Illapa

The first thing I remember is the light. I had been inside the storehouse helping move baskets of maize when the doorway suddenly turned white. For the smallest fraction of a moment, everything outside became sharper than I had ever seen it. The terraces. The cliff. The rain beginning above the valley. Even the stones seemed outlined in light.

The sound came immediately afterward. The mountain cracked.

People shouted as rock began falling from the slope above us. Someone grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the doorway. A section of the terrace wall disappeared beneath the debris, and one corner of the storehouse broke open. Maize poured through the gap and rolled across the wet ground while everyone ran toward whatever they could save.

The storm moved through almost as quickly as it had arrived. By late afternoon, sunlight had returned to part of the valley. Water ran down the road in narrow streams. People were already lifting stones, gathering scattered maize, checking walls, and calling across the terraces to one another.

I stood for a long time looking at the cliff. That morning it had simply been part of the mountain. The storehouse had been whole. The road had been clear. Everyone had expected the day to continue according to plans made before breakfast. One flash changed what the afternoon required from every person in the village.

Tonight the lightning is still in my mind. There was no time to understand it while it was happening. There was only the instant when the world became brilliantly visible, followed by the realization that something had moved and nothing around it could continue exactly as before.