AN AMERICAN PICNIC

published in MAD SWIRL (madswirl.com)

We sat on the porch of my fathers house
and watched the storm roll in.
At first it was just a flash in the distance
Then
The wind picked up
It began to rain
The thunder became louder.
And I sat there and I drank my diet Pepsi
And she smoked her joint.
A bolt of lightning lit up the
The front lawn and we both jumped back
we got scared,
we wanted to hide
but by the time we had decided
to retreat back into the house
the storm already passed
leaving us with nothing but the softening rain.

From inside the house
we could hear my step mother calling for my father.
She had rheumatoid arthritis
and she had a hard time getting up from the couch.
it didn’t take much to make this woman feel helpless.
She kept calling for my father
Asking him if the car windows were rolled up.
we could almost hear him ignoring her.
if he was actually asleep he would have been snoring.
It was almost like we could hear him
But really all that could be heard was my step mother's yelling
and the fading sound of distant thunder coming from the passing storm

- justin grimbol
(added 12.12.09)