The hail came down like marbles and covered the walkway up to our apartment building. It was a lot, and loud. And we were all out there, under cover of the eave, watching these pellets fall from the sky, as if we hadn’t seen weather in years, in a lifetime. And the children ran out to the parking lot and back, soaked, pretending they were skiing, piling it up on the concrete as if it were snow. I go, day to day, giving these people nothing but a nod. Sometimes, not even that. My neighbor even offers me a beer. There’ve been nights, when the wind pushes a tree against my window, and a kind of sterile lighting flashes in the frame, and I wish I had someone with whom I could watch such an awful display. Now I look on with what might be joy. I don’t know.
