Out of a Blue Sky

I was sitting in my car. The sunlight was beating down relentlessly. The sweat was dripping down my face and falling off the tip of my nose. I was eating a turkey and swiss on rye sandwich and listening to the weather band. I could hear the rumbles of thunder all around me with great looming thunderheads in the sky. The horizon was deep blue/black and looked ominous.

Suddenly, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. POP! In a flash, a lone strike of lightning came out of one of the thunderheads and landed near my car on the hilltop. The subsequent crash and rumble of thunder was a loud, booming, immediate crack that made my ears ring. It was so loud it was almost deafening. It scared the holy shit out of me.

Needless to say, my storm watching adventure came to an end. I realized I was next best thing to a lightning rod sitting in my car on the biggest, treeless hilltop for miles. I ate the last of my sandwich, finished my milk, cranked up the car, and navigated down the dirt trail to the main dirt road and headed home.

My ears are still ringing but what an adrenaline rush.