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Lightning

January 22, 2008

On a rainy April night, Mother Nature hastily draws shiny veins in the velvety almost surreal sky. They meet, kiss and cross to form shapes that dazzle with their intricacy. The mind is quick to identify what they resemble. For a brief second dancing bears, bloodthirsty vampires, and fire-breathing dragons coexist in the fairy tale that unfolds on the celestial screen. As they vanish, the marching entourage of some breath-takingly beautiful princess from a distant land takes their place. A blink of the eye and they are gone as well. Cuddled safely on the couch in my home, I watch.

3 comments

  1. I like how you seem to bring yourself into this only at the end, when in fact the whole piece is comprised of and relies on your observation and interpretation of the event. The last line might seem to limit the exchange between lightning and the observer, but I think that you have more than one level of narrative distance going on here….!


  2. Thank you for the thoughtful comment. Indeed that was exactly my idea. I was influenced by “In The Current” (we read it in class) where the the author narrates what is going on, and then in the very she says that, oh by the way, she is there too.


  3. [...] way Jo Ann Beard plays with narrative distance in “In the Current” influenced my 100 words on “Lightning” and Moore’s “Self-Help” (yes, I checked it out) stories written in second person inspired the [...]



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