Static

They say that before lightning strikes, the air will taste like ozone and the little hairs on your arms will all stand up in the static field. Each standing hair is unimportant in its own right. We probably pass through hundreds of electrical fields every day strong enough to pull a single arm hair. But when they’re all suddenly pulled in the same direction, it’s a signal. A divine understatement. Thousands of insignificant little tugs that collectively herald a direct connection to the afterlife or - for the survivors - a bewildered survey of ringing ears, smoke, and blackened skin. 

I wonder what that’s like. 

I ran out for some errands this week. I passed a collection of haggard, angry-looking “newcomers” at gas station. Behind the gas station, in the alley, were cardboard shanties and a trash fire. Three minutes down the road were the mansions of Preston Hollow. They have a Nordstrom there. It has a “no gun” policy pasted prominently on the front doors. 

A recent acquaintance opined that you can watch people move through a crowd and tell who’s been punched before. Seems relevant. 

There was another group of listless foreign men in a strip mall parking lot just up the highway. No, not that highway. The other highway. The one you’re thinking of is the one with a makeshift favela under every overpass. 

I passed a vagrant dying on the sidewalk. I turned around, wondering if I should put Narcan in my medkits. By the time I’d made a U-turn, the ambulance was arriving. Just like last time. And the time before that. 

My first destination was a shooting range. It was a warm, late-spring day and the complex was buzzy. Courses of fire chattered across the parking lot. A group in battle rattle was doing hill runs. Nearby, a group of fatherly suburbanites was running self-tourniquet drills. “Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine. All right, who bled out this time?”

From there, I popped by the grocery store. A massive Kroger. Part of the biggest grocery conglomerate in the country. There weren’t any Russet potatoes. Or zucchini. Or big tomatoes. Or cream. I grabbed two of the last six gallons of whole milk. At least there was plenty of wine. 

That evening, drinking that wine, I could hear street races nearby. Loud engines and squealing tires. No sirens. It ran for half an hour or so. To be fair, half an hour is a pretty decent response time for cops these days. Privately, cops I know say you’re lucky if they can show up at all. 

And if they show up after lightning strikes, well… they’re just there to write the report at that point. 

Time was compressed for dramatic effect, but these are all real-life observations from the last few weeks.