After the Storm

One of the literary sites I like a lot is featuring Italian translations this month. Check it out. I am.

The thunderstorm was a bad one, lightning and thunder happening simultaneously and constantly. Windows rattling. Floor vibrating. House shaking. I worried about Mom and kids crossing the Confederation Bridge today in all this wind and rain. Knowing Jenn and Jason, they probably left at the crack of dawn though and had already arrived before bad weather struck. Mom is a nervous wreck about driving after that fun trip to Sackville with Dad at the helm on Sunday. Next time she's driving, she says. THAT is how bad that whole thing was. I'm convinced only my overwhelming positive energy and focus kept us from being in an accident. There is no logical reason why that truck didn't hit us.

The storm was so bad I fled the loft fearing the roof might get picked up and carried away. I went downstairs into the front room with my favourite chair and all my books. Comfort. Some peace. A sense of security. And the spider. That damn spider, hanging out on the floor, spinning his web. I read poetry out loud to calm my nerves and he seemed to listen, dashing across the floor, wagging his long legs or staying perfectly still as the poem demanded. The longer the storm lasted, the more time I spent studying the spider, seeing how fast he could scurry when spooked, the more I disliked our co-habitation arrangement. Still, I might have let it continue if I hadn't envisioned walking into him in the middle of the night, dangling from his web right in front of my face, if I hadn't thought about him getting in my hair and falling down the back of my shirt, if he hadn't suddenly sprinted toward me like a bull on the attack . . . I could have let him live.

But hey, I warned him to stay out of sight. It's not my fault he didn't listen.