"Thunderstorm Antics"


(submitted to Authonomy - FFF - November 12, 2011)

It was a typical, warm summer evening. The hazy blue sky was littered with towering clouds that would soon turn violent. The air was chokingly hot as the sunlight threaded its way through the encroaching cloud cover. As the sky hastily grew dark and threatening, the sweet smell of rain filled the now crisper air. Thunder echoed in the distance and the breeze picked up. Flashes of cloud lightning lit up the ominous storm as it swiftly enveloped the daylight. The neighbor’s dusk-to-dawn light popped on as the huge raindrops pelted the ground.

My “brood” of ten outside cats had witnessed storms like this many, many times, yet it is always the same. This night was no different. With the first rumble of thunder, “Pete”, my brooding cry baby, crept on his belly across the covered patio and reaching the edge took off like a shot for who knows where. With the storm approaching, all the cats, except the three kittens turned “chicken”. Their job was to ignore what was going on and continue scampering around, attacking each other and hiding in the hedges. Now they all hear a second round of thunder. This time it rolls for a few seconds like a bowling ball down an alley. The second cat, “Moe”, the big, strong, unafraid alpha-male, takes off and hides under my car. All the while, “Mama”, who survived and remembers Hurricane Ivan seven years ago, is slowly trying to sink into the concrete of the patio beneath her.

The storm is now almost overhead and “Louie”, who seems to think he’s in charge, looks around with eyes as big as saucers. He wants to hide so he jumps down from his barbeque grill perch and runs under the steps. When he soon realizes he’s not covered, he quickly moves to the edge of the patio facing the backyard. He’s safe where he is, but peering through an opening in the privacy fence and getting wet, he decides he’s better off underneath one of the cars in the backyard. So off he goes, out into the pouring down rain to “hide”.

“Scaredy Cat”, my ‘don’t touch me’ little princess, decides she’s better off up high, and leaves her spot in the center of the dry patio and climbs atop a cabinet and curls up into a little ball. Then “Mama’s Boy”, the reigning ‘sissy’ of the group, backs himself into a protected corner, his eyes still glaring. Last but not least, there’s “Bubba”. He’s the perfect cat. Never any trouble from him, no fighting with the others, quiet meow when he wants fed, and will even respond when you call him. He’s sitting at my feet as the storm intensifies. Suddenly he bolts off the patio and sits under the truck looking back at me. “What, are you crazy…come back up here before you get soaked,” I say to him. He pauses for a moment then runs back to me through the rain. He settles down beside me between the garbage can and the recycle bin.

By now the storm is right overhead. The lightning and thunder are spectacular and coming simultaneously and constant. “Mama” is now in her own little world. Scared out of her mind, the next flash of lightning illuminates the sky. Without a thought she turns on her belly and crawls behind me and hides behind my chair, running over two of the kittens along the way.

Out of all of them the three 8 week-old kittens, which at this point have no names, are the bravest. They watched all the antics of the adults, their little heads bobbing back and forth, playing in the puddles of water forming from the leaks in the porch roof. I know in their little minds they had to be thinking, “You guys must be crazy…it’s only noise and water!!!

Needless to say, the storm passed after a great “light show” and a downpour that lasted almost an hour. I wish now I had a video of their antics. I always sit out and watch thunderstorms…something my Dad and I used to do when I was a child. He’s gone now, but every time it storms, I’m outside, with Dad, enjoying it all over again.


© 2011 Gretchen Steen