It almost seemed that the fireworks over the night-black sea called the lightning. It flashed white and forked and curved and split and hissing hit the sea.

Then, the time for a breath that nobody took, the thunder rolled in across the flattened waves and shook the first, steep-fronted, houses.

The thunder landed on the roof like a rockslide. The now-dead light bulb swung as the flash through the shutters side-shadowed our faces.