet another tornado watch - and I watched from the window as the trees twisted and turned like saplings. The air was heavy and hot, filled with the storm and the expectation of a long and dark night with no moon or stars visible. Even the clouds seemed to dissolve and dissipate into blackness.

Not surprisingly, the lights flickered and then went out completely and the entire block turned dark. I watched as little patches of illumination began to appear in neighboring windows, candles were being lit up and down the street to fight off the lack of light. People appeared on their front porches, calling to each other and making jokes about the outage, a generator started up across the street, the dogs began barking at the unfamiliar voices carrying so clearly on the night air. Rain splashed violently on the pavement and the gutters filled in no time creating twin rivers that rushed rapidly down the sides of the street - the sound was loud and almost rocky, like a waterfall and I suspected we would be flooded by midnight if not before. The sounds of limbs cracking and breaking continued through the night as did the rain and the animals all gathered in the bed with me, their differences forgotten for the duration of the storm.

Morning dawned with bird songs and a clear sky but the ground was saturated and the aftermath of the storm was everywhere with fallen tree limbs and sagging hedges. The rose bushes next door were decimated, their petals flung every which way and down the street, a neighbor's vegetable garden had taken a beating - his young tomato plants lay on the ground in puddles of water alongside peppers and a row of cornstalks. The trees hung low and were misty with humidity and leftover rain while fog hovered over the park. The storm had come, wreaked its small share of havoc and then gone in the night, in a day or two it would be all but forgotten. Flooded streets would dry up under the blazing southern sun, gardens would be repaired, limbs cut and hauled away for firewood. It was, after all, just a small summer storm, passing quickly and hardly enough to register on anyone's daily radar, although while it was happening it was hard not to imagine the worst. We can't give up over a patch of bad weather.