Blasts in the Sky

by FERENC IVANICS
Walking by an orange plantation Valencia came tom my mind immediately, though it was an abandoned plantation on sale. The quality of the oranges is fare from their Spanish cousins’, but they are OK to make juice. I stare at the thriving clouds above the orange trees, they remind me of giant cauliflowers, enormous cauliflowers, let me tell you. We would need a giant fan to blow these clouds away. But there’s no giant fan at hand, even though I would like it very much.

The clouds look impressive in the setting sun’s light, you see all the bulges and holes there, as they submerge into regions of pastel orange, pink, violet then blue as the sun submerges into the horizon. I like these clouds, like them when they are far away. I close one of my eyes, trying to focus on a branch of an orange tree while looking at the clouds in the background. I’m trying to figure out the direction they are heading. I’m hoping they will pass round us, but it’s just hope: I guess I already figured out a few minutes ago that they are coming this way. I hear a low rumbling in the background. It’s growing darker and you can see the flashes inside the monster-cloud. The flashing potential paints the clouds evil greenish violet.

“Oh yeah, they call us The Lightning Capital”, said the assistant at a gas station a few days ago. He told us that lightnings in Florida are the second heaviest in the world, you have to go somewhere in Africa to see larger ones. And he added that every year there are fatalities, people who have their soul removed by the giant light-whip. Another thunder wakes me up from my thoughts, it’s getting closer. Crackles than a half-a-minute long rumble follows. Now the lightning bolts are visible, too. I feel that it would be better to retire to my tent. Even though I don’t really feel safer inside, it’s better then standing outside. But I’m glimpsing out of the tent to see the infernal show.

An immense lightning strikes in the distance, practically sticks to the ground pulsing for seconds and growing a dozen branches that split into twigs, and even these twigs split into smaller paths. It almost covers half the sky. As if it were roots of a giant oak above our head. The crash of the main trunk fills and shakes the air then the cracks and pops of the branches and twigs follow. The rumble goes on for two minutes. I’m getting a bit worried.

I close the window of the tent and lay down. There’s no chance to sleep. I start to count seconds between large strikes and thunders. One, two, three... seven, eight... Bang! A minute passes and the tent’s skin lights again. One, two, three... five, six... Bang! Damn, it’s coming closer. I’m curling up into embryonic pose. My thoughts revolve around those basements where women, men and children huddle up and share their fears raised by the bombings. I’m scared, pretty much, though I know that the chances of survival are pretty high. Weapons of modern warfare are much more devastating than lightnings. Is that fear any different when you know that a bomb can shred you, your family, your friends and neighbors into peaces anytime? When the storm passes a clean sky stays and nature takes a breath, almost as if nothing have happened. But when you step out of the basement you expect to see debris and hear cries. Modern warfare: they let the machines take care of it. Machines don’t hesitate when pulling the trigger, there’s no need to face the terrible consequences. I push a button here, and there lay thousands dead there. There’s a small smoke patch on the satellite image. The screams, the blood are secondary information.

Another huge lightning strikes. One, two, three... nine, ten: Bang! It’s drifting away. Thanks heavens, Armageddon’s been canceled tonight. Nature provides us many goods but in the next moment it hits fiercely. Some say that this is the order and hazard of the physical world. Others think that we can control nature. Anyways, it takes a lot of our momentum to fight down hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, earthquakes, eruptions, floods and droughts, etc. And besides these challenges we kill each other. Shouldn’t we all get along to keep ourselves safe? Why is it better to spend our knowledge and gifts on sibling wars? It’s just plain crazy, everyone knows that.

As the storm is getting farther away my heartbeat is slowing down. I’m starting to calm down. I stretch myself on the floor of the tent and go to sleep. We have to get up early tomorrow, even if everyone else is still dead asleep...