Virtual Reality

"Yeah, mine too. Fried," he said with half a laugh, still not sure if all that had happened had been real, or some imagined fantasy brought about by the likes of the eerie violent storm.

"No one would ever believe us," Chris finally responded after a few shared moments of silence.

"Not in a million years!" Steve agreed. "Hell Chris, I'm not sure that even I believe it, and yet...you experienced it right along with me. Unless I'm sitting here dreaming all this of course."

"But then I'd have to be dreaming it along with you," she said laughing into the receiver. "And yet...how could it have?" she wondered, the awe in her voice clearly heard.

"I don't know, perhaps we'll never know. Never understand what it was that happened, or how it happened, or why. Only that it did. And that we shared something uniquely special that perhaps no one else ever has, or ever will."

"Maybe. Maybe not. Just make sure that next time it starts to thunder or lightning again, you get a hold of me immediately!" she giggled on her end of the line.

Outside, the freak violent storm was already retreating across the horizon. The winds no longer blew, the rains no longer pouring. Only the calm peaceful silence of a summer's refreshment remained, that, and a golden glowing rainbow of spectacular color splitting the night's setting sun.