Ceraunophilia

Ceraunophilia by Chris Green

I turn on the laptop one wet Monday morning to find a Facebook friend request from Tracey Accident. It must be a joke. No one is called Tracey Accident, Not even Random Name Generator could come up with such an absurd name. But I see that Tracey and I have several mutual friends, including Wet Blanket Ron. It is good to see that Ron has a friend besides myself and Morrissey, but Tracey’s request is nevertheless, a puzzler.

I click on the link and see that Tracey’s musical likes are Wagner, The Velvet Underground and Blodwyn Pig. My musical tastes exactly. She likes the same films too, Kill Bill, Ben Hur and Forrest Gump. She lists her interests as Surfing and …… Ceraunophilia, an obsessional fondness for thunderstorms.

I can see where Tracey is coming from. I used to think that thunderstorms were just thunderstorms. A few cracks of thunder followed by a few streaks of lightning, a whole heap of rain, then off the storm would go to somewhere else. This described the storms we had in the Cotswold Hills. They would mostly occur at the end of a warm day in late summer. They would be over quickly and everyone would make remarks about how they had cleared the air.

But after a coach journey last year through the Carpathian mountains at night, I too became fascinated by thunderstorms. The humidity must have been a hundred per cent. Although I was aboard a coach, it was just like being in a Turkish bath. All around was a light show, second to none. The whole sky lit up every second or so, with cracks of thunder that might have come straight from Hell. Apparently, such storms are common in that part of the world.

Now, as soon as Carol Kirkwood or Matt Taylor talk about vigorous convective activity embedded in frontal cloud, and point to the BBC thunder graphic behind them, I sit expectantly at the window watching the burgeoning cumulonimbus give way to the first forks of lightning.

‘Do I know you?’ I ask Tracey in a private message.

‘Of course you do,’ she replies. ‘I am surprised you can’t remember.’

I take another look at her profile photos, and although she is an attractive woman, mid thirties with dark hair and a full figure, I do not recognise her. I have no recollection of us ever having met. Perhaps this is not important. It is common to have Facebook friends you have never met. Users are often so keen to have a high number of friends they accept requests indiscriminately. There are even sites where you can buy Facebook friends. Like everyone else, I want high numbers for people to see. I don’t want to be seen as Billy No Mates. As Tracey and I have mutual friends, I accept her request.

Tracey doesn’t post much on Facebook. After the initial flurry of PM exchanges about thunderstorms and a status about a Blodwyn Pig reunion gig at a small venue in London, I hear nothing. At first, I don’t notice my number of Facebook friends shrinking. It happens slowly, but the figure goes down a little each day. Ninety-four to ninety-three, then over a week it is down to seventy-eight. Ray Wellington and Dean Runner have gone and Mark Friday and Gilda Hewitt. I wonder if I have done anything to offend them. I decide we probably weren’t that close, anyway. I haven’t seen Ray or Dean since we were at school and I only ever knew Mark through a computer class we did together. I would not recognise Gilda. She does not post photos of herself.

Swamped by daily statuses relating the idle thoughts of distant acquaintances, and streams of photos of their gardens or their pets, I reason that Ray, Dean, Mark, Gilda and the others may simply have been having a clear out. Rather than spend each waking hour on social media, they may have discovered more rewarding ways to spend their time. It isn’t until Mitch Presley disappears from my list and I am down to sixty-four friends that I begin to worry. Mitch and I were close. I phone Mitch’s partner, Hannah.

‘Haven’t you heard?’ she says. ‘Mitch was out on the golf course when he was struck by lightning. A freak accident.’

‘Oh, my God!’ I say. ‘How awful. ……. I didn’t realise Mitch played golf.’

‘Neither did I,’ says Hannah. ‘He got roped into it by a Facebook friend he wasn’t sure he knew.’

I begin to worry about what might have happened to the others. Might freak accidents have befallen them too? What if I am next? It would probably be a good move to give Tracey Accident the heave-ho, just in case my paranoia is justified.

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