Oil on canvas – 11,81 x 11,81 inch – Unique work

A small hot tea from Kusmi Tea, scones, raspberry jam, clotted cream, a good book, 1793 by Niklas Natt och Dag … It suddenly gets dark in the living room!

That’s when a lightning streaks across the walls and a few seconds later the thunder makes these same walls vibrate! Impressive, and almost creepy. I get up and look out the window. The windows do what they can to resist raindrops transformed into hailstones. In just a few minutes, the sidewalks are bursting out with a flood of water from who knows where. The manhole covers rise and fall noisily, the rats leave the ship!

So, I live on the 5th floor, obviously, I should be safe! Unless a tree falls on the building. Which almost happened during the storm of December 1999. That night, I had heard absolutely nothing, I slept like a baby! And a second one … As my father taught me when I was a little girl, I count between light and sound to determine the distance from the possible impact of lightning. So, I count 1, 2 … Oops, the thunder has already sounded.

I start over, over and over again. The nice and intimate moment between my mind and my stomach, between my reading and my greed took a hell of a blow. The tea cools, the scones also, as for the clotted cream, it drips miserably on the plate. And during this infinite time, the death knell is approaching. Lightning and thunder appear simultaneously. So the unthinkable, the unbelievable happens. A tree catches fire, like a torch, to fall a few moments later on the building opposite, the rectorate, to be more precise, which fortunately at this late hour on a Sunday, is completely empty.

That’s when the fire department’s sirens sweep the streets. One, two, three … trucks fight united against the flames. The rain then stopped instantly, the sewers resumed their daily share, the rats came back in a single file. Quickly, the gleaming helmets return to their barracks, I make myself a very hot tea, I bite into the scones, and go back to my reading 1793.

And that’s how my life starts again, one evening after the storm …