The Lightning Clown

And the air was like a scented candle of hail, dust, and pollen. The fruit leather composition of the unstable humidity, sticking to the throat just above the lungs with a consistency of molasses. It was like drinking a jolt of electricity, the ozone taste causing all the hairs on the body to stand up and the pupils to dilate.

Marianne Arnold held her breath as if anticipating the relief of a hefty sneeze or the fresh cut flavor of pine tree Christmas presents beneath the lighted tree and floating in a pool of mystery.

The little girl stood in the kitchen of the small white house. To those who happened by on the quiet street would have noticed the quaint doll like face in the window, with intense and beautiful green eyes simply staring towards the outside with the inclinations of deep thought and concentration. She watched as the bright summer day metamorphosed into an ominous witch’s brew of smoky purple and a thickening darkness.

“Mother, its almost here,” she shrieked in anticipation. The comfort of the sun folded to streaks of bent light and swirling winds.

“Yes dear,” said her mother walking into the kitchen with arms full of sundries and random household goods. “I want you to stay inside the house this time.”

“Okay,” the girl ran out of the kitchen and into the front hallway and the windows bordering the front door, tracking the satisfaction of the complete deterioration of the well behaved afternoon.

The growing colors flashing, she noticed the grass between the cracks of the sidewalk grew tall and blended into the foliage enveloping the temperate pavement. Life was everywhere as she shivered in the surrounding cloud of discharged energy.

"Pop", a flash of lightning streaked across the sky, now violet with a tempest’s mascara.

“One, two, three, four…,” she softly counted to keep her ears open for the ultimate fun.

"Boom", a reverberating thud shook the cobwebs and dust from the ceiling of the house. The windows reacted like waves crashing through the rocks of the intra-tidal zone. An angry rumble filled with fury and a relentless path of destruction was born.

Marianne clapped her hands as hail or rain or rain and hail pummeled the blades of the front lawn in the form of small white spheres of sugar. Somehow the intensity of the high arching sun, angled through the putrid sky and light one of the oaks adjacent to the road with the blue flame brilliance of a welder’s torch.

“Dear, get away from the window please,” her mother’s voice seemed to originate in another world and lost all substantial meaning next to nature’s light show of passive destruction.

Across the street from the blazing tree on Pine Avenue stood the empty white bench of the bus stop. The multitudes of precipitation bounded off the glossy white paint of the bench, her bench as she was responsible for all those who sat in comfort or cold waiting for the bus.

Suddenly, a novel thought shot through her mind. “Mom, can I put a cup out in the yard.”

The storm now heightened to an almost indefinable intensity, like the constant growl of an angry bear, washing the roof with the force of a waterfall. Her young mind wanted to be part of the chaos and capture the frenzy and discourse of the unstable heavens. Goosebumps appeared on her arms as imagination coursed through her veins.

“Absolutely not! You stay inside,” her mother’s voice grew faint. “I have to go downstairs for a few minutes.

Momentarily disappointed she looked again out onto the world of water and tedious sunlight and imagined she was in a vast jungle of a rainforest and covered with insects and small reptiles, the channel of waterways through the ferns ferrying an array of exotic creatures. The only human like forms were the larger than life orchids, submarines, fish and lizard people swaying in the humid green aridness of the shadows.

She looked out again and focused on her bench, hoping and yearning that someone who shared her appetite for adventure would appear. As the gaze from the sun was suddenly gone from the looming tree, she noticed a dark shape materializing on the bench. At first she thought it was the shadow from any number of objects in the neighborhood and it took her mind a full ten seconds to realize that this was not the case. Neither was her sharpened imagination responsible for the wavering form draped over the middle of the bench. The river of rain and hail was being diverted by a mass of some substance and definition. She yelled in surprise, “There’s someone out there!”

“Mom!” she stopped and listened to the silence of the storm, “There’s someone out there.”

Instantly a spasm of fear and exhilaration swept through her being as she realized that the person outside was truly outside and not protected by the safety of the house. Her wish had come true.

The figure sat cold and still, wearing a broad rimmed hat, which seemed unchanged by the hail, lightning and rain. She noticed that the hat discarded the liquid ingredients of the storm directly to the foot of the bench, where a growing pond of storm water rippled in the wind.

Without thinking she ran out of the front door and jaunted into the full force of the storm. “Marianne!” the scream of her mother was torn to nothing by a flash of lightning and bulldozer of thunder.

Feeling as though her legs never touched the saturated ground, she bounded effortlessly towards the bench, her heart in her throat and the tickle of sweat running down her forehead with the cold rain. She came to a graceful halt as another combination of thunder and lightning racked the neighborhood like the snap of a whip. She felt not the cold hard terror of fear or the clouds of precipitation, only a vibration of peace of warmth.

“Hello,” she said. Her breathless voice was nearly carried away by the wind.

