How to Survive a Lightning Strike
by Brad Rose
I’m looking for my long-lost twin so we can compare notes. Sure, I’ve got a favorite emergency room, but I refuse to attend any more funerals. My parole officer says electricity has a lot of potential, but I’m pretty sure I signed up for a different force field. A lightning bolt is an electrical discharge between the atmosphere and an unsuspecting object. Before he was executed in Texas, my dad said lots of people survive a lightning strike. Next week, I’m going to prepare for the worst. Like a snake bite, it can strike you when you least expect. It’s a lot easier to recover than you think. At least for the snake.
About the Author
Brad Rose was born and raised in Los Angeles and lives in Boston. He is the author of three collections of poetry and flash fiction, Pink X-Ray (Big Table Publishing, 2015), de/tonations (Nixes Mate Press, 2020), and Momentary Turbulence (Cervena Barva Press, 2020). His fourth collection, WordinEdgeWise, is forthcoming in 2021 from Cervena Barva Press. Five times nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and twice nominated for Best of the Net Anthology, his poetry and micro fiction have appeared in, Prometheus Dreaming, The Los Angeles Times, The American Journal of Poetry, Clockhouse, Hunger Mountain, Sequestrum, Folio, decomP, Lunch Ticket, 45th Parallel, The Baltimore Review, Cultural Weekly, Into the Void, Miracle Monocle, Right Hand Pointing, and other publications. His story, “Desert Motel,” appears in the anthology Best Microfiction, 2019. Brad’s website is: www.bradrosepoetry.com Selected readings can be heard at http://bradrosepoetry.com/audio-readings/ A list of publications is available at: http://bradrosepoetry.com/2019/03/a-list-of-publications/