Occasional Scribbles

From an earlier post.

A huge slate grey thunderous cloud hangs low overhead.  As I walk through the middle of the vast wheat field I feel it cloying, smothering, it seems so near.  I think I hear a grumbling deep within its belly, like a monster stirring from slumber.  Huge rain drops begin to fall heralding an inevitable soaking.  I realise I will not get home without being drenched and since it is warm, storm warm, I make up my mind to embrace nature’s fickle temper.  I cast off any cares and lift my face to the skies.  It’s a lovely sensation and I shut my eyes and breathe in. There are lots of smells in the air when it is heavy like this – the corn smells stronger and there is a faint saltiness from the far off sea.

There’s something wild and exciting about being out in a storm.  I can feel the electricity thick in the humid air, a shiver comes over me as I realise that I am a good target for a lightening strike being out in the open space of the ‘Prairie’.  The trees are miles away leaving Skinny and I the only upstanding things around. 

I remember being in a lightening storm once before at the beach.  We were a long way from shore right out on the  sands as the tide was way way out.  Suddenly, one of the boys cried out with amazement and pointed at me.  I had very long hair then and I do not exaggerate when I say that it was standing on end, right above my head, like a sort of human hedgehog.

I remembered too, being a child and how we used to deliberately rub our jumpers on our tummies and then hold them above our heads, hair leaping to the static of the crackling wool, sparks flying, much to our amusement.  I’d looked across at the others and laughed wildly as they too had hair standing upright but it wasn’t quite as dramatic not being so long.  Some time later it struck me that the power of the electricity required to pull my hair up like that was immense and quite possibly thoroughly dangerous, out as we were on the sea bed, water lapping at our ankles.  How easy for lightening to reach down to the waiting signal and strike.

Back in the fields I felt quite nervous and wondered what the statistics are for people being struck by lightening in a large open area such as this.  Skinny, sensing the strangeness in the air had her nose pointed upwards and seemed to be ‘reading’ invisible signs, listening intently, head slightly tilted, dead still.  Genetic information handed down from her ancestors warned her to be cautious and she didn’t go far from me or run with her usual sense of abandon.  Large raindrops fell onto my face and ran down onto my neck.  Where they fell on Skinny, her coat turned a dark Palomino and her face, light grey usually, was dark ash now.  She looked completely different in the wet, dark shadows around her eyes made her look mournful and sorry for herself.

We walked on for a bit until a chill wind blew up and Skinny and I looked at each other, both seemingly thinking the same thing.  We ran for home, tearing across the field, up the lane, furious thunderous rumblings on our heels and leapt through the front door.

It was good to be home.