Golden Lightning

You step from the building, you’ve been in for the past eight hours. A just little depressed and not just a little lonely. Those thoughts are quickly put out by the memory that fills your olfaction. Rain. You smile despite yourself and start the long walk home. A thought flashes in you mind, will my books get wet in my bag, but the thought is washed away by the next drop of rain that gently hits you on the forehead. You turn slightly as you walk to get a better look at the storm that is boiling over the mountains. It is coming from north to south riding the ridge line of the mountains. The clouds are thick and dark, lit to look purple in the light of the setting sun. I wander where the lightning is, you think as your head swings back around to look at the mesa to the east. An the next instant your minds explodes in a battle as your eyes catch the bright flash of heavens meeting earth of to the right. Your are not even sure what that battle is about but it is over as quickly as the lightning. You are not sure who won or what was won but you are sure that threw out the maelstrom that was your mind for that instant there was only one constant. The mesa. The idea sticks and you turn your step not really sure what you intend. You move quickly east across town. As your feet move from asphalt and cement to dirt your path begins to rise. Ever few moments the world is cast into bright light and you start counting, out of habit, the time between light and sound. Fifteen.

You keep your eyes on the trail not wanting to make a stupid step. The whole idea of going to the highest point around during a thunderstorm is a stupid step there is no need for another. You push the thought from you mind and hike on.

Flash. Ten.

You keep climbing rounding the next switch back.

Flash. Five.

The next switch back.

Flash. Three.

You come to the second to last switchback before the trail levels out. Just on the edge of your vision you see the bright elegance of a bolt, like a jagged woman, touch down in the bottom of the valley. You head snaps without thought to the base of the bolt. In that instant you see a figure at the base of the bolt. You see yourself. Not all of you just the part of you that wanted to take the quick, easy and safe way home. Would I have been at the base of that bolt? You think in awe at the fact that you chose that dangerous was home. A darker part of your mind speaks, having been awaken but the recklessness. I wonder what it felt like. The magenta afterimage of the bolt fades from you eyes and you keep hiking, oddly at ease.

You reach the high stone formation that sits above the town like an unmoving guardian. You drop your pack and sit watching the storm roll off to the south. The lightning still flashing as heaven and earth continue their battle that was started long before history. You turn your head and see the bright reds and pinks and golds of the sun sinking behind the mountains. Three forks of lightning lash out to our left. A gentle peaceful smile spreads across your lips as the last drop of rain hits you on the nose. It no longer matters what drew you up here or if that bolt would have hit you if you had gone another way.

All that matters is that the peace of the setting sun is balanced by perfectly by the turmoil of the storm. And the rock on which you sit is the fulcrum.

You lay back and become part of the balance.