Nature’s Groan

“Each storm was a rehearsal. Each photograph, a shrine. But still, I couldn’t capture what I truly needed.”

Every summer, the storms returned like lustful gods. Towering clouds, thick and dark, brooded over the ranges to Brisbane’s west, pumping themselves full with electric rage. They groaned with tension, arching skyward, threading purple veins through charcoal bellies. Heat turned to breathless pressure. Daylight surrendered to magenta twilight. That’s when the creatures stirred.

I’d chased them for years—those primal monsters. My camera tried to hold them still, to capture their lust. But photographs lacked their power. Storms throbbed and panted. Their violence rolled over us, uninvited, raping sky, land, and sea. I envied that dominance.

City folk feared them. They fled inside when the first arcs lit the heavens. Fools. They didn’t understand what these storms offered. Relief. Release. The brute beauty of nature’s climax. I, however, welcomed it. I wanted to feel what the storm felt. I wanted to be it.

They reminded me of the thing inside me—The Beast. It didn’t ask for permission. It didn’t wait for intimacy. It took. Each storm was a rehearsal. Each photograph is a shrine. But still, I couldn’t capture what I truly needed.

So, I’d drive. After the lightning, after the shots, I’d go to her. Nina. And I’d try again. I’d plunge in and out of her the way storms raped the land. But even then—something was missing.

The lens betrayed me. Nina’s moans failed me. My wife’s silence punished me.

Yet the storm never failed. It always arrived, it always exploded, and it never apologised. What a glorious way to exist.

[from SEETHINGS, downloadable and free for a limited time]