Harbinger of a Fierce Storm

The sun that had shown so brightly in the morning was giving barely any light now, instead everything looked grey. The air was cooled and heavy. Dark clouds raced across the sky. The wind has howling monstrously and was blowing with increased velocity. The seemingly sudden darkening sky as though a curtain has been pulled across the sky.It was a harbinger of a fierce storm. People soon realized it and hurried to their homes. Ditto for me. Immediately, I accelerated my pace. Once reached home, I saw my mom frantically running about the house closing windows and doors and retrieving clothes left on the porch. Then came the rain, first a drizzle, followed by a heavy downpour. It was seriously grim and chilly. As the wind roared like an angry beast, the rain was hitting the ground like bullets from a gun. Above, the sky was black with the menacing rainclouds until the cracks of lightning broke the darkness. Lightning bolts lit up the sky as though somebody had flicked a light on and off. The bolt had elbowed its way through the sky at the violent speed of light. The flashes of lightening were like skeletal fingers of incandescence reaching down to stroke the Earth, splitting the sky into two! I peered out of the window just as a bolt of lightning struck a nearby tree. Subsequently, it was followed by a loud cracking sound of the breaking bough. While the other trees which had been stripped bent their legs, overwhelmed by the strong wind. I could hear the wind in its rustling. It rained cats and dogs for more than three days. We learnt later that the downpour had dumped more than 230mm of rain in just over two hours. The storm, the worst in the last decade or so, left a trail of disaster. As scores of people hurried to find shelters, three of them were hit by flying debris. They were given outpatient treatment at a nearby clinic. The squatter houses in our housing area were the hardest hit. Parts of the zinc roofs were ripped off while others were badly