FICTION I love storms. Especially that first cold gust of wind, when the downdraft pulls air from the top of the sky down to the ground. Cleanest air you’ll ever breathe. You’re going back to your car? Will you kiss me first? Thank you. Enjoy the storm. >> FLIP << The sound goddess conjured up the wind, and now it’s taking over. Grits of dirt are blowing in my face, like the sandstorms that sweep across the entire surface of Mars. There’s no difference between weather on Earth and weather on Mars. Except, of course: temperature, pressure, and atmospheric composition. Minor distinctions, compared to the physical laws that govern them both. Something has changed. The wind came to the party, and now the music stopped. >> SOBER << We just made it to the dance yard, and they stopped the music. Are you fucking kidding me? The sound goddess is telling us to return to our vehicles. “Seek shelter immediately. Do not trust your tents. Get inside your vehicles. Go now. The music will resume when the storm has passed.” I suddenly feel a connection with her. All she wanted to do was share her music, and she was thwarted, not by the competent warfare of an intelligent enemy, but by a random thunderstorm. She lost to a fluke. >> CANDY << I am deeply concerned about every single person here. They are all in danger. Most of them understand the danger, but a few can’t. How can I be useful right now? By spreading the word. Return to your vehicle. Big storm coming. I love you. Return to your vehicle. Speaking of people who might not understand the situation, where the hell is Flip? >> FLIP << Did you see that lightning? It was a spider web that spanned the sky. Now, count the seconds to thunder … one … two seconds! That lightning is 2/5 of a mile above us. The geometry of lightning is the same as a tree. And also a river. And a Martian gully. Fractals look the same at every scale. How did those gullies form? From what liquid? It would have to be stable enough to dig out the channels, but evaporate quickly enough to be gone by the time humans arrived to observe it. The storm badly wants to tell me. It is shaking me to get my attention. Sober is also shaking me. Speaking to me. Let me see if I can piece it together. She is saying something like: “You have. To pull. Yourself. Together. Long enough. To. Walk to the car.” Ok. Which way is the car? Should I flow with the current of salty puppets? >> SOBER << We made it to the car. Some guy who is dressed like a Christmas tree is in the back set with Candy. The car is full of music. The sky has opened up now, spilling water like a drive-thru car wash. The rain is making an acute angle with the windshield. Given the amount of wind and water, this can only be a high-precipitation supercell, which means there is about one chance in four that a tornado is nearby. If a tornado moves through a campground with thousands of people protected only by their vehicles, the result will be unthinkable. One chance in four. Tragedy is not the most likely outcome, but it’s more likely than a fluke. Flip is staring at the ceiling. Candy is making out with the Christmas tree in the back seat. The Christmas tree suddenly unmouths himself from Candy and asks everyone present, “Does anybody have any French fries? I could use some salt,” and we all laugh. Three of our laughs fade after a few seconds. Flip’s laugh, however, does not. It continues, building in volume and intensity, even as Candy and the Christmas tree return their attention to one another’s lips. Flip’s cheeks are wet now, dripping with tears. He is crying like someone who has just touched God. “Like salt,” Flip finally says through his sobs. “That’s what the storm is trying to tell me. The cloud and the ground form an ionic bond, just for a moment, like salt.” I ask him what he’s talking about. “Salt! We make a brine with lots and lots of salts. It’ll seep out of the Martian ground, stay liquid long enough to carve out the sand, and then evaporate. Salt! The Martian streams were really, really salty. That’s how they stayed liquid long enough to dig out the Martian gullies. Salt!” I recognize what’s happening to him. Flip is having a lightning bolt of inspiration. Most scientists have only a few such moments per lifetime, but those moments govern their discoveries and their careers. Much of our technology relies on science that is built from a few such moments in each of many scientists’ lives. I myself had such a moment, once. It happened while I was lying on a hillside staring at clouds. There were no drugs involved, but the effect was the same. I was ecstatic for weeks. That moment inspired me to apply to grad school, and has guided my research ever since. Now Flip is having such a moment, and he is sharing it with me. I thought I had been in love before, but I was wrong. With my right hand, I take hold of Flip’s left. We sit there, listening to rain play louder than the radio. Over the next month, Flip’s experiments will tell us whether his hypothesis is consistent with nature. If so, the world’s body of knowledge will advance slightly thanks to painstaking research, a fraction of a drop of lysergic acid, and a music festival. Assuming, of course, the festival doesn’t kill us. Another lightning bolt, this time from cloud to ground, landing on the near side of the tree line. For a second I was staring at a pink sun, and my eyes haven’t recovered. I felt the current go through my muscles. The cloud is a proton, positively charged. The ground is an electron, negatively charged. The lightning is their attempt to connect, to find one another, like — like what >> CANDY << Return to your vehicle. Don’t trust your tent. I love you. Hello, stranger. I love your Christmas tree lights. You are a very sexy man. Please return to your vehicle. Wait - your car is how far away? You might not make it. Our car is right here. You should hang out with us. Text your friends, and let them know. We have beer in the trunk, and we can reach it from the back seat. Your Christmas tree lights speak to my depths. I feel like I’ve known you forever. Doug Shields is the host and chief contributing poet of Poetize the News, Fridays at 10pm on KPSQ 97.3 Fayetteville Community Radio. Doug is the winner of our inagural Gimme Fiction competition. Other notable entries were: “That Makes Two of Us” by Olivia Taylor (2nd place), “Selling the Mare” by Nancy Hartney. (3rd place). It was judged by Dr. Stephanie Vanderslice, director of the Arkansas Creative Writing MFA at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway. The 2016 Gimme Fiction contest was sponsored by The Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow, Nightbird Books & Moxy Modern Mercantile. 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