When I was 9 I got caught outside in a thunderstorm. People who live in places where weather is tidy don't understand how this can happen. You know what tidy weather is right? It's when you look at the forecast to make plans. Oh it will be sunny on Friday but there is a chance of rain on Saturday; and they make plans knowing this is what will happen. Sunny Friday, rainy Saturday. Tidy weather.
Some of us live in places where at 10 AM it will be bright and sunny without a cloud in the sky and at noon it will be pouring down rain and at 2 PM it might be sunny or it might be hailing, who knows? But the forecast said it was going to be partly sunny with a chance of rain. Which is technically true. Just not tidy.
So, when I was 9 I got caught outside in a thunderstorm. I had been riding my bike enjoying a beautiful spring day after being cooped up all winter either inside the house or inside the dozens of soggy woolen layers we seemed to dress in before we could afford the miracle of Gore-Tex. There is nothing like feeling claustrophobic because of your sweater.
But on this beautiful day I was in jeans and t-shirt. Just riding my bike letting the wind blow through my hair, because we did not wear helmets. I don't think I knew anybody who even had a helmet. Oh wait! The Bronski brothers had helmets because they had actual dirt bikes. The motorized ones. Mini-motorcycles that they would take into the hills and just tear up all the trails. The kids I thought we so cool at 9 who grew up into the people that I absolutely hate seeing on public trails now. Keep your motorbikes off of the trails, you punks! They didn't change, I did. Which is an interesting thing to think about. I mean, I wasn't mad before, but now? Livid. It must be really confusing for them.
Oh, so anyway... riding my bike in the sun and suddenly the sky gets dark. Clouds rolled in fast. Which is never good. And I hear the first rumble of thunder in the distance. Well crap. I was too far from home to make it back before the storm was going to hit. But there was a concrete bridge not too far from where I was so I rode back to it and tucked up under the crossing to wait out the storm.
I got there just in time. As soon as I pulled my bike in with me the sky just opened up and the rain poured. The lightning and thunder started coming much closer. Lightning flash count and wait for the thunder boom. One mississippi, two mississippi...You know, the whole each second between the flash and when you hear the thunder is a mile. I think that's right anyway. Isn't it? Or wait, no, it was five seconds is a mile. If you were under five seconds you were in trouble.
So I'm sitting under the bridge watching the rain just sheeting down and counting the distance to the lightning strikes. Waiting it out. Thinking about how muddy it was going to be when it was done. What a mess riding home would be. Have you ever ridden a bike on muddy paths? Or even just wet streets? The spray comes off the back wheel and you get a brown muddy splatter line from your butt all the way up your back. Which, of course, if anyone sees you they say you pooped your pants. Which they know you didn't, but you still get really embarassed anyway. The worst is when you don't realize it's happening and you walk around the school hallways with it all day while everyone laughs behind your back. Kids are just mean, right?
Okay, yeah, so I'm sitting under the bridge while it rains waiting out the storm. And I start worrying about if it's going to rain enough that maybe where I am isn't safe. Like how dry is this gully actually? Is it one that gets a little trickle or is it one that gets a giant rush of water? Am I safer out there with the lightning or under here with the potential for a flood? And what if there is a flash flood that happens and I get swept away? Will anyone be able to find me? Would they even know where to look? It's kind of amazing to think about now, how a nine year old would be out riding their bike in the woods all by themselves with no cell phone, no little tag tracker on them, nobody knowing where you are. We just lived totally different lives, didn't we?
So I'm watching the sky as much as I can from under the bridge. Do I see the edges of the storm clouds? You know the patches of blue sky that start to show. That hint that it's almost over. And the rain is bucketing down and I'm watching the sky and a pterodactyl flies by and then I see the blue. Finally! It's a little muddy so I did have to walk my bike back out to the main road, and I was totally splattered by the time I got home. But all's well that ends well right?
It's crazy the things that happen when you are a kid that you don't even think about as being odd until later. I mean, nine years old in a thunderstorm and I don't think my parents even asked about it.
(writing prompt story, and I didn't follow it exactly, I'm sure you are all shocked by that, but here it is: Begin your story with a protagonist taking shelter under a bridge during a thunderstorm. An animal scurries past that shouldn't exist. Against their better judgement, they decide to follow it out.
I just liked the idea of this longer story with the really crazy part tossed in there as sort of an afterthought and the person telling you the story never even goes back to explain.)
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