BEFORE THE STORM

I switched off the engine. It struck me suddenly just how quiet it was in my street - silent. No traffic, no weather, no hubbub, just my wrists clicking as I turned off the headlamps, and the noisy clink of the seatbelt as it unclasped, then spooled across my chest. I guess I do that every day.

My ears buzzed. I imagine pure silence would be so unbearable that our bodies make little noises to protect us from it. Or perhaps they just do, anyway. A little gurgle of the tummy, the air gently cascading in and out through the nose, a creak of the knee. I closed my eyes and I listened.

The Oxford train rattled away across the valley. A mile away at least, but there it was, unmistakable over the sleepers. There was a faint murmur of a TV or radio, and maybe the squirrels leaping in the trees in the park. There was no wind to tickle the leaves, and every bird for a hundred miles had fallen silent since sundown.

Then, there was a soft rumble of very distant thunder. It was barely louder than my stomach, but unmistakably grumbly somewhere - like furniture being pushed around again because the upstairs people still can’t agree on where the sofa should go before their guests arrive for dinner.

The sky started to flicker too. Lightning - white and blue, but also, still silent, and still very far away. A storm was coming. 

And before it came, before it shook the rooftops and split the sky (and it did); before the rain pounded the concrete like hammers and the gutters all sang with joy in the fresh night air (and they did)... the world was quiet. Ready, waiting.