So, tonight, I lay in bed waiting for the sleep to take me and I hear rumbling in the distance, soft and far away, it was still there. My half asleep mind was confused, what is this? Another G ride rolling down my street? Perhaps a crazed citizen has hunted down and detonating various ice cream trucks that dot the neighborhoods dark and silent streets? One could only hope.
No, the sky was growing angry. I wake up fully and crack my blinds to see a staccato of flashes assaulting the neighborhood, punctuated by a deep and mournful growl. My sky is speaking to me.
I was dressed in seconds, wide-awake and wide eyed as I made my way outside. The wind was hot, blowing in hard ahead of the storm. Very little rain would be coming with this, mostly violence. My kind of storm.
Car keys in hand, I watch the motion of the clouds illuminated by the city and make my plan to intercept the storm just north but mostly east of town, near Sunrise Mountain. I park the truck overlooking the city and watch the storm move across town, striking down on Stupak�s tower, and various casinos�. A lightning flash results in a dark neighborhood as a tongue of natural energy vaporizes some neighborhood transformer.
I watch for a while, hypnotized, transported to dark nights in Texas, watching the electrical storms roll in across the farmland, stabbing at the ground.
Eventually, the bulk of the storm passes over where I sit, wind rocking the truck and the minute amount of rain drenching the area for a few minutes. Then the wind calms and the rains die away, the storm moves on, spitting and striking rock as it moves out towards lake mead. I think briefly of chasing it, watching its cycle of life, alas, low on fuel, no film in my camera, my shutter release remote is dead, no bulb mode for my lightning pictures. No, this one is going to go play without me tonight.
I�ll be better prepared next time I�m invited out into the night. Even now I can hear the storm calling, saying goodbye.
-G