The lightning man lived far, far away from others. In the dry season, he became a grasshopper, foraging for food, wretched and small. He lived miles from the rocks and villages, and he kept his distance from everyone and everything. No one would have recognized his might, even had they seen him.

But the lightning man was powerful beyond reckoning; it was only in the dry season that his light vanished, his powers of bedazzlement and brilliance dimmed, his largeness unnoticed. In the rainy season, he brought forth his magnificence, and the peoples of the earth would shudder beneath it, for he was far more capable than they.

He growls and sends lightning flashes across the sky; he throws his axe and cleaves trees in two; he keeps an eye on others to ensure their good behavior.

It is in this way the lightning man goes often undisclosed and waits for the rains.

Al Kuenzel was sleeping off a hangover when his phone rang, awakening him, and he decided to answer it. The voice on the other end hurt his ear, though it was almost too familiar.

"It's about time! I've been trying to call you all day."

"I've been sleeping," he croaked, his head still throbbing with a dull pain that he'd felt in greater degree during the occasional trips he'd had to make to the bathroom that day. He rubbed it, knowing the pain had only about another half hour to dwindle behind his skull before it disappeared (he was quite used to this routine).

"Can I come over?"

He'd known she was going to ask that, and he knew that she called him only as a formality, because he always said yes. Even though Al often wanted to try to say no, he could never bring himself to utter the word. Not to Dawn, anyway.

"Yeah, fine. I'll see you in a while."

"Ok," the woman's voice said happily—almost too happily, as if she was masking something. "And Al?"

"Yeah?"

"Try to put yourself together before I get over there. It's already six o'clock."

"Six o'clock?" Al was muttering as his friend hung up the phone. It was a moment before he realized she was gone. How had time moved so quickly? No matter how used to his bizarre schedule he was—wake up in the afternoon, eat dinner, drink until dawn, eat breakfast, go to sleep, wake up in the afternoon—he was always shocked when he woke up to find the daylight hours in the past.

His room wasn't as dark as the encroaching nighttime outside should have made it; his small apartment was constantly lit by the neon signs of the liquor store next door and the fluorescent gas station across the street. He lived on the third floor of a six-unit apartment complex, in a small, one-bedroom place which he'd hardly ever seen in the daylight hours. Al kept a nice enough home; he had little furniture, but that made life easier. He detested trash or grime of any sort, so the apartment was sparse but clean. Clutters of books and newspapers were the only messes he allowed to gather, more because when he did have any spare time, he'd rather spend it reading books than he would disposing of them. Al did have a job as a carpenter that he worked sporadically only for paychecks, which went to three things: bills, reading material, and drinking. He'd been living alone for years—at least since he'd turned eighteen—and, at the age of twenty-six, his life exhilarated him when he felt high and made him laugh when he was low. He drank to maintain the highs and read to get through the lows. Al devoured everything from Dostoyevsky to Achebe, Allende to Sun Tzu. His appetite for classic literature was as voracious as was his adoration of act of the menagerie of series on genetic disorders and mystery diseases. When Al did happen to arrive home before early morning (usually when a day of work loomed before him), he'd sit on his couch and turn on the television to stream sic such programs into the dark hours of the night. He'd fall asleep with strange nightmares of contracting Proteus Syndrome and having his legs blow up like balloons or fathering children with Progeria and watching them age like little old men and women. He'd awaken with tears in his eyes or croaks in his throat, though he'd never tell it to anyone, and he'd be watching the same programs the next time he got the opportunity to do so.

Al worked for a carpenter company under the employment of an old schoolmate's father. When he'd been in high school, he had been especially kind to a boy that had Downs Syndrome. His kindness had paid off unexpectedly when, a year later, he'd quit college and been looking for work—any kind of work!—and had somehow obtained an interview at Stanton's Carpentry, where he'd met with the owner and been shocked to hear, "Alan Kuenzel? Kuenzel, you said? You go to Garing High School? My son didn't quit talking about you as his best friend since he graduated over a year back." Al had gotten the job without even going through an interview. When he'd cheerfully asked how his new employer's son was doing, he'd been crestfallen to hear that the young man had passed away, quietly though expectedly, fewer than three months prior.

