Member-only story
Eight April, Twenty Twenty-One
Close the windows
Asha loved storms almost as much as her Nanna hated them. No one on the planet loved anything to match the fervent fear and hatred that Nanna had for storms. Asha’s mother explained that it was because of the typhoon that swept Nanna’s home and family away when she was a girl in the Philipines.
“That would do it.” Asha nodded and felt bad for teasing Nanna.
The clouds beginning to rise and darken were Nanna’s signal to rush around the enormous pre-war apartment on Central Park West, closing windows. Asha would wait until Nanna had made her rounds and was safely behind the massive doors that closed the living room off from the rest of the apartment. Then Asha would go to whichever was her current favorite window, open it just a pinch, and settle in for the show.
Didn’t matter what kind of storm. Blizzards were good. It was endlessly fun watching traffic fishtail and slide around in the snow. But nothing beat a really good thunderstorm.
Their apartment was on the fifteenth floor and faced the park giving Asha an unimpeded view of what lightning did to the sky. The rips of blinding white light. The drama of the thrashing trees in the wind. Then the dull hard booms of the thunder. The way it all built up with more frequent strobes of light until the sharp crack of…
