A window-rattling bang woke me with my heart skidding. As soon as I opened my eyes, the bedroom was lit up by a lightning flash, then another, then a peal of thunder that sounded like housesized boulders being dropped on a steel floor. Sleep was out of the question. I got up and went to the window. Outside was pandemonium. Lightning flashed every few seconds, each stroke followed instantly by thunder. The storm was right on top of me. No steamboats. The branches of the tree in front of my house were flailing in terrific gusts, and the almost continuous flickering of the purple-white lightning—like a strobe light—captured the movement of the leaves and branches in stop-motion. I saw the wet green of the new maple leaves as they twisted and fluttered in the wind. Above the tree, lightning bolts laced the sky like instant maps of dazzling rivers. It was a terrific spectacle, and I watched until the gaps between the lightning and the thunder stretched longer and longer and the flashes began to fade in the distance.
