Summer Storm

Lightning flashes in the sky, lighting up the dark clouds that loom, but still no rain comes to break the mounting tension. Thunder rumbled and he was there.

Standing on the horizon, a dark figure against the darkening sky.

She had never seen him before, but she knew who he was; she knew he had come for her.

Another streak of lightning raced across the sky behind the figure and she could see the features of his strong, bearded face; could see the flash in his dark eyes; eyes that looked directly into hers.

She stood defiantly across the field, her chin raised up as she stared back at the man. Her own eyes shining fiercely with the flashing light.

The rumble of thunder began to fade as another bolt of lightning sparked anew with a cracking boom.

At this the dark figure starts toward her and she hurriedly stepped onto the dusty plain to match his stride. The dry, arid ground crunched under foot as they both made their way across the barren field, moving swiftly, straight toward one another.

Her heart beat built as she neared the tall, dark figure of the man, moving purposefully to her.

A dozen or so strides away from each other, they came to a halt and regarded each other in the quiet rumble of the storm building above them.

To her left, movement made her quickly look sidelong at a third figure that had come, seemingly out of nowhere.

A young boy with a dirty face and carrying a guitar taking up half the size of his body sauntered up lazily.

He too, stopped paces away and she looked back to the bearded man who had not taken his deep, black eyes off of her.

Her heart raced until all she could hear was its beating in her ears.

Another flash lit up the sky and the man flourished his arms and held one above his head and the other down and out towards her.

She took a breath in and was about to speak when the young boy's guitar sounded with a proudly strum chord.

He worked his little fingers deftly along the strings and the man, just as suddenly began to stamp his boots to the rhythm of the guitar, kicking up puffs of dust as he moved his arms fluidly with each stamp.

Not knowing what to do, she watched with amazement as, with a sudden pound on the top of his guitar, the young boy stopped his strum and began to sing in a loud, wavering voice and the man began clap to keep the beat.

Once the boy's first verse was complete he beat on his guitar again and began to strum and sing together as the man began to move in a wide circle around where she stood.

Unknowingly, she too began to clap rapidly to keep the beat and spin slowly around as the man moved his circle in closer to her. As they spun and turned, their eyes never left one another until they were only inches away from each other.

They began to move around each other; at the same time, with one another. Two figures, moving in and out of one the others' space, as the other move into where they had just been.

The boy's song suddenly stopped once again and she looked deeply into the man's eyes, which were not black, but the deepest brown, and the lightning flash with a thunderous crash.

Rain began to fall from the ripe clouds, patting down on the dry ground around them.

The boy sang a solemn chorus and, as the rain began to fall harder he began to strum once more, and the two figures became drenched as they danced with passion to beat of the drops hitting the long parched soil.

And when the last of the thunder rumbled away into the distance, she spun around to find she was alone.

She looked to the ground and saw it was muddied from the movements of the dance. The boy's song and his guitar faded in her ear while the brown eyes of the man burnt in her memory, and the rain fell, cooling her skin and at last quenching the land of its thirst.