Al loved his job, partially because of the work (which entailed a lot of energy) but mostly because of the people he worked with. While he wasn't muscular, he was stocky and strong, and he enjoyed the exertion that building brought. He also loved his job because it had been what led him to Dawn Carroll.

Dawn Carroll was the love of his life. Al knew it, even if she wasn't quite ready to comprehend the fact. He had met Dawn where many men meet women—at a bar. It had been after a day of work at a set of condos next to an office complex, and he'd gone out for drinks with his co-workers. There, he'd seen her, and even though she'd been with some friends of her own, he'd downed a couple of beers and garnered the courage to approach her. Al wasn't really shy, even in the presence of attractive women, so it hadn't taken too much for him to strike up a conversation with Dawn. Her friends (who introduced themselves as her fellow-employees) had called him charming, he'd invited them over to meet his own co-workers, and the rest had fallen into place. Well . . . sort of. Dawn had never wanted to date him, and she'd lost no time in telling him so. In fact, the first time he'd called her, she'd cleared up any ambiguity he might have been feeling.
"You seem nice," she'd said, "and I'd love to be friends, but I just want you to know I'm in a committed relationship and just can't date."

Her committed relationship had turned out to be a largely-fictionalized romance with Newschanel 5's weatherman, whom she'd met one night at a networking event and who hadn't spoken to her since then.

Al stumbled into the kitchen and got a cup of water. He was pretty much out of it. Whenever he drank too much, he'd feel as if he'd killed off some brain cells the next morning and would hope he hadn't intoxicated to the point of death anything too important. Sometimes he felt a slight regret for living a little precariously, but those instances of regret were few; overall, Al loved his life, and he was happy with himself.

He wasn't too thrilled with the way his head felt, however. It was still throbbing slightly, as if Dawn's words were trapped in there bouncing around and trying to get out from behind his eyes. He nearly tripped across the threshold of the bathroom, slightly spilling the cup of water he was attempting to drink. Little blobs of water hit the floor; he heard them but did nothing. Looking at his disheveled image in the mirror, he regarded himself with an immodest grin. He resembled death. His hair was a mess, sticking up in odd places as if a child with a handful of pomade had been let loose on it when he'd been sleeping. His goatee, as Dawn had told him numerous times, was a bizarre little patchwork of facial hair that belonged more to a fifteen-year-old hitting puberty than it did to a grown man, and yet Al was so proud of and attached to it that he wore it with the exuberance of a little girl wearing shiny new Sunday shoes. In fact, his recognition of his own reaction to his appearance gave him an enhanced incongruity—he was like an amused spectator watching himself from the inside. Al seemed always to notice the oddness of his look and delighted in the humor of it. Dawn frequently chided him for his lack of regard for propriety, but he always replied that the day someone made him wear a suit, shave his scruff, and sit in a cubicle would be the day he'd lose all faith in freedom and life, and she'd be best off if she quit trying to change his ways.

He brushed his teeth, dressed, took a seat in his living room with a bowl of Cheerios, and switched on the television. He had at least twenty minutes before Dawn arrived. She would probably be in another fit of hers, all flustered about some new wrong committed against her or another love of her life. She'd had at least seven loves of her life since he'd met her, and he had never been afraid of any of them. Dawn scoffed at him for looking like a child, but he knew that the real child was stuck inside her, though he didn't dare condescend or return any sort of reprimand, for he loved her too much. Dawn was like a butterfly that flicked from flower to flower—a pretty thing hardly aware of her own beauty—never able to decide where to rest. Her sister Eve, whom Al had met several times, was a bit like that, too, though in a calmer way. Eve was tinier and finer featured than Dawn, and her fickleness was exhibited more in her conversation than it was in her actions. Dawn was certainly vivacious, and that was why he felt both love and exasperation for her.

