Sudden Valley Storm

It came on so quickly, my eyes refused to leave a sky that was changing like a painting done in time-lapse photography. A sheet of black and grey was being pulled over the bed of the valley, filtering lightning into flickers. Stillness stood erectly, replaced a finger snap later by gusts of sapling-bending wind exceeding 60 miles per hour carrying the desert’s dust, as saguaros arms flexed with impenetrability. Another stillness struck, until the clouds answered rending rain with strength of a handful of BBs flung angrily onto a tile floor.


When the saturating downpour overhead let up, I saw columns of inundating showers pelting other parts of our valley, as lightning now shed its cloud cover, undisguised bolts shooting laterally and downward like tracers of electrified arrows flying wildly in a battle of unseen sky gods.

It was over in an hour, leaving 'that' smell of dust and moisture and that of a desert which has gotten its quenching swallow, whilst another battle ensued, one of air fighting to hold its humidity as the twilight's heat strangled and squeezed to wring out its damp existence ever so imperceptibly.