(a rainy night, a new town, a need for tobacco)





Swept along one rainy night, by winds that had me in a fight, to find my feet a solid path, beneath an angry sea of grass.
I held my hand to shield my face, from bitter rain that stung that place, and guessing on which way to go, I stumbled thinking ’soon I’ll know’.
Up a hill I staggered on, the grass here wasn't quite so long, but little rocks that hid their face, in darkness which made less my pace.
‘Which way now’ I thought to me, atop the hill stood by a tree. This way, that way look the same, and worse... for this infernal rain.
I sat myself, pulled out my flask, ‘a mug of tea would ease my task.’ A map and compass better still, would show me from this sopping hill.
Numbing fingers tried the lid, and made me feel again a kid, as cold and wet I couldn’t grip, my digits numb would only slip.
At then a blinding flash of light, made daylight out of dead of night, as lightening bolted from the sky, a fright that almost made me cry.
I bagged my flask as quick as that, and jumped up nimble as a cat. The wind had calmed, but not my dread, as heavens thundered overhead.
Nothing more need urge me on, I ran, and ran, and then ran on. Leaping boulders, dodging trees, I finally fell to my knees.
The rain still stinging couldn't hide, the all-night garage that I spied. The garage that had been my search, through gloom and grim my all-night church.
‘A cigarette!’ was my first thought, this journey hasn't been for naught, and as I rose from kneeling muck, twas then the savage lightening struck.
A petrol pump it seemed to me, had been a joke of tragedy. Not knowing how, and if how, why, I watched the flames reach for the sky.
Amazed, I looked through gutted eyes, before the shock of my surprise. Before I held my head and screamed, and knew the nightmare wasn't dreamed.
I wiped my face of tears and rain, that painted worse my tortured pain, and cursing gods for rotten luck, I was the next thing lightening struck.
SIZZLE!