The storms came in yesterday afternoon, scraping across the lake.
The sky went from blue to black in a matter of minutes, the wind kicked up and the horizontal rain turned the street outside the office into a canal. We stood at the windows and watched, the overhead lights flickering from time to time.
My son called, to check on me. He’d seen it on the news, an angry red glare at the center of the sickly green radar image.
“It’s just about to pass over you,” he told me.
“It’s already here,” I said over the thunder.
It was a disappointment that the lights didn’t go out, that the lightning didn’t poke down and draw up all our electricity back into the clouds.
The rain tapered off, the storm blew inland towards my son, leaving us with comparatively mild rain and wind.
Ten minutes later a new one strode off of the lake — a monster, a mother of a storm chasing after her child.
We kept our lights, we kept our power.
Eventually, it too passed.
Then, this news found it’s way into the office. While the monsters raged overhead, someone used the cover of their fury to enact something truly monstrous.
This is a small town, a quiet place . . . but for the storms.