A pride of giant lions are roaring. The most tremendous heart rending storm is breaking in crescendo of thunder and violent echo. Lightning staggers and creeps across the sky. Sheet rain hisses as if the night seethes at the arrival of new day. It is 5am.

Screaming light tears open the sky and exposes its vascular system. It’s as if I am on the underside of a forest of dark leaves whose veins are of phosphoric magnesium. I remember before the storm partially awakened a concert of bird song in my half sleep state and thinking I must record this….I must record this.

Then thunder slammed the wide windows of the lounge and my eyes opened. Awake. I love the summer storm. I remember a velvet voiced nigerian who said it was her fantasy to make love in a rain forest in a summer storm: inside it.

The Storm passes overhead as I write now at 6am. Lightening triggers silently in post coital shiver and thunder rolls away. The lion stops roaring and growls long and low. It turns, sways its head, and walks away.

This is how it is this morning as I write. But it is how it was last night. At 7pm as I stood backstage at Market Theatre a storm broke. Lightening struck downtown jo’burg. And then it stopped.

I walked on stage at 8.15pm in silence as if in the eye of a hurricane then thunder rolled above the theatre one of the stage lights shattered. I continued. It was as if all of this was a part of he play. I received a standing ovation on this the first night, the press night! Whatever the reviews say, no matter, this was magical.