Water from the Sky

The storm introduced itself with a gust of wind of the kind that snaps trees and sends logs flying through the air. Earth-quaking thunder passed over. The electrical power shorted out at 11 p.m. Soon the violent part of the storm was over. My device's battery ran down and, with nothing else to do in the pitch darkness, I went to to bed wondering what I'd see outside in the morning.

The pump is electric, so the only water was in the pipes and there wasn't much. I had filled pans with water as the storm approached, and had also put in a few gallons' supply, but these bottles past their expiration date tasted chemical, so I used it only for washing. Made a cup of tea. All things, including my life, felt like luxuries. Going outside I saw downed branches but nothing serious; my fragile tomato plants were undamaged. In fact all plants sang with happiness because they'd been rained on. With great curiosity I approached the rain gauge and was amazed and grateful to see a full two and a half inches. So ended the hottest and most dreadful stretch of drought here since the Dust Bowl days.

For a while I tried recharging my device through my car battery to check the electric company's outage map, but soon ran low on gasoline. I couldn't work on the computer so I took a walk and saw a swollen, muddy LaBarque where there had been only a thin nagging trickle. I then swept leaves from my porch, broke down boxes for recycling in the garage, and had my first full day outdoors for many weeks; the storm cooled the air from the 100s to the 90s. As it got too warm I went into town to an air-conditioned hair salon to get a haircut I'd been putting off.

Just as the day was beginning to be not so wonderful, when after 16 hours without electricity I started to think about the spoiling food and useless toilet, the electric power resumed and everything indoors sang too.