It was time to go. She looked along the row of desks to the window next to the wall clock that evidenced the time. She got stuck on the window. She wasn’t running late, but it was dark. She walked past the empty desks to look outside. Everyone in her aisle had already left. Slackers.

Her eyes scanned the sky. It looked like it might be getting ready to storm. Like an August squall kind of storm. In the heat of summer there are spates of mini-monsoons, sometimes four, five or six days in a week. These are expedited events. Storms that when you beat them home, you’re dry. And if you don’t, you’re wading ankle deep through a tiny flash flood roiling at the storm drains at the intersection. The latter is a bit gross.

She shut down her Pokemon session that had been running amiably in the background all day. There were a few pokestops near the office, and someone(s) had been setting lures. No walking but much catching between emails and meetings.

She swiped over to the weather app. It displayed a current temperature of a comparatively mild 88°F. Rain wasn’t forecast for another hour. She’d be home in half that. Quicker if she took in fewer steps and high-tailed it to the closest train station. She grabbed her backup umbrella, just in case. She put it back in her cubby. She wouldn’t need it.

She looked up at the window again and thought better. She plopped the tiny orange umbrella in her bag. It didn’t take much space, and better to be prepared. The app said No. The sky disagreed. She was going with the non-virtual reality.

She optimistically put on her sunglasses rather than her inside peepers. She placed her sunhat on her head–easier to wear than to carry even though she looked ridiculous walking into the premature evening decked in sunwear–and pushed through the two sets of doors to the sidewalk.

She had been out at lunchtime when it was plenty hot. The vestiges of that hot was on the metal and glass of the doors. It rose from the sidewalk through the soles of her shoes. It was still hanging out in the thick air. She turned toward the corner and her hand flew to her head, to keep her wide brimmed straw chapeau from lifting off her head. She turned to a stranger at the light.

“Wow! Now that’s a cold front.” The woman next to her took in the floppy bonnet, looked up to the blackening sky to the west and grinned her agreement as she scurried across the street. The light had changed. All the commuters on the sidewalk were dashing to their next stop. The wind was cold. And pushy. It was a warning.

Her foot reached the sidewalk on the other side of the street. She looked up, again, to her right. The clouds were moving, and getting darker. There was a definite border between the stormy side and the calm side. The stormy side was encroaching, though. There wasn’t a  referee to throw a flag and make it organize itself according to the rules.

She saw the man who spent the day on the street packing up. She somehow knew he didn’t sleep on this street, but she had never seen him leave. The wind was motivating him.

She stopped every eight or ten steps and looked back at the sky. She saw a flicker of lightening and heard the thunder. She mounted the top of the escalator and descended into the subway and boarded a waiting train.

Her car came out of the tunnel. Damn. She was losing the race with the storm. The line of blue sky and fluffy white clouds was behind her, behind the train. Before her was a dark, rumbling and angry sky. Looking over her left shoulder she could see the reflection of sunshine. A caldron of something wicked this way comes to her right.

The conductor warned the people on the about the weather conditions. “Use caution on the platform,” he entreated. She dismounted from the train onto the bricked walkway. She smelled storm. They say it’s ozone. The sky cleared its throat like an old smoker.

It wasn’t raining now, but it just had. People stood at the edge of the cave that opened into the elevator well. She pulled out her little umbrella and released it from it’s little bag. It wasn’t quite raining. Not yet.

She held the umbrella above her head that was covered by her sunhat. Her sunglasses and staw hat looked silly underneath the short-sticked, orange umbrella. Nobody noticed. If they were under the overhang, they were looking up. If they had left the station with her, they were looking to get out of the rain. Some went to the bus bays. Others to the kiss and ride. She and some others walked along the sidewalk to the intersection.

There was a flash and a boom. The lightening and the thunder were concurrent. The storm was here and now. She ran a few steps, and then the rest of the block. She wondered if she could minimize being struck by lightening by running. It couldn’t hurt.

Going home meant going toward the bright part of the sky. Maybe if she hurried–another reason to run–she could leave the storm. Her house seemed to be underneath the clearing. The rain was hitting the cover above her head with more purpose. It was still fairly light. Another flash and another deep grumble from the sky. She skipped over the curb and flew to the next corner. The next flare lit up the street. The thunder was quick to follow, louder, longer and lower than before. She saw her house and squared her gate to be greeted on the porch by a big dog and a man.

He laughed at her sun and rain gear. She closed her umbrella and the sky opened up and poured rain. She was home just in the knick of time.