Storm

     When the next storm came he drove out of the city and parked his car in the middle of a field where no one seemed to live. He unbuckled his seat belt and reclined his seat. The rain pelted the windshield with such force and frequency that he felt he was looking at a smeared oil painting.
     He loved how the sky sounded during a storm. The ceaseless chatter of the rain. The argument of the thunder. He liked to imagine that sheet lightning was the flash of a giant camera, capturing the scene from a privileged vantage point. But there was nothing that excited him more than fork lightning. The sudden stabs of light, nature's knives splitting trees and starting fires. A violence he felt safe from in his car.
     When the storm ended he drove back into the city where buildings blocked his view and people liked to talk.