To Be So Fortunate

Melvin was wrought with anxiety. He sat in the group on the edge of the patio and looked up at the flashing apocalyptic thunderstorm. The stalls of rain, backlit an electric grey, ordered their way to the horizon where the setting sun was calling a close to travels. Expecting to have left already, he had packed all of his clothes in perfect arrangement in his suitcase, leaving no room for waste or disorder. The others on the patio, his family of youths, were all better positioned so they would not be struck by lightning. They had congregated like a litter of puppies in the corner. Carl, Davina, Mario, Isaiah, Gideon, little Embily, Elizabeth, and Gerald were all smiling nervously, and all touching each other with one part or another. The parents, uncles Mike, Franklin, and Francis and the childrens' mothers Helen, Louise, and Andreea all sat calmly in a ring concentric to the corner, facing out and allowing their arms to hang comfortably over their chair arms.

He had been tricked, Melvin. In Harlem, he had an apartment where even now the roaches were surely conspiring to take it over as he sat helplessly in the bouncing rain in the suburbs of Philadelphia. It was his impression that he'd be back on his way to the city after lunch with his distant cousin Elizabeth. She was an uppity bitch. When they met, she had come in from some friend's living in Philadelphia, and was on the phone with a friend explaining that she'd try to get out of going back to NYC today and make it down to DC to get together. Melvin listened in and tried to find ways that he didn't understand the conversation and it wasn't his business, that the transgression of his nosiness did nothing but cultivate frustration and should be dismissed until she presented her new agenda and it became an issue for him. Just listening, he thought, he hadn't encountered any issue, it was only his ears and mind attacking him.

When the rain began, the families unpacked their rain clothes. All of them seemed to have come prepared for this storm, bringing galoshes, plastic raincoats, brimmed hats and extra pants to change into when it was over. Somehow this thunderstorm had made its way through the roof and second floor, and there was no sanctuary anywhere in the house. Melvin's suitcase was getting wet. They spoke of "the one who would be hit by lightning" like it was an expected seasonal event. Little frogs in the springtime, lightning bugs, nighttime cicadas, the baseball season and "the one who would be hit by lightning". They didn't look at him when they had been speaking about it over the weekend. Their disregard wasn't just natural disinterest, it was a sympathetic method of not informing Melvin, like they all knew or believed they were safe because Melvin was going to be struck, not them.

He could reason that this made no sense, but his heart knew better. For whatever he owed to the universe, he would be settling that debt shortly. The strikes of lightning got closer and closer. The storm got louder. It became evident that Melvin would, in fact, be struck by lightning. Perhaps that was why the other youngsters had left him out by the corner of the patio, exposed like some sacrifice to the fates.