On the bench sat an old man as ancient as a grandfather with a twinkle in his eye. His white mustache was as white as the frozen styrofoam like hail and his blue suit seemed dry as he was perched in a comfortable arch and almost oblivious to the storm.

“Hello Marianne,” his voice was an abundance of treasures and travels. The words sounded like the bells of tea at four and the happy music of carnivals in autumn. “How old are you now?”

“How do you know my name,” her voice quivered and she looked at him for the first time as a stranger. There was a familiarity to the piercing blue eyes smiling at her, but she remained cautious.

“I know your grandfather, and he talks about your everyday,” as the old man spoke the thunder grew silent. “He is so proud of you,” the eyes became a deeper and more complex sort of blue as if shining. “You are a brave and beautiful girl.”

Her Grandfather had been dead since her fourth birthday. Confused, but tempered by the wonders of imagination the girl looked into the pearl blue eyes and listened.

“Your Grandfather and I fought in the great war together,” the old man hesitated. “I used to play catch with your father when he was about your age,” he smiled nervously as if he had misspoken. To the girl’s wonderment, a few stray drops of rain and hail had actually stained his suit in small dark circles and he shivered.

“Have you seen my Dad?” The tiny voice beckoned above the wind, her green eyes displaying a quaint understanding of the situation.

The old man looked into the depths of her soul as if choosing the words carefully, “I am sorry about your father.” Mists of water and ice pummeled his head and his suit almost completely dripped into nothingness. It was if he was melting away.

“I am eight years old,” she looked down at her dress as if expecting to become part of the storm, a princess of the rain and toads, but her clothes remained dry as if roasting by a campfire. “Would you like to come inside for some cocoa and marshmallows? My mom makes the best cocoa.”

The old man withered in the sheets of rain and wind. “I know she does Marianne, but I am going to have to politely decline your offer. You see...,” he stopped as the sun reappeared on the grand Oak. “You see, there are certain times in life when everything is perfectly balanced,” he continued.

“Do you remember when your teacher put something of equal weight on each side of the scale?” The little girl nodded. “This storm, the energy, it’s as if God knows that you and your mother need looking after,” the old man paused. “The storm is almost over. You see?” The little girl stared at the brilliant sky off in the distance, the true blue of the atmosphere shining like summer. “Always remember,” he grabbed for her arm. “There is still a small grain of magic in the stars,” his withered hand touched her elbow, the shock of power plants and transformers firing a sense of peace through out her soul.

"Never stop wishing."

As the tendrils of the sun fought for control of the sky and the brightness of the day increased in a pale luminescence compatible with the exhilarating purities of dawn, the old man began to fade from her vision. The smooth shape surrounding his being becoming rougher and rougher as if a piece of fabric was being torn out from the present and exposing the wonders of timelessness. As the full force of the sun hit the back of her head, she stood crying and alone, her hair and dress soaked with the essence of the atmosphere. Only the puddle at the foot of the bench remained, now a chocolate milk concoction of mud and leaves and evaporating in the renewed warmth of the day.

“Marianne,” she heard her mother call. “Marianne, what were you thinking child?”

“I’m sorry mother,” she ran to meet her mother in the middle of the roadway, the pavement already drying with the sun’s fires. The woman and the girl embraced in the middle of the street in front of the diminutive white house. The two figures dwarfed by the wizened oaks and miles of clear blue atmosphere out into the reaches of the vacuum and wonders of the cosmos. For the first time in her life she sensed a vulnerability in her mother based on unconditional love. She vowed to improve her behavior as she continued to hug her best friend in the world.

Twenty years later and in her final days of graduate school, she glimpsed out of the ancient windows of the ivy covered building overlooking the lawns and green trees now bombarded with the seeds of a thunderstorm. Her life had been a string of brilliant successes, with only a few moderate setbacks. As she reached adulthood, she noticed that her world flowed in a smooth cycle, the bumps and tragedies of childhood cancelled out by triumphs and good fortune. It was if there was a benevolent force ever present and refining the pathways that she chose.

Without thinking, her laptop briefcase hanging from her right shoulder, she bounded into the vortex of the cold frenzy and across campus.

“Hey you,” she heard a voice call out over the courtyard.

“Hey you. Are you crazy?”

She stopped and turned around. A young man was jogging towards her. Curiously, he carried a folded umbrella, but appeared completely dry against the torrent of hail and rain. “Are you are trying to catch a cold," he asked, the voice laced with concern. "Let me walk you to wherever you're going."

She almost hesitated, energized by the unpredictability of the performance of the unstable skies and wanted to cherish the exhilaration of the journey for herself. However, something inexplicable compelled her to reconsider as she glanced into the young man's eyes. She experienced a sense of warmth in his presence, like being near a camp fire on a chilly night as the familiar piercing blue eyes smiled back at her with an increasing intensity. They burned into the very nature of her soul.

“Will you join me for a cup of cocoa and marshmallows?” she grabbed the young man's hand and felt the electric shock of pure joy.