A thunderstorm in action. Wrath-of-the-gods stuff or the laws of physics at play? Photo / Getty Images
A thunderstorm in action. Wrath-of-the-gods stuff or the laws of physics at play? Photo / Getty Images
A DOG'S LIFE
Ten minutes ago the room darkened. Thunder rumbled, real wrath-of-the-gods stuff.
Hail hit the roof like ball bearings. To look out of the window now is to shudder at the cold and violence. It may be autumn but it's winter. Wenceslas would draw the curtains.
Twice my old dog ranaway in storms like this, mad with terror. Each time a stranger found him and took him in. By the time I reached him the storm was gone and he was calm, but the residue lingered, another wound in a damaged psyche.
In my psyche too, because the moment the thunder cracked just now my first thought was of Blue. But he is buried up above the house, his grave pummelled by the hail, and he is far beyond caring. It's a relief.
King Lear knew the cause of thunderstorms: Let the great gods That keep this dreadful pother o'er our heads Find out their enemies now.
Storms were the expression of divine wrath. They sought out sinners. Tremble, thou wretch, That hast within thee undivulged crimes Unwhipped of justice.
We imagine we know better. We rational creatures know that the gods have nothing to do with it. Thunderstorms can be fully explained, involving the massive discharge of electricity, a demonstrable consequence of the laws of physics that run the universe.
Perhaps so, but if you ask the scientist where those laws of physics come from he will have no answer. They didn't come from anywhere, he'll say. They just are. Eternal, constant, inexplicable, and all-controlling.
In other words, the laws of physics are just another term for gods. We haven't understood the universe at all. We've merely changed the names of things. For all that I live in the age of science, when I stare out of the window at the storm I am as one with my superstitious ancestors. And with Lear.
Lear welcomed the storm. When the rest of the world was taking shelter - 'shut up your doors my lord, 'tis a wild night' - Lear went running out into it, tearing at his clothes, maddened by his own inner torment.
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks. Rage. Blow … You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts, Singe my white head.
I love the way a storm can clear a city street. One moment there's a crowd of strutting primates in sure and certain possession of the earth, the next they're scattering like ants into shops and under awnings, giggling nervously, peering out, dashing to a passing taxi, its wipers flapping at the torrential water. We are contingent creatures still, at the mercy of the godded world.
It's good for us, this belittlement. We thrill to it. We love the truth of it. Try teaching during a thunderstorm. You can't. Every eye in the class is directed to the windows, to the streaming glass, to the sudden world-illuming flashes and the great bass rumble of potency. It's watching the gods and there's no better show on earth.
All snug in front of a fire while the storm rages outside - a fundamental pleasure, says Joe Bennett. Photo / NZME
To bar the door against a storm, to close the curtains, to thwart the wind and rain, is a fundamental pleasure. It's what we build walls and roofs to do. And best of all is to have a fire.
Before the storm broke this morning, as the clouds gathered like a bruise beyond the hills to the south, I went to the woodshed and brought in armfuls. And I knelt before the altar of my log burner and built a pyre of kindling and logs as every one of my ancestors has learned to do since time began, and I struck a match and closed the door and through the darkened glass I watched the flame catch and flare, then falter and grow orange feeble, but just as I was about to intervene it gathered strength and fed upon itself and I knew then I'd have a fire.
But I stayed watching as the flames licked up along the kindling and begin to catch the edges of the logs themselves and I heard it start to crackle and pop as the blaze took hold.
So now as the thunder rumbles and the rain hits the roof like ball bearings, I can turn my face and palms to the fire and my back to the world and it is the greatest and the simplest of all luxuries.
