Gully Washer: It was a hot night. [Mrs. Uther] was sound asleep, and I was typing away at the computer and sweating despite having all the windows in our unairconditioned apartment wide open.

Then thunder crashed. Cool (actually, fairly cold) air blew in the windows. It was immediately followed by rain blowing in. I ran around the apartment, closing the windows where the rain was currently blowing in, pulling other windows down to about an inch above the sill.

The next task any sensible person would have performed would be to shut off the computer so it wasn't threatened by any power surges. Instead, I went back and wrote this story.

I started out with merely the image of a couple lying in the same bed when it was too hot to touch. Then the same sort of storm cooled the air. They made love.

Within the first dozen words, the story had wrestled itself out of my hands. The couple were much older than I had seen them first. Here is the result.