THE LIGHTNING STORY

"I was living in Brussels in my penthouse apartment on the fifth floor together with my roommates. One