Half an hour ago I was watching bees happily bumbling in the comfrey patch.
From out of nowhere it seems, there is suddenly torrential rain. The sky splits with lightning.
One by one the cats careen in from wherever they have tried to shelter from the downpour, soaking wet and complaining loudly and plaintively about the rain as I towel their fur dry.
Hemlock - the biggest, baddest, blackest witch's cat you've ever seen - is spooked by the thunder and crawls into my lap for comfort, pushing his soft face against me as I hold and soothe him.
Outside the back door, the white roses - just minutes earlier a-buzz with bees - now hang like wet rags, yet the air is still fragranced by their perfume. Torn petals float limply in the growing puddle by the doorstep.
Rain hammers the windows, rattles on the roof and pours from flooded gutters. Again and again the flick of lightning is followed by thunder's bellowing roar. I count between each flash and rumble, tracking the progress of the storm as it moves closer, passes overhead and then starts to recede.
The world is now quiet but for falling rain, as every living thing shelters, waiting for the drama to pass.
The rain lessens, the thunder is gone. The sky lightens. Hemlock purrs.
This storm is passing. A microcosm of the macrocosm. May the worldwide storm we're all sheltering from pass soon too.
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