The news was on. Al rarely watched the news. He felt that it always portrayed negative events and hated to view the world in such a bad light. He certainly wasn't naïve—Al knew that awful things happened and he couldn't just pretend they didn't. However, he chose not to focus his thoughts on such things in order to appreciate the days he was given. Besides, he read enough to know that no matter how good or bad the world seemed, there was really no way of changing it; the human process of self-destruction had been going on since the creation of man, and so it was futile to even get upset about such things.

Just as he was about to change the channel, his finger paused on the remote control; a blonde-haired young girl had come onto the screen and was being interviewed by a reporter. It looked like she was in a hospital.

"And as a recent update on our good Samaritan segment from two weeks ago," the reporter was cheerfully chirping, "Audrey King continues to visit patients here at Memorial Hospital, in spite of the fact that the man whose life she saved nearly a month ago has fully recovered and since left. It appears she's been able to offer her cheer and support to more than one person."

The girl was smiling, and the moments she was onscreen were brief, yet before the station switched to a new clip about California forest fires and wicked weather reports, Al felt he saw a look of concern in her eyes—something hidden almost completely behind her enormous grin but that he saw in the split second of time it takes a camera flash to go off.

Then her picture was gone, though, and shaking the slight feeling of disturbance, he let it slip his mind.

Just as Al's Cheerios were beginning to get soggy, the buzzer startled him up from the couch. He remembered that Dawn was coming over and wondered in spite of himself how scrappy he looked. Then, he walked to the door and answered it.

"Oh God, Al," was the first thing she exhaled. "What's that smell?"

"Sure, nice to see you, too," he grinned, staring into the space she left as he closed the door quietly behind her. He sensed immediately that she was flustered—not that being flustered was anything particularly strange for Dawn; she was almost always flustered. But Al knew her well enough to sense when something was more amiss than usual.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

She turned to face him after having stormed halfway into the front room, and he saw her chin tremble ever so slightly, as if she was trying to hold in a sob. He'd seen Dawn's tears often enough to know that she cried only over ridiculous things and held tears back over serious ones, so her drama appeased him.

"Are you okay? What's wrong?" he reiterated, this time weariness creeping into his tone.

She took a few deep breaths and put a hand to her forehead, crossing the other across her stomach. "Somebody's going to get hurt," she whispered, a reservation causing her voice to tremble as it came out.

Al was confused. "Somebody's . . . going to get hurt?"

"I just said that!" She threw her arms up, her voice rising sharply as if the repetition of the words gave her pain.

"Whoa! Whoa . . . hold on. I'm just . . . confused, Dawn." He was about to tell her not to freak out but knew those words would really put her over the edge. He approached her and, smiling kindly, calmly added, "Whatever you're upset about, it can't be as bad as it seems."

Her arms tensed, shoulders looked as if they'd shatter if he put a hand on them. "You don't understand," she said in an almost whisper, which frightened him even more.

"I know, that's why I need you to explain it to me. Here, why don't you sit down and just breathe for a minute. Just . . . breathe." Al managed to coax her onto the sofa, but he still didn't touch her. She was exuding a sort of fear he was just beginning to realize he'd never seen in her. Dawn was chock full of emotions—the whole range of them—but her histrionics were less significant for that very reason. He had known the woman for a few years and seen her in numerous states, but none of them had been very genuine. They'd been affectations. This Dawn, though, possessed all the signs of a truly disturbed person. His heart, which moments earlier had seemed so light, had taken on a leaden heaviness. "Okay. Tell me so I'll understand."

Dawn sat back, a momentary exasperation nearly transforming her to her normal self but quickly being replaced by her former look of dread. "It was this dream I had."

Rather than feeling a desire to roll his eyes (as most would have done) Al listened patiently, his facial expression remaining stoic.

