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but most often there was the opposite effect — impotence and depression. Some in the group shook with muscle spasms, and some stuttered; some looked perfectly normal, and maybe they were. There were plenty of memory glitches, lost thoughts, forgotten identities. One fellow couldn’t remember where he’d been born. A girl couldn’t recall her middle name. For most, the moments before their strikes were the clearest time of their lives. Just as they would have remembered the stars falling from the sky, the memory of that bright instant was something they couldn’t get rid of, no matter how hard they might try.
    I noticed the man next to me, a boy really, in his early twenties. Tall, gawky, hazel eyes. Oddly enough, wearing gloves. When he caught me looking, he leaned over, close.
    “Want to see?”
    The clicking in my head was bad; I may have nodded. I suppose he took that as a yes and thought I wanted to find out what was under those gloves. As if I cared. The boy’s name was Renny, and he was a sophomore at Orlon about to attend summer classes, trying to make up for the semester he’d lost when he was hit. When he took off his gloves I could see that he had been wearing a ring on one hand when he’d been struck by lightning, a watch on the other. Both pieces of jewelry had left deep indentations in his skin, as though he’d been branded by the heated metal. He didn’t have to say his hands caused him great pain; that much was evident from the depth of the ridges, from the way he moved, so tentatively.
    “Too bad the watch doesn’t tell time,” Renny joked. On with his gloves. He winced. “I was on a golf course. Did you know that five percent of strikes take place on golf courses?”
    “Really?” These people couldn’t talk enough about their experiences.
    “I was with all the guys in my fraternity, nearly fifty of us; it was a party, kind of a fund-raiser to fix up our house. We were having a great time and then kerblam . I was the only one who got hit. Went right through my head and out my foot. Direct hit. I still have a hole here somewhere.” He fingered the top of his head till he found it. “Got it.”
    The entire interchange was getting much too personal. Next he’d want to know if I slept without a nightgown. If my lightning strike was in my dreams. If I panicked and locked the door at the first sign of rain.
    Still, he was grinning at me. I supposed I had to give him something.
    “I was in my living room. The flyswatter I was holding caught fire.”
    That seemed to please him. Almost as though I was confiding in him.
    “Wow. I’ll bet that was a surprise.”
    He was so concerned and friendly, I decided to give him a bit more information.
    “It was a plastic flyswatter, so it actually started to melt. I bought it at Acres’ Hardware Store. It was a splash event.” I hoped that sounded professional.
    “Good thing you weren’t using a rolled-up newspaper. You probably would have ignited.”
    I liked his habit of understatement. Now when he smiled, I might have smiled back at him.
    There were eight of us there that night — old and young, male and female, with nothing to define us, nothing in common. Watching over us, guiding us, I suppose, were a nurse, a neurologist — clearly junior to Dr. Wyman — and a therapist. I was soon to learn that out of all the documented cases of lightning strikes in the state, two-thirds had occurred in Orlon County. Lucky us. We were in the center of all the bad weather in Florida. No wonder my brother was delighted to live here.
    We were forced to go around in a circle, introducing ourselves — first names only, of course — with the opportunity to discuss how we were feeling. Now everyone clammed up. Physical ailments were one thing, but this was something else entirely. What has your strike done to your soul? Your sex life? Now that flames have shot through you, is your ego intact? Or is it busy clicking, shaking, shuddering?
    No one spoke up. The