The sun shined down on a beautiful August day. Rays of sunlight kissed my skin and made me beam ear to ear. I spent the whole day basking in the beautifully saturated, calm world.  After a long, beautiful day, I slowly trudged up the hill to my house; the day wasn’t over yet, but I already missed the sun’s warm kisses. As I sank into the soft carpet in our bright, airy front room, the last of the sun’s rays brushed gently against me, almost as if saying goodbye for the night.

I then heard loud footsteps that pounded and bounded up the stairs, shattering the momentary peace.

            “There’s… There’s a thunderstorm warning,” wheezes my mom, with fear in her voice.

            “Winds are supposed to surpass 75 miles an hour,” says my dad. They shudder and stutter as they speak. Soon after, the last rays of sunlight were stolen by an overcast of dark, menacing clouds. The darkness seeped into our house, so that we could barely see the aggressive storm outside. My mom flicked the lights on, which allowed us to see the disaster develop right before our eyes. Rain seemed to fall by the bucketful with a menacing gleam through the black sky. Thunder cracked and boomed, in an orchestra of destruction. At the very least, we were grateful to be inside, I thought to myself.

            “We need to make sure the animals are okay,” said my dad. His voice, unusually enough, cracked with almost every word. He was never scared. I understood how dangerous this was, but knew I had to help him. As we threw on our coats and shoes, the storm only seemed to get worse by the second. We bounded out the front door and down the hill to our animals, while our feet smacked hard against the ground with every rushed step. The critters were safe, but the storm’s vicious winds had thrown their shelters down. My dad and I flew over the wire fence as our trees seemed to surround us while they whipped and shook violently in the wind. My movements quickened out of fear of having trees fall onto us. With haste, we heaved and brought the large wooden animal houses upwards and haphazardly shoved them back into the muddy ground. As we bolted back up the hill, the rain poured down onto us and left us drenched. Every lightning bolt seemed to strike down inches from my face. Water flowed down the hill like a river and stole one of my sandals, so I hobbled the rest of the way to the house.

A sense of peace washed over me again as we reached the house and its shining beacon of light and warmth.  As soon as we shook off the terror of the risk we had endured, the lights died out. Our only sense of hope and comfort was gone, just like that.

 I tossed and turned in my bed all night. Whenever I began to drift off, a loud crack of thunder made be bolt up straight. I could only what tomorrow would look like.

“Will I have to wake up to another day of this?” I would think to myself as I kept myself awake with paranoia. Eventually, there was a break in the thunder that was long enough to allow me to enter a deep slumber.

The next morning, I woke up to something that dumbfounded me; it was a beautiful day. The bluebird sky and golden sun seemed to exist in mockery; like mother nature had given us a run for our money. Even the leaves of fallen trees glittered with raindrops; there was a clear beauty in this madness. That same morning, the neighbor boy and his dad rushed over to make sure we were okay, which for some reason sparked more hope in my heart than ever before. I knew we were not alone.

The sun shined down brighter than ever before, and in that moment, I realized how temporary it was. Things can be perfect one moment and disastrous the next. That day, I appreciated the sun’s rays and knew not to take advantage of good weather, because things really could go sour at any time without warning. Our power was out, with no way of knowing when it would be back, and most of our trees were dead, but still I sprawled out in the lush green grass and soaked up the temporary sun.