Thunder and Lightning

"Oh, man do I love you, Carlie," the man on the TV said. No way hose! Let's see what else is on. Cassandra thought. Jeez, I pay for cable and all thirty channels suck!               

            "Well, Joe this sucks." She told her dog.

            On the TV Carlie's dad was saying to the man, "You better back off, my darling daughter's no prize boy..." Ugh! Cassandra moaned, as the father wagged his finger at Carlie. Then all of a sudden Pop!

"Shoot!" She exclaimed. Now Cass knew that it was storming, or else at 3:10 she would be walking Joe. She did not think that it was bad though. Now with the TV off, she could hear the thunder and sitting in the dark, she realised the light that occasionally flashed across her face was not from the TV but from the storm. She moaned again.

Every one told her that she looked like her mother. Cassandra was tall, with shoulder length brown hair and blue eyes, now that filled with fear. At the age of 21 she was in a career that she loved, hair styling and entertaining children while teaching them about problems of the modern world such as pollution, global warming, drug and alcohol abuse, smoking and helping the loved ones of victims of drugs, alcohol, and smoking, car and work accidents and all sorts of traumatic accidents. She herself had lost her grandpa to a work accident at the age of only seven. Her grandma had killed herself almost two months after the accident. It had traumatized Cassandra for awhile and she had had to have counselling at school for years, earning her the nickname Messy Cassy.   

            Her apartment was on the third floor and from her window all she could see in the parking lot was, well, nothing. The phone was out, along with the lights, stove, clocks and furnace. Shivers were running up her spine. Thank lord for cell phones. No! There has to be reception, Cassandra pleaded with the force of nature.

            Suddenly, somebody came and literally smacked her up the side off the head. Again the person hit her. Again and then again. Breath escaped her lungs. Her body quivered, and her mind felt kind of fuzzy a warm felling. Someone, she did not know who was knocking on the door. Joe was barking.  A key was turning then the handle opened the door a second later. Someone was screaming. That was all she remembered. Oh and that horrible rain.    

 

           

            "Hi!" Mandy announced that she was home.

            "Hi baby, hi Andrew!" Sherry answered. "You're late!" A glare was all that was needed to get an answer.

            "The bus driver was driving extra carefully," Andrew moaned "Cause of the rain..."

            "And the thunder and the lightning," his little sister interrupted. "I think I am going to watch TV mom." Mandy bounded off to watch TV.  

            "When you gonna tell her mom?" Andrew questioned.

            "I am not, you are." Sherry answered. As her son gave her a no way in hell look she quickly adds, "For ten bucks?" And Andrew fell for his mother look of sad desperation, as she stirred the pasta.

            She was a 40-year old single mother of two, who actually had no big problems other than still loving her husband who ran off to Las Vegas with some 20-year-old who has the biggest boobs Sherry had ever seen.

            "Fine," He smiled, "I love you mom. Or else I'd not be doing this for you! Man, oh man why am I doing this?"

            "Mom, the lights are out and the TV turned its self off!" The blond six year old in the living room whined, sounded scared.