Distant Lightning

There is something about distant lightning that gives a feeling of security to the one who's watching its glow on the horizon. I reckon it's a distance thing.

When I was a boy people would sit on the porch after sundown. There was no air conditioning and I reckon they were waiting for the house to cool down before they went to bed. Also, there was no TV to draw them inside and the radio could be heard just as well from the porch as in the hotter living room. But most times the radio was silent, they wanted to talk. I learned a lot about what was going on in the town and the world from their conversation; from their perspective, of course.

As a young boy, not yet in my teens, I needed more than their talk to hold my attention. The squeak of the springs holding the weight of the porch swing and swingers and the soft voices if the old folks gave almost perfect conditions for a boy's imagination to come forth. Often, there was distant lightning, so far that the sound of thunder was diminished and inaudible to my young ears. I pretended the glow was from cannon shot and bombs bursting in air (excuse my plagiarism). I was transported to Iwo Jima, Wake Island, or some other battle scene I learned of from the radio or in the movies. Maybe it was boredom or maybe a yearning for adventure. More likely it was the secure feeling I got from knowing I could pursue my fantasy with no chance of losing a limb or being blown to smithereens.

Tales of Harper, short stories and poems about the fictional town of Harper, Mississippi is available on Amazon Kindle