Finding Love in a Storm

The two, Rose and Joseph, walked out of the two-story apartment building toward the lake. Rose went on ahead to meet her mother. Her mother was ankle deep in the lake looking at the approaching storm clouds.

Joseph stood still a few yards from the shore watching them and realizing that he was falling in love with Rose. Just earlier they determined that they were now an item- they were "girlfriend and boyfriend."

Rose was a brunette with medium length hair and a maturity and a youthfulness; Joseph
was less mature than his age would normally require, but somehow managed to be what he termed "somewhat successful."

Out of his daydream he noticed that Rose was about ten feet from her mother in the water watching the increasing severity of the storm. Lightning began to fall. Several small strikes were followed by quick bursts of thunder. Then small swirling short arms of lighting began to spark from the sky. The clouds varied from a mountain-gray to a charcoal black. The wind picked up and pushed through the shore with a fury.

The lightning grew in intensity. Large strikes began to hit with a devastating force. It was like a war-zone.

Rose looked to her mother with a new concern- she woke from her fascination with the storm- and began to call to her mother. The wind was strong, but loud also. Her mother was deaf to her cries.

Joseph walked toward Rose, ducking a bit due to lightning strikes not far from their part of the shore. He approached Rose knowing that the danger was more than he had ever faced in his life. He took Rose by the hand. As she looked at him the danger of the situation became clear. She now worried about Joseph. Before she could say anything, Joseph said to her, "If lightning gets you it will get me too. I will not let you go without me." They began to run from the shore toward safety. As they passed by a tree just before it disintegrated from a lightning strike he continued, "I am not going to lose you this way- it you break up with me that's one thing- but if anything happens, it happens to both of us."

Rose knew she had found her true love.