so virago & i are sitting at olive garden when i hear my cellphone beeping in my pocket. in the noisy restaurant, i have missed hearing it ring and am being notified of a new voicemail message. i check the number and it's someone from home, which is strange because i had just left there two hours earlier. the voicemail is a cryptic message asking if we are "safe" and mentioning something about property and auto damage, both at my house and at my parents' house a few blocks away. we had driven through some rain and seen lightning on the drive to castleton, but nothing too severe, so i am puzzled. still, it sounds like everyone is okay so we continue with our meal.

not much later, i hear my phone ringing again. it's my mother, who informs me that the neighborhood has been hit by hail the size of eggs, which has broken a window and dented their cars.

chicken eggs, i ask?

chicken eggs. hail the size of chicken eggs. there had been no such hail in castleton.

we finish our meal, shop for a while, and head home. at two different points on meridian st there are signs reading "high water", and we are forced to decide whether to caulk up the wagon and ford the river or try to go some other way. we risk it, though some other drivers are not so brave.

at some point the radio gets tuned to WBDG, the radio station run out of ben davis high school, and the dj is freaking out about all the tornadoes and hail he thinks will hit him any second. over and over he insists that this is a "severe situation", and eventually flees the studio to find shelter for himself.

finally we park and get back to virago's apartment. her cat is panicked, hiding in the bathroom. tellingly, the cat that normally can't shut up for 5 minutes is unsettlingly quiet. she knows something freaky is going down.

and then that's about it. it hailed, it was loud for a few minutes, and now it seems to be over. pretty anticlimactic.¶

Until you suddenly realize:

THE HAIL IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE APARTMENT!!!!!! ¶