While living on 45th street, there were a lot of storms I remember, mainly because I’d formed a fear to storms when I was a kid from the Poltergeist movies, not even mention my earliest dreams of lightning..
On one occasion, It was a summer night. It’d been a long day. I’d been helping my dad paint the house.. We’d been working around the side and left the ladder resting on the front side of the house…

We’d left the front door open since it was a nice night.. and the rain was just beginning to fall..
I’d ran upstairs to get a towel and quickly returned. As I was running up to our the front door.. lightning struck right out in front of the house.. in the middle of the street. I steeped onto the porch and turned right in time to see the ladder getting sucked into the sky.. pulled up in the air by a finger of blue electricity. My eyes widened as the ladder shot up about 15 or 20 feet then just fell back to the ground.. landing against the huge hedge in the front yard.
My father came running around the side of the house wide eyed like he’d seen a ghost.. asking me if I was ok. I pointed to the ladder and we both stared at the new placement of the ladder.
We walked out to the street.. but we couldn’t find where it’d struck.. no smoke, no boiling pavement.. just the sound of distant thunder and falling rain…

… later in time..about 10 years…

I’d picked up the hobby hacky sacking. I enjoyed it as a way to just kill time waiting for people.. not only as a way to get more of a control over my body and balance.. But it really was just a time killer.
I wasn’t good and had just been practicing. a storm was approaching and I was considering going inside.. but I’d grown to like to watch storms, so I was both trying to watch the hacky sack and the sky waiting for a bolt to show itself. It was heat lightning way up in the clouds. A red type of heat lightening twisting up in the clouds and around itself. It was deep and almost evil looking. It was lighting up the night sky, but no real thunder and no drops of rain yet to fall.

So I’m trying to get to 10 hits without dropping the hacky sack.. I’d been counting them out..
And speaking aloud.. I’d said.. “ok.. if I do this, Mr. Storm.. you’ve got to show me something!”
I worked at it for 30 mins… getting up to 10 and dropping it then as I almost forgot. I hit 9 and then 10.

I kicked the sack in the air, and grabbed it with my hand.. and as I did.. the night sky lit up with streaks of lightning running across the sky like a comet shower.. fingers of light streaking across the sky like veins in your arm.. crossing, intertwining, all with this purple neon glow.. like god’s way of showing off his immaculate neon sign of power.. Only a slight crackle of thunder.. but I actually felt scared, felt the pulse pounding, heart jumping feeling deep in my chest.. ever since then.. I talk to storms.. not in a maniacal way.. but more of a respectful comment type way.. see a nice bolt of electricity, I always tend to comment out loud..

08/22/2004

Author's Note: both true..

Posted on 08/23/2004
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