An urban legend (I presume) from the Darwin Awards tells of a couple who got frisky while camping out one day. As they were getting their groove on in a clearing, lighting suddenly struck the girl (because she was riding him and therefore a higher target) and killed her instantly. The surge of electricity also had another effect, that of melding their naughty bits together so they guy couldn't separate himself from his now dead girl. Then apparently a bear came about and started eating her, while still stuck on the guy.

Then there's another story (which is quite true) of how this woman was one day walking about in Singapore when lightning struck her. Most unusually she was not in the vicinity of any tall buildings, so she made an easy target, and before she knew it she was ejected from her body into *insert your name for afterlife here*. No matter how unusual the circumstances, they were made odder by how the lightning had burned off her blouse. Upon further inspection the authorities determined that she got struck by lightning because she was wearing an underwire bra (I'm not kidding!), hence her blouse got burned off and the chest area singed.

I don't know why I know so many morbid stories about females being killed by lightning. No male ones. Anyway this is linked up to the rather terrifying experience I had today in the wee hours of the morning. I slept rather late (I blame Milan Kundera, an haunting writer) and as such when today's torrent of rain/monsoon hit, I had not sunk into the deep sleep zone yet. In the middle of my rather odd dream about being chased about a departmental store with clothes (which made me think of commes des garcon) only in red and black , a sudden loud shout of WARWICK!!! sent my heart a-pounding, adrenaline a-coursing and I found myself awake at 3:00am -___________________________________________________-

I woke up just as the thunder was ending it's low guttural rumble. I could still feel it's effects on my room, with my window grilles shaking about and the hiddel rafters rumbling. Outside the rain was pouring away with winds whipping the trees about like little toys (and they're about 50 years old I wager), and the sky kept flashing at frighteninglyquick intervals. So I rolled over and switched off all my electrial plugs for the laptop. Then I went back to sleep.

I had another odd dream of being stuck somewhere in Telok Blangah with Justine and Joash. We were wandering around trying to find out way back home and those two were making silly noises as usual. Then before I knew it, another WARWICK!!! woke me up. It was 4:45am. (No, don't ask me why thunder mainifested itself as WARWICK!!! in my dreams) This time the sound was equal to that of a large car accident, like a car plowing through the walls of my room or something and I woke up terrified. By this time, adrenaline from the first WARWICK had mixed together with the adrenaline from the second WARWICK and I found myself unable to sleep. Plus I was hungry.

So at 4:46am in the morning I started scouraging for food around my room. Then at 4:50am I wanted to go use the bathroom and drink water, but I was terrified that lightning would strike my house and I'd die because I was touching water. Then I started envisioning the article covering my death, something like 'IB Student Dies Because She Was Stupid And Touched Water In The Middle Of A Lightning Storm'. At 4:55am I went to the bathroom and quickly dried my hands after washing them, with soap of course. At 5:00am I started reading William Trevor. As I read, the lighting storm was still as fierce as ever. Every flash of lightning made my heart leap a little, in anticipation of a screamingly loud thunderclap, but mercifully only about 5 loud ones happened.

By 5:30am, when I finished the William Trevor story, it had stopped storming outside. Instead the fierce gale had turned to a mere drizzle. Comforted by the thought that I would not be rudely woken up by unpleasant sounds again, I forced myself into an uneasy sleep. Only to be woken up at 9:30am by BBC blasting.