Lightning

[poliphilo]

The window goes white. I listen and listen and finally the thunder happens- like someone muttering and chewing at the same time. Not close. But the lightning was so bright. They say you should turn your computer off when there's thunder around.

The way I picture it the electicity comes surging up the cables, gathers in the monitor, then leaps out at your face.

I was in a car once sitting on a hill top watching a thunderstorm come up the valley towards us. "We're safe," said my wife. "The tyres will earth us." The lightning came nearer and nearer.

It's odd but I don't remember any climax. Just the storm coming, not its passing over. Maybe we were hit after all and I'm writing this in some sort of an afterlife. No, that's silly.

That wife (the first one) had a cousin whose husband and child were killed by lightning. They were out swimming in the lake and the storm snuck up without them noticing it and...... my wife's cousin wasn't there on the beach; the news had to be delivered to her. (Picture the sherrif driving up. His walk to the door.) Afterwards people were always muttering about her just out of her hearing.

I turn off the computer. It takes so long to close. As it goes through its procedure I feel like we're running ahead of the storm. Only not running- dawdling. Your settings are being saved. Yes, yes- come on!

Blue screen.

Blue screen

Blue screen

Black.

Comments

[dakegra.livejournal.com]

you're safe in a car, as it's essentially a Faraday Cage

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

A great first opportunity to put my Fan Icon System into play!

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Most cars now use steel-belted tires. If they are worn, wouldn't the steel cause conduction? Would it stop grounding?

A friend's husband was driving in his car across a bridge when lightning struck both the bridge (knocked out a concrete chunk) and his car, which (according to friends who were following him) had blue light playing over the surface briefly.

The driver, however, only noticed lightning hitting the bridge and the great clap of thunder that followed.

The people behind him were more interested in how he had fared after his car was struck, which bewildered him.

We can have violent lightning storms here, and only last weekend someone was struck out on a lake. How awful to lose two people at once--I can't imagine. And it happens so fast.

[manfalling.livejournal.com]

that was a nice post. a little piece of history. wife. people dead. muttering. running from the storm. i like that. metaphor for something...

[dadi.livejournal.com]

Argh it makes me crazy to read people from all over northern Europe writing about their wonderful thunderstorms right now. I am dying from heatstroke here.. there is not an inch of air moving :(