The Sound and the Fury

The largest thunderstorm I have ever encountered was when I was a young boy, living in the sleepy hollows of suburban New Jersey. I remember it clearly – the way it encroached from a distance, the dark clouds glowering at me as it mumbled indistinctively. The wind would stir and then pull itself into a gale; tree trunks would jerk and recover time and again as their branches and leaves gave up all rigidity and began to do their delirious dance.

After half an eternity, the storm would finally arrive at our doorstep. You can probably use your imagination to illustrate the sensory cacophony here: The instant illumination followed by the deafening thunderclaps, the howling wind pressing against the house as the wood protests with creaks and moans, and the relentless pitter-patter of the rain. But most significantly, the loudest sound to a boy at that age is the beating of his own heart. It drums unevenly without tempo as it swells within the chest, creating a hurt that you don’t quite mind. This half-hearted anxiety instructs your mind to pay attention, to keep your eyes open, and to let the rhythm of the storm carry, rather, deliver you because resisting it would mean to accept some portion of fear into your life.

The power went out. So went the gas. I lived in a large house then, and everyone would come out of their separate lives, drawn together by instinct, the way unsheltered animals would during similar circumstances. Mother Nature still has the ability to herd her children. But we weren’t wet, cold, or hungry – we had become lost in the storm. Mom would gather the candles as the rest of us, dad and two brothers, would turn the house inside out for lighters and matches (this was no easy task – we never thought to prepare for thunderstorms). Finally, the candles would burn slowly as we sat together, our faces glowing in the flickering light. We would see each other clearly for the first time in ages. We remembered what a family was.

And then the storm would lift, its final protests being inconsequential to any of us. The lights would return, and so did the TV. And the computers. We’d become ourselves again.But outside, everything new awaited. The smells unlocked by the moisture; the crispness of it all.

There would be a bird with enough sense to welcome all of this with a brand new song.