The Storm

Week two, day three.

There was a thunder storm yesterday.  I’ve seen them in movies before so I knew what was happening but to see one for real, up close and virtually out in the open underneath the worst of it was one of the most breathtaking yet terrifying things I’ve ever experienced.  As someone who has never felt anything stronger than a sprinkler system on her bare skin or heard anything louder than a dog barking that wasn’t man-made I was totally unprepared for what I was about to experience and even though I heard the distant rumble of thunder long before I found myself in the eye of the storm I ignored it.  What I didn’t know was that it wasn’t  just one storm I was facing but two, approaching from different directions and on course to meet directly above me just as I had no way of knowing what it would be like to be outside when they crashed together.  By the time I did realise it was too late, the only shelter near enough to afford any protection from the steadily worsening elements was still a good few hundred metres away and the rain was quickly turning the ground in to a treacherous, muddy morass while the natural path I’d been following had become a stream of frothing ankle deep water that dragged at me as I struggled to make my way back to the shallow cave I’d slept in the previous night.  Cursing my own stupidity I tried harder, pushing my body as hard as I dared in my efforts to get out of the storm but as hard as I pushed, the wind pushed back harder and my progress slowed to little more than a crawl.  Forcing myself to keep going despite the agonising ache in my limbs and dancing black spots that clouded my vision I struggled on, managing to get more than half way before the gap between the thunder and lightning narrowed to less than five seconds and I knew I was out of time.  Dazed by the aural assault from the thunder and blinded by the electric blue flashes of lightning I stopped, standing dumbly in the open while the two storms inched ever closer like angry gods preparing to fight.

Unable to stop myself I looked up and despite the danger I found myself in what I saw was possibly one of the most impressive, unbelievable things I will ever see.   To my left the swollen clouds were covered by an almost constant strobe-like flash of actinic blue as sheet lighting danced across their undersides while to my right the air between the ground and the sky was torn by blast after blast of lightning sending peal after peal of ear-splitting thunder rolling across the open ground, so loud I could feel it like a physical blow on my chest that sent me reeling.  I sank to my knees in the mud, too stunned by the display of natural power to move and I honestly think I was ready to die.  It seemed inconceivable to me that anything should be able to survive in the face of such unbridled ferocity and I think I remember starting to laugh manically as the rain washed the over me, filing my eyes and running in rivulets down my neck and shoulders until my clothes were so wet there seemed little point in wearing them at all.

Suddenly something hard and cold slammed in to my cheek drawing blood.  The pain woke me from the strange trance-like state I’d drifted in to and in seconds I realised how stupid I’d been to let the storm overwhelm me.  Fighting the urge to panic I began to crawl towards the cave while around me balls of ice fell from the sky battering my body.  The ground grew more solid as the mud gave way to rock and though the ice lay in a thick blanket that sent me skidding to my knees more than once but despite this I virtually ran the last few metres, throwing myself gratefully through the entrance to the cave.  Inside, out of the wind and the hail I could watch as the two storms fought to a mutual death, neither giving ground as the two fronts battered each other relentlessly.  The ice balls grew in size until they were about as large as golf balls and I realised that another five minutes outside and I really would have died;  the sheer force they were falling with would have been enough to knock me out at the least leaving me to either freeze to death or drown.

I don’t know how long the storm lasted, all I know is I sat shivering, wishing I’d thought to gather dry wood for a fire to warm me while  I watched it die in a series of painful, violent convulsions that left scorch marks on the rocks near the cave and on the shattered trunks of several trees before it finally came to an end.  When the sky had mostly cleared and the wind had dropped to little more than stiff breeze I dared to venture out, surprised by how little the landscape had changed.  I’d expected it to be a blasted ruin, the grass washed away and the trees nothing more than skeletons but around me everything looked almost exactly as it had before the storms had hit.  I felt elated; amazed that despite being a little bruised I’d proved to be as resilient as the land I now called home.  Surviving the storm has given me yet another reason to believe that I have the right to hope that I have a future, that my exile won’t end in an inglorious premature death.  Maybe my confidence is misplaced but to me, every day I survive, every time I overcome something like the storm it gives me hopes and right now that’s what I need most.