Late yesterday afternoon, I read a severe weather alert about possible thunderstorms. I looked out the window, and wondered what the weather people were seeing that I wasn’t. The sky was nearly clear. Maybe half an hour to an hour later, a bright flash outside the window over my writing desk signaled the beginning of the day’s first thunderstorm. I reached up to open the blinds, and the crash came—close and deafening. That storm lasted several minutes. Then it was over. That was exciting, I thought. I relaxed back into writing.
Later in the evening the lightning and thunder started up again, rumbling in the distance for a few hours, and every now and then moving closer. First it was west of us, then east of us. Now it was on the other side again. There was very little rain, and I knew that wasn’t good. It was the same weather pattern that had ignited palm trees down the hill from us about five years ago.
After midnight, we were still awake, not because of the storm but because those are the hours we keep. We’d just turned off the television and were starting to wind down when the lightning moved in close again. Then came a blinding, deafening flash and crash, so close I let out an involuntary yelp and the dog jumped to his feet.
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