I remained on the porch until the storm ended, long after Melissa’s parents went home and my parents went to bed.
The storm’s finale had been as spectacular and weird as the storm itself. There’d been no fading away, no dissipation of the clouds. Instead, I stood lone witness to an implosion of gaseous matter, the roiling, fungal masses compressing into a smaller and smaller ball, the center of which was a depthless black sphere, as if a wormhole had opened up over the island. Lightning flashed in increasingly rapid bursts while the atmospheric blight swirled around faster and faster, turning the sky into a cosmic toilet.
Then, with a final crescendo of light and sound that shook the entire house and lit the heavens like an atomic bomb, the storm vanished, leaving behind only a normal-looking night sky, complete with twinkling stars and half-moon. Other than a few car alarms squawking in the distance, the night was silent, the echo of the thunderous climax gradually fading from my ears.
Once the atmospheric oddity disappeared, a tremendous weariness overtook me. It took all my fading strength to stagger up the stairs to my room, clutching the banister with both hands the entire way.
I fell into bed at three fifteen, not bothering to remove my clothes.
My sleep was instant and dreamless.