I entered a café three blocks away, got a coffee, and sat by the window. It was only a quarter after three, but the thick, tenebrous clouds had swept in and blotted out the sun, turning day into night. The wind howled, its brisk sibilance heralding the promise of the coming storm’s ferocity. Deafening thunder sent people scurrying. The café’s tables filled and those left to stand did so while peering out with morbid curiosity. And then the rains came, hard and heavy as though, by some cataclysmic curse, the lake itself had been flipped upside down and dumped on top of us. The world turned to a milky soup only a foot beyond the glass, yet the constant strikes of lightning lit the land and offered occasional glimpses of wind-bent trees and inside-out umbrellas bouncing by. Deep torrents formed and cleansed the streets of the dust and dirt that had settled in the long stretch since the skies last opened. And as the storm grew, becoming darker and fiercer and taking on the mythic proportion of something pulled from a fairy tale, I began to wonder if I’d ever seen one quite so perfect before. And then, without notice, the storm ended, every bit as abruptly as it began. The rain had poured for fifteen straight minutes without once letting up; it didn’t lessen and there was no tapering off. The storm was there and then all of a sudden it wasn’t, as nothing that burns with that rate of intensity ever burns for very long.

The sun returned, shining high and bright as though there’d been no interruption. The air was rich, smelling of wet pavement; wisps of steam lifted off the cars, and stooped trees looked like bedraggled drunks fighting gravity. The temperature drop was only transient and the day grew warm again and the humidity was even worse. Water stood in deep puddles while nascent streams raced along the curbs carrying away broken branches, clumped-together leaves, and other detritus that dammed the sewer grates and created ponds that reached from one side of the street to the other.

My feet were soaked when I got home. I kicked off my sandals and called Carolyn but she didn’t answer. I hadn’t expected her to. I made dinner and ate with my feet propped on the windowsill. The trains ran slowly. One inched by and then another came five minutes later and completely stopped. I could see the people sitting impatiently. I toasted them with my sweaty glass of ice water but none acknowledged me back.