A weathered screen door slapped against its frame as the woman looked at the bruised sky and shielded her face, dust and sand scratching the back of her hand. Birds wheeled, darting between the leaves flashing their pale undersides.
“Eric!” she called, “Find your sister and get inside.”
The storm’s scent washed over her, an aroma like musty newspapers whispering forgotten secrets in a basement. She glanced at the darkening horizon and knitted her brow.
“I hope the power holds out,” she murmured. “At least the TV’ll keep ‘em quiet.”
Lightning flared and four blocks over, a boy cocked his head in the wind, closed his eyes.
“One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three, one thousand four,” he counted off until the low rumble met his ears. His hair whipped across his forehead as he fished another rock from his hand and arced it toward the crying child ringed by the others.
“Go home, you retard,” the boys shouted, grinning wider as their target’s moans grew.
A quick flash glowed inside the billowing clouds. Thunder bubbled in low tones over the miles as the storm chuckled.
Fat raindrops slapped the sidewalks. Trees tossed and tangled as cars hissed across the steaming blacktop.
“Soo-ooonnnnyy,” a girl called from her porch. “Sonny come home!”
A dog’s ears peaked and he trotted toward the voice. As he rounded the corner and spied the girl, he loped into the street.
A car honked as its tires squealed for purchase. The dog’s yelp stabbed the driver’s heart but the girl’s scream sliced it wide open.
Lightning cracked in the churning clouds as the storm laughed.
The wind pushed a shopping cart into a storefront, triggered an electric eye. A child wailed and fell to the floor, his mangled finger twitched alone on the ground by the automated door.
The storm flashed its electric smile across the purple sky and guffawed.
The rain streaked sideways, hammered windows and walls searching for any way inside. In an upstairs bathroom, a man clumsily smeared hot tears across his cheeks with the back of his arm. His hands shook as he opened his mouth, wide, wider, then squeezed a trigger and ended his pain and loneliness in a crimson flower that trickled down the tiled wall.
Hail bounced from the sidewalks and rooftops. It cracked a skylight as a man beneath it licked his lips and tugged a shirt over a child’s head. He ignored the trembling little mouth and watery eyes as reached for his own zipper.
Lightning seared the heavy air, ripped the afternoon like old burlap and made a bedside nurse jump and squeal. The lights flickered as an oak limb crashed into a worn car outside the nursing home. She ran in panic from the room, unaware of the beeping machinery and the patient’s eyes that rolled back and away.
And the storm roared.
Soon, the barrage waned as the tempest flowed past. The air was thick, singed with burnt ozone.
A boy on a bike raced down a sidewalk, over the leaves and twigs and green acorns. He heard a crackle as he stopped and saw an open beak and bedraggled blue feathers under his wheel. Overhead, little mouths opened and tweeted in vain for their next meal.
And in the distance, the storm chortled.
