Time paused. All sounds became silent. All I heard was the loud crackling of the electricity hitting and burning the side of the circular metal table. The light the bolt produced blinded me for seconds from such a short distance, such as a flare gun being fired at point blank. The sound and light weren’t the most memorable for what actually ended up happening. The fact that death was so close to me, that if I was less than 5 feet in front of where I was, I’d be dead. That may sound like an exaggeration, but believe me, you wouldn’t know if you haven’t experienced it yourself.

The day before the strike was pretty normal. A sunny day in the middle of June, with some storm clouds coming in. I had a pool at my house at the time, since this was back in my elementary years. I didn’t think anything of it, and my mom didn’t even notice the cloud at the time it was started to come in. As we started to hear thunder, I got out of the pool, knowing the danger. I got out, and stayed outside to dry off. The clouds continued to move overhead, and of course I didn’t think anything of it. As I moved towards the table, my mom was on her way to the table as well, as it happened. Five to about ten feet away, I can’t remember the exact distance as this happened very long ago, but all know is, for lightning, any distance is too close. The sound of the thunder didn’t sound like much of a roar, but more like a crackle of all of the electricity letting itself out onto the table. I had no idea at the time how to react to such a thing as that, and it was a lot more than I asked for that day.

The time it happened seemed to go by forever. The distance from me to the door to my house seemed like miles at the time. Running towards the house seemed like running a marathon, and I felt like I was running for my life. I wasn’t exactly scared to death, but it seemed like I was pretty close to it. I knew I could either stay calm and walk to the house, but at the time, I would not think twice about running full speed towards the small house. And just to make everything better, my dog was riled up as well. My dog also running towards the house, he ended up getting in the way, causing me to trip. It was a small fall, but when a small child is in panic mode, it feels like a fall from a second story window. The fall didn’t hurt too bad, maybe a bruise on the leg from what I remember, but I felt like a wounded soldier, having to continue or else my life may not be as long as I wanted. Even though I wasn’t hurt at all, I barely had the energy to get up, as I was panicking. From what I remember, my mom ended up carrying me into the house, which made me feel like my life was saved.

After the “incident” happened and everything was explained to me about an hour later, it turns out that the storm died out right after that strike, and that everything was back to normal, for the most part. The table (which has been gone for a few years now) still had the burn mark on it from the strike itself, and after I was told what happened, the whole thing happened within 30 seconds. The strike, the fall, and getting me back into the house. Even though it was such a short moment for the time, that 30 seconds will be with me for the rest of my life.