artyartie

Because it's time to get those muscles in the brain (and fingers) working..

Prompt: Stopwatches

'Beep-beep.'

Unconsciously, she mimicked the stopwatch as she pressed the timer, her faced bathed in the white-hot flash of the lightening bolt, a flicker mirrored in the panels of her glasses. Crouched on the floor besides the enormous bay windows, she looked at the numbers racing by, waiting for the clap of thunder she knew would come.

5.67 seconds.

6.83 seconds.

They had just learned in class today how to tell the distance of a lightning strike. Science class had always fascinated her, this fact doubly so. When the dark clouds gathered on her horizon, she gathered up her stopwatch, pencil and notepad and had made the living room her storm center. She didn't trust her own counting - one-Mississippi was too imprecise in her estimation. Even now, on the fourth trial, she didn't know if her finger was quite accurate enough.

7.45 seconds.

8.92 seconds.

A tremendous crash rattled the windows and set half the neighborhood dogs to whining. Her finger spasmodically pressed the timer button again, capturing the distance between the fury of nature and her sheltered home.

9.33 seconds.

The formula not quite memorized yet, though she imagined it would only take a few strikes more, she set upon the pad of paper with a look of triumph.