“Un Signo de Dios”

“Un Signo de Dios”

by Kathleen L. Smith
all rights reserved

The deliciousness of a fresh white screen glowing on my computer monitor affects me much the same way as the smell of new paper and books, something to be delved into, savored, sculpted like a piece of clay into a new creation. As I sat contemplating the newness, wondering where to begin, I heard the rumble of distant thunder. That and the silvery sky and steamy summer air indicated a storm was on its way. I had scrawled a few puny words on the screen when out of nowhere a sound like the universe had just split in two cracked above my head. For just a moment, electrical power to the house flicked off and then on. The intensity of the noise had jolted me from my seat while I emitted an embarrassing scream simultaneously. I’d never heard such a loud noise previously. In a flash I pressed the button cutting off the power to my computer and caught my breath as a roll of normal thunder washed through the sky.

When I could breathe again, I realized lightning must have struck my house or one of the tall trees which surround it. Starting with the bedrooms, I searched the rooms and looked out windows checking for a burning bush. “Un signo de Dios” rang through my head in Italian. I’m not Italian, but I had heard it in a movie. Now it had sudden meaning. By the time I reached the living room, I began to believe I had escaped conviction. Last, I looked out the peer windows beside the door of my 110 year-old house. The outdoor electric lantern was hanging by a thin wire. The glass windows were broken out and lay on the floor of the veranda in smithereens along with the tiny pieces of the light bulb. In the dining room which lay behind the veranda I smelled an odor entirely new: part heat, part wire, and part something completely unidentifiable to me.

The power was on, but the phones were out. I’m embarrassed to say that my commitment to the modern world is still tentative and I have no cell phone. Trembling from the shock of the strike, thunder now growling without, rain pelting in heavy, scattered drops, I leaped the four back steps in a single bound, threw open the car door and scrambled across the center console like an ungainly superhero in a tight phone booth. Disregarding seat belt and the need for glasses, I sped the few blocks to a friend’s house and incoherently released my experience in a stream of broken sentences.

Houses were built to last a hundred years ago, but they were built of sticks, sticks which burn like kindling even on a wet day. This one has clapboard, bead board on both ceilings and walls, and even wood floors, a veritable Boy Scout jamboree bonfire.

“Slow down. I can’t understand what you’re saying.”

I repeated my story in a more concise manner to my friend who handed me her cell phone. The number of the fire station wasn’t listed in our twenty-page phone book. I dialed the town police station and pressed the number for the squad room. An answering machine responded, “Please leave a message at the tone.”

“Dial 911.”

“911?” My incredulous look mirrored my belief that one dials 911 only in life and death situations. I was terrified.

“That’s what it’s for.”

Within minutes I could hear a fire engine roaring in the neighborhood. The fire station is just two blocks away. Now standing on my front porch awaiting my heroes I observed two pickup trucks rolling back and forth in front of my property as if searching for a location. I waved to them. A neatly dressed gentleman emerged from one carrying a clipboard in his hand.

“Are you looking for 105 W. Murray St.?”

“Yes, ma’am, is this it?”

He waved over the other vehicle as I glanced at the street numbers on my house and mailbox and at the street sign on the corner of my property still there and untouched by lightning.

A policeman also appeared on the scene and we began to discuss the situation. They had seen the lightning bolt at the fire station as had my neighbor and my friend a few blocks away. Everyone had seen it, but I who was sitting in my computer chair sixteen feet away from the strike had missed it. So I guess I could forgive them the fact that they had missed my house. What a reassuring group they were. Suddenly I wasn’t alone, and they knew just what to do. Instead of striking the lantern, the lightning had traveled through the house and exited there steps from where I had sat.

Minutes passed as we waited for the fire truck to appear. We could hear the siren sounding somewhere in the neighborhood, but still the truck was elusive. Finally the first fireman to arrive on the scene took out a communicator and gave directions. The fire engine appeared, lights flashing, siren slowing to a buzz; its door flew open, and a Paul Bunyan of a man hopped to the ground, his face ringed in smiles. As he gripped my hand firmly, my eyes went up and up to meet his far above me. His great yellow jacket added bulk to his size, and from his black boots to his great fireman’s hat he appeared somehow larger than life.

The firemen explained the heat sensing device as they walked through the house testing the rooms for fire between the walls. Last, they asked if I had an attic entrance. I piped yes but it was in my laundry room which was not really prepared for guests and was concerned that certain items of delicacy might be strewn about.

“Don’t worry. We’ve seen it all.”

“Yes, but you haven’t seen mine,” I replied. The firemen grinned as I scurried like a mouse to the laundry room ahead of them and threw towels over the baskets just as Paul Bunyan reached to pull down the attic door.

He took off his great hat and gloves and placed them in my care as if he were handing me a baby. His head was covered with a shock of thick white hair which soon disappeared into the darkness of the attic. Arising from the hat and gloves, an aroma of fire met my nostrils, and in one breath I knew the danger these men had faced and I looked at them in admiration. A quick inspection of the attic informed us that all was safe and sound, and I could feel like the gentle current of a river the change from one mood to the next. And they began to joke.

In that brief passage I understood the heart of the fireman--the formality and seriousness that comes from experience in dealing with a powerful and life-threatening force, the relief when it has passed, and the way one deals with the crises of life. Most of us face such forces only once or twice in our lives.

Standing once more on the veranda, they teased Paul Bunyan about his difficulty in finding a house two blocks from the station, omitting their own little forays up and down the street. “It’s okay that you had trouble finding my house,” I teased. “It’s only been here a hundred and ten years.”

“And I’ve lived in this town for half of that!” he boomed like thunder and then burst into laughter.

Rain fell from the sky in a steady cooling blanket now. I noticed one of the fireman holding his hand under a waterfall from the roof. Another looked longingly at the rainfall and indicated a desire to stand in the midst of it.

“I’m ready to strip down naked and run right through it!”

Paul Bunyan had topped them all, and everyone laughed. They stood in this ring of brotherhood and they had allowed me in. A brief silence ensued as we all gazed out at the pouring rain, an oxymoron to the lightning bolt that had shot through my life and brought us to this moment.

Then, in one movement, they bid me goodbye, shaking my small hand firmly and warmly in their large, calloused hands, and passed singly to their vehicles and their lives.