Call Down Lightning

[Bill Floyd]

Storms have been cracking across the skies in the late afternoon for weeks now, after the heat and humidity have pressed the air too tightly.

He stands in a field beneath trees that sway like spines on the back of some rampaging beast, shaking his fists at the sky, grasping an iron bar, feet sunk in a pail of water.

How could you strand me here like this, among these wanton butchers, with their denial and their lies, their perversions and dilutions and their elevation of mediocrity and their unquenchable thirst for empty banal blue?  Did my rejection offend you so deeply?

Lightning flares all around him and trees catch fire and sparks fly from his halo but he remains unmarked.  On the other side of the world, a nation goes dark.     

[Stephen Torelli]

Angry man yet an epic tale.

[Angela]

I love and respect the determination of a being who will stand under a tree, holding a metal bar, feet in water, and rail at God, during a thunderstorm.  It is a majestic gesture.

[Joey Delgado]

This sounds so incredibly epic. 'Lightning flares all around him and trees catch fire...' This sentence, this whole piece is so alive with imagery and electricity, it reads like there are ten thousand volts running through every word. (Even the last line, which signals a complete blackout)

[Gita]

What a way to commit suicide, standing in water during a storm and holding up an iron bar. What an image! Holy shit this is good.  fave.

[bolton carley]

don't think i could handle going backwards, sorry.  but i love line 2.  wow!

[Bill Floyd]

@ Bill L: That's a good piece you wrote.  It's difficult to imagine, isn't it?  Suddenly people won't be able to charge their phones or computers--maybe they'll start reading books again?  

Re: the story above.  Wounded love has the most catastrophic and consequential discharge, sometimes.

[Teresa]

Satan pissed off?  I'm not sure, but the prose is lovely.  For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction...  That's what I thought of, and the Grim Reaper sick and tired of life.  Lightening at one end, blackness at the other.  And India just shrugs.

[Mike Handley]

You've outdone yourself, Bill, which is no small feat.

[Brittany]

I initially read this on my phone and the word dark did not appear as a link and all I could think about was if God and the Archangel Michael had a fight, this is what would've transpired. I love the way the trees show his physical frustrations and then he speaks.