Evening on the ground.

Somewhere between sleep and waking, between the frustration of knowing I wasn't going to get enough sleep no matter how hard I tried and the end of the book I'd started only a few hours earlier, somewhere between hot and cold and the noise of the fans and the pile of the sheets and the hyper awareness of my own moist summer skin, I realized I'd been waiting.

Waiting is an old chestnut here, a theme I've revisited time and again since I became self aware.

The storm broke, and I'd been waiting my entire life for just that moment. The ravenous sound of lightning cracking through the night, the deep satisfaction of the low following of thunder. I can't say for certain what really went on; between my need to rest and my terror of the drop in pressure, I was suddenly exactly where I wanted to be.

Ready, I think. Ready and waiting. And though there was no relief, though I woke the next morning to the same oppressive heat and the heaviness that only the air of an Indiana summer can muster, there was something just slightly different enough to tilt my world to a new angle. Slide it right into my pocket.

I'll be here, then.