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I turned his words over in my head.
I am proof.
Jesus Christ.
“You’ve been struck by lightning?”
Those blue eyes lasered into me, sapphire fire, before he looked away. “Indirectly. But yes.”
God.
“When?”
“I was two years old.”
“Oh my god. How... what the fuck? Jeremiah, my god, what happened?”
He was quiet for a long few seconds, the sounds of the night loud in the silence. Crickets, cicadas, birds, the wind, all urging him to speak.
“I was in a stroller,” he murmured. “My mother was pushing me. It was a freak afternoon storm in the city. She was running for the tram in the rain when lightning struck the tram line. Her foot was on the track...”
Holy shit.
Holy fucking shit.
I could see the image in my head, and the footage, because I’d seen it. The whole country had. It was caught on a security camera in Collins Street, Melbourne. All those years ago. I remembered this story... I remembered how the lightning flashed, sparks flew out of the tram wires, and a woman on the road was struck, her body flung side to side as if she’d been shot, her stroller slowly rolling away.
That footage was still famous. It was still replayed, still used to propagate storm safety messages to this very day.
Christ all-fucking-Mighty.
“That was you?”
With his back to me now, his shoulders sagged, and he gave a nod.
“God, Jeremiah, I’m so sorry.”
“They said I wasn’t harmed because the stroller had rubber wheels,” he said, his voice detached and quiet. “I was two. I can’t possibly remember it, so perhaps it was the footage.” He turned to me then. “Maybe seeing the footage over and over has implanted false memories in my mind, or my imagination. I don’t know. It’s weird because the footage is from a different angle to my memories, so I can’t be sure. I assume you’ve seen it?”
I nodded. “On Collins Street.”
“I can remember my mother’s face when she was struck. Just a fleeting moment of surprise before she spun away.” He shrugged. “In my memory, it’s not raining. But in the footage, it’s pouring. And in my memory, I’m facing her but in the footage I’m not. So I can only assume it’s all just false memories. Put there by the photographs my father has, and that damn footage.”
I went over to him and put my hand on his arm. “I’m really sorry.”
“My entire life has been shaped by lightning.”
“It’s why you’re so driven to understand it. That makes sense. I’d want to understand it too.”
He inhaled deeply and let it out on a sigh. “The doctors said I was very lucky. The blowback and side-flash hit me, but I was unharmed. More or less. But what it did to my mother...”
I didn’t remember any of the gruesome details. Maybe they were disclosed at the time but not later. In the footage, afterward, it just showed her body covered with a sheet.
“Jeremiah,” I whispered, sliding my hand up to his shoulder and giving it a squeeze. “You don’t need to explain anything to me. The dipshits you work with might think you’re creepy for trying to learn more, but if anything, I think I understand you better now. How could you not want to know?”
His eyes searched mine, maybe looking for sincerity. I hoped he found it. I was dead serious. “If you want help trying to learn more, I’ll help you,” I offered. “It’s fascinating as hell to me.”
The corner of his mouth lifted just a fraction. “You don’t think I’m crazy? The weirdo lightning guy?”
