Thunder Thursday

Grey lumpy clouded sky, graphite and lead, dark and frightening filled with flashes and bangs and deep grumbling noises that lift the hairs on the back of your neck and make you wish that you were safe at home and not in your car in the middle lane of the motorway with the red taillights of the stopped cars ahead of you on the carriageway that is rising up the hill but is now running with a sheet of water that washes into the gutters and overwhelms them spewing out debris and swirling into small streams and rivers that chop and churn like a storm at sea and all the while the drops of rain that are the size of fifty pence pieces are hammering on the metal roof of your vehicle that somehow edges up a slip road and over the motorway to try and avoid the gridlocked traffic only to find that every other way is blocked with tons of filthy water that has filled any hollow or dip in the way with run off from the surrounding fields and gardens and car parks and that is filled with grit and sand and drinks cartons and newspapers and crisp packets and through which the cars are making their way gingerly, waiting their turn to drive through water that reaches over the tops of the wheels and with the drivers praying at the steering wheel that their engine doesn’t stall and that they don’t get caught in the bow wave of an oncoming car and get washed off the road and are carried away by the ever growing swirling and eddying currents of water, more water than has ever fallen, more than a month of rain in a few minutes and still the clouds are crashing and grinding and still the lightening is flashing and arcing and discharging its awesome and wondrous power thirty times a minute, every other second and fear takes hold, a primeval fear, the fear of being powerless and weak and small and insignificant against the majesty and dominance of the tempest that rages outside as you edge your car forward past people standing drenched and helpless as the torrents of water rush over their garden walls and through their shattered doors and windows to pick up their possessions and toss them outside against the street furniture, shattered and shredded but there is nothing that can be done to stem the flow as the rain is still falling and pooling and running and bursting through broken drain covers and is forced back upwards in jets and geysers to replenish and refill and fall again to pluck and pick at the tarmac surface that is crazed and cracked and pot-holed and coming apart which makes the roads even more difficult to pass and all the while your windows are steaming up making visibility poor and the temperature is rising as the heating is on and the vents are open to try and clear the mist that sticks to the inside of the glass and you loosen your tie and run your finger around your neck under the collar of your shirt because you know that you still have a long way to go and you wish that you were safe and sound at home and you realise that your every day life that you think is stable and solid and safe is only a breath away from chaos and confusion and fear should nature choose to remind us of her might.