"In it," she continued, twisting her hands tightly together, "I see . . . It's like, just dark. Very dark. But all of a sudden something starts to become clearer, and then, out of nowhere, I know what it is . . . It's a gun. It's just hanging there, like, in the air. A gun. And I know in my heart that somebody's about to get hurt." She shuddered; she closed her eyes, and a tear squeezed out of the left one, though it must have been accidental, because she quickly swept it away with the back of her hand. "I know what you think," she continued, "but it was more than just a dream. It was like, when I woke up, I felt this . . . this emptiness. It was so horrible." Her voice, sounding drained, sank to a low whisper as she added, "It's the worst I've ever felt in my life."

Regardless of whether or not he thought his friend's dream was worth her fear, Al took her state seriously. It was obvious that she was upset, and he felt a need to fix it. "You don't need to worry, Dawn," he began softly. "If somebody gets hurt, it'll have nothing to do with you. You'd never hurt anybody. I know you enough to know that. The only person you ever hurt," he added a bit sardonically, "is yourself, and that's always unintentional."

"But I'm rash, Al. I do things without thinking."

"And look—you're sane enough to know that. Everything you do, whether decidedly or accidentally, comes from your heart. Your heart dictates your actions, and even if you don't always know what it's thinking, it's a fundamentally good heart, and it won't lead you astray."

"You read too much, Al."

"No, I just know you. And I know you have a good heart."

"Ha." She stared at the coffee table without really seeing it. "Nobody really knows anyone else's heart."

It was the first time he'd ever heard her say something emotional so void of emotion, and it gave him even more reason to feel upset. He didn't quite know what to say to her, and a strange silence grew between them—he was afraid of it. This woman he'd loved from the first moment he'd seen her had, in a matter of minutes, become a complete stranger. A sudden urgency crept into him. The face of the girl on the television flashed through his mind. "Maybe you should volunteer somewhere," he suggested, hardly knowing what he was saying.

"What?"

His thoughts came together a bit more. "You know—volunteer. It takes your mind off of your own worries when you volunteer and do things for other people."

"I can hardly motivate myself to get a job."

"I know," he continued, feeling more sure of himself, "but volunteering is different. Since it's not really a job, you do it because you want to do it."

"But I don't want to do it."

"All right, fine. I'm just saying that if you're starting to feel like you're a bad person—which in my mind, is irrational—if you're starting to feel that way, then I'm just saying that volunteering can make you appreciate your life and take your mind away from your own problems." He wasn't sure she was listening to him anymore, but when she suddenly stood up from the couch and began to look fidgety, he knew that he'd said something she'd taken to heart.

"I'll . . . I'll figure it out," she said. "Thanks, Al. Thanks for making me feel so much better. You always do."

He stood, and she gave him a hug in her emphatic way, more like a little child hugging a parent after a scary encounter than a friend hugging a friend. "Is . . . that all you came over for?"

"Yes . . ." She broke away and studied his face. "No, actually. I was hoping you could go out with me tonight. To that bar we went to a couple weeks ago. I don't want to go alone, and Eve is staying in. Will you come out?"

"You have to ask? Come on. You know I'll be out no matter what. There is never a reason not to go out for some drinks. I was afraid you weren't going to ask."

"But Al . . ."

"Yeah?"

"Don't do anything stupid tonight."

"Why would I?"

Dawn studied him. She seemed to hesitate in telling him something, which enhanced his disconcertion. When she spoke, he felt slightly hurt. "I know you think I'm crazy sometimes, for all the ways I react. But I'm in love, truly this time, and I just want you to be able to handle that."

There were about fifty things he wanted to say to her in the silence that followed, several of them variations of rebukes for assuming her professions of true love affected him in any way and a few more amused remarks about her flightiness, but none of those words made it from his head to his mouth and out into sound waves. Inside, he was a bit hurt that she still found him worthy of her mistreatment; when would she actually give him a hint of respect? "Give me a few minutes," was all he said, and as he walked toward the back of the apartment to grab his wallet and keys, he let the feeling of abuse run right out of him—that woman's fickle comments never stuck in his heart for too long.