The World That Remains

Lightning flashes blue-gray against mountainside hills that in the daytime would be a dozen shades of green. We watch the storm trample over us in its rush to the eastern horizon. The only sound the clamoring thunder, the only other light the distant glow of somebody’s lamp in the hillside, looking like a bonfire from this far away.

 

There was just that little shadow before, when the traffic lights flashed and restaurants and supermarkets hung Closed signs, when the internet stubbornly would not connect, and I thought, what will we do, how will we pass the week, without plugging our brains into the amusements to which we are accustomed back home?

 

The way the lightning looks over the field is my answer. We stand transfixed.

 

The next night is clear. No lightning against a smear of sky, just every star, every constellation, even a glimpse of Saturn or Venus, glittering over our dumbstruck heads, giving the endless firmament a texture like mica in the concrete that we usually step right over. We look up in wonder and ponder if that misty wisp over us is a cloud or the Milky Way.

 

Suddenly, it does not matter at all if the network is down, if we cannot binge the latest earthly installment. This lightning in the valley, these stars over our heads are the part of the world that remains after our creature comforts are rudely denied us.