A New Kind of Fear

This is a new kind of fear.  Overwhelming.  Constant.  Fear eating at the whole of you like a viral disease.

Yesterday, while poking at my computer in the house, I heard, off in the distance, the rumbling of thunder along the mountainous southern rim of the valley.  I could not see the storm coming for the wildfire smoke constantly flowing through the valley from the plethora of fires to our east.

Wanting rain, I fetched a folding camping chair from my garage and dragged it out my front door.  I unfurled the chair and sat on my front stoop.  In my own small way I hoped to urge rain to fall all around me.  I wished to bear witness if it came.

As of this morning, we are 40% behind our normal rainfall for the year.  We have not experienced an honest rainfall here at the house for well over a month.

The prairie in front of my house is fully cured and dry.  The grama grass and bunchgrass crackles as you walk through.  Pine trees have begun to sacrifice needles.  Every car or truck driving along the nearby ranch roads produces plumes of dust that rise up like fists and arms before they merge with the constant pall of smoke.

The thunderstorm grew bigger in the distance as I sat there.  I heard more substantial rumblings, felt pressure concussions against my shirt.  Then came thirty seconds of light pattering rain.

Thirty seconds.

First, a single drop darkening the concrete at my feet.  Then a dozen drops rattling through the leaves on my linden tree.  Then rain smell. 

I stood, walked out into the open.  A single drop struck the back of my hand.  Another dozen darkened the concrete at my feet.

At once the rain stopped.

Tease and withdraw. 

By the sounds of the thunder, by the feel of deep vibrations, I knew lightning was stabbing into the dry forests beyond me.

I dragged my folded chair back inside the house, feeling hopeless.  A few minutes later, my cellphone chirped.  I answered.  

“Lighting sparked a fire in the South Hills,” a sober voice on the other end said.  “Sounds like it’s heading for the subdivisions.”

There it is.

The fear.

--Mitchell Hegman