2024-01-06 16:00:12
THIBAULT LAGET-RO
“In 1980, my wife and I were newly married. We are moving into a three-room apartment, which we have just bought in Bourg-la-Reine [Hauts-de-Seine]. It is located in a large building which is not very beautiful, facing the RER, but we are on the top floor, and the apartment faces east-west. From the bedroom balcony, you have a splendid view of Paris.
We haven’t unpacked all our boxes yet. Some books are still lying around in the hallway, on the bookshelf, waiting to be put away. One evening, I came across Leading the way, by Roger Frison-Roche [Arthaud, 1941], and I suddenly want to read it. I’ve never looked at it before, although I’ve had it for several years. It was my great-aunt who gave it to me to get rid of. It’s a mountaineering story. I’ll start it: it’s about a young man whose father, Jean, is a mountain guide. One day, during an outing, a storm threatens. As Jean begins the descent with his client and a porter, he sees on a metal statue of the Virgin, “little blue fireflies” which run over her dress and crackle incessantly. It seemed to the climbers that an “invisible hand was pulling, tugging on their hair”. A moment later, Jean is struck by lightning. The porter, Georges, and the customer had just had time to jump from the ledge to a small platform below and narrowly escaped death.
This is how I discovered the existence of these two phenomena announcing lightning: egrets, these kinds of luminous spikes which travel over metal surfaces, and sometimes human bodies, when the air is charged with static electricity ; and the hair that stands on end.
“Without even thinking, I see myself on this mountain ledge”
The next day, early in the evening, I saw a very black cumulonimbus above Paris. Lightning strikes the Eiffel Tower, but when I look up, I see that the sky above me remains blue. I go out onto the balcony and call my wife to come watch this show. I lean on the metal guardrail. Suddenly, I see bright egrets running over the railing and my hair stands on end. Without even thinking, I see myself on this mountain ledge, and I leap back to jump onto the bed, which is behind me. Less than a tenth of a second later, while still in the air, my entire face tingles and I’m deafened by a loud noise. It is not the usual roar of lightning, but a brief and intense crack, like that of a gunshot.
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