A Bad Case of Zeus

She still couldn't shake the previous night's dream. Awakened at four by thunder, Lindsay was curled in the chair by her bedroom window listening to the approaching storm. She imagined herself at the epicenter of a giant rumbling drum.

In her dream relentless rain rattles onto roofs; rushes along gutters; whooshes into grated street drains. The tops of her purple boots rub her knees as she sloshes through street rivulets. It is early morning, darkest before the dawn.

With eyes closed she could still see lightning flashes. Then one hit so close it jolted her upright in her chair. Flames have appeared in the thick darkness outside.

Moments later Lindsay was shooting the contents of her kitchen fire extinguisher at a burning limb. It had fallen from her elderly neighbor's sycamore tree into the center of the road.

A man ran out from another house with his own extinguisher. Together they doused the flames. They pulled the charred, smoking limb out of traffic's way. Then the tardy rain came.

Lindsay may as well have stepped underneath a waterfall. No dash to shelter was going to spare a single square inch of dry clothing. She sprinted after the man up the closest driveway into an open garage.

She steps into that so familiar brightly lit stainless steel diner. Clink, a spoon stirs coffee; churrr, the turn of a stool; ssst, pancake batter meets hot grill.

Her companion firefighter was Scott who worked second shift. A woman had been living with him for a little while but now it seemed to be just him and his big yellow dog. Lindsay's bare feet stood in the puddles that were dripping from her soaking wet cotton robe onto the cold cement of Scott's garage floor. She shivered.

"Hold on," Scott said. "I'll find you some dry clothes."

Everyone in the diner speaks a different language. A Rastafarian fry cook, his braids tucked up in a rainbow colored crocheted cap, hums reggae as he scrambles eggs. A dark haired waitress in a pink uniform clips up food orders written in Chinese characters. At the far end of the counter two Japanese men in impeccably maintained suits are eating pancakes and sunny side up eggs with chopsticks. Two nuns chow down on sausage gravy biscuits while conversing alternately in Italian and Polish.

She sits down on the one remaining stool next to a father and son. The father looks a lot like her husband. She notices a zigzag scar like a lightning bolt on the back of his left hand. They greet her with Buenas Dias. The boy says Me gustan sus botas. It's Babel except that no one seems to notice.

Rain continued to pour down onto the dark street. Scott's voice startled her.

"We must be the only insomniacs on the block." He handed over a gray sweat suit.

"The Millers are on vacation. So are the Lees."

"Makes sense," he said. "Put the garage door down if you need privacy and then come in for coffee. Unless you think you'll get back to sleep."

Soon she was sipping hot brew while watching the Weather Channel in Scott's newly remodeled rental kitchen. The worst of the storm was clearing their area but was not diminishing in power. In Carroll County to the southwest power lines were down and streams were raging.

The camera focused in on an all night diner. Scott whistled. No wonder, a V-section in the middle of the restaurant was completely burned out.

"Lightning struck Reggie's Truck Stop at about three o'clock this morning," the reporter said. "It appears to have hit a propane tank . . . ." Although an ambulance blinked orange behind the reporter, there was no specific word on injuries or worse.

"Lin-Zee," says the waitress. "What'll ya have?" But a great bright flash cuts off her answer.

"Hey," Scott said, "you look like you're going to faint."

"That's my brother-in-law's place." That brother-in-law would not let her sister attend her wedding; at her husband's funeral he had told Lindsay it was a blessing she hadn't had children.

She thanked Scott for the coffee and clothes. Realizing she did not know his last name, she stuck out her hand. How informal Americans were was something her husband could never understand.

"Lindsay Hernandez. Nice to fire fight with you."

"Scott Cohen," he said.

Back at her house Lindsay made unproductive calls to her sister's home, cell, and best friend's voice mail. She felt a distance between them greater than the geography of forty miles. It was the distance of dreams and informality. Wait and see or go and wait?

"She is my sister," Lindsay spoke aloud.

Fifteen minutes later she was on the road to Carroll County. If all was well, she'd have French toast with scrapple.