The End Is Nigh Pt. 2

This was going to be the first thing I was going to post about today, and then I started in on the other posts, so my little 'experience' this morning has to wait until now to be told to the world.

I thought the world ended this morning. Or at least my 8 square block section of Wauwatosa. Apparently, the church next door to my house got hit by lightning at 6:27 this morning. When I say "next door", I mean NEXT door. When I say "lightning", I mean a force of nature that was SO loud, it knocked a picture off the wall.

I'm a VERY sound sleeper, but I thought this was the end. I was sound asleep, and then there was the LOUDEST sound I've ever heard in my life. I've been in front of rock concerts, and fired shotguns, but this had 'em all beat. Everyone knows what a 'thundercrack' sounds like, and this was no exception. Except for the volume. Wow.

So the bang happens, and my heart rate pegs out at about 225 beats per min. I sit up in bed so fast, that I have no idea where I am, and I'm confused as all get out. It's kinda dark in the room, but light enough that I see a picture come off the hinge and fall to the floor. That's how fast I sat up. All I can hear is the 'after rumbles', and what I think is the sound of rain hitting the window, but I'm so startled, at that moment I'm not sure what that noise is. I looked at the clock, and saw 6:27, and thinking there should be more light outside.

So then I look over, and Robyn's not there. I think to myself, "that can't be good". A few things should have sunk in at that moment, but didn't. First is, that she's out of town, up in Door County. Second is, that even if she was in town, she would have left for work already, and wouldn't be in the bed at that hour anyway. But neither of those thoughts hit my rattled brain immediately.

You know how things can happen, and you have about 223,548 thoughts run through your head in about a half-a-second? And they're all crystal clear thoughts? Well, for about three-tenths of a second, I thought it was game over. Bomb went off in my front yard. Is this really what it's like to die? Plane hit the school across the street. If I were dead, wouldn't things seem a bit more clear now? Gas main blew up underneath the house. Lightning hit the house. I can feel my heart beating a mile a min in my chest, how can I be......

LIGHTNING!!! Ah yes! An explanation! I can't be dead! Just completely startled out of my mind. So now it's about four seconds after the strike, and mentally, I feel alot better, but my heart is still racing. As I waited for my neurons to return to normal, I thought about how people could survive a direct lightning strike. My words on this thing cannot describe the volume of the thunderclap, and I don't think I could fathom the energy released during a lightning strike.

So I think it took a good half hour to fall back asleep. I used to look forward to thunderstorms in the night. Now that I know there's a literal lightning rod on the building next to mine, I'm not so excited about them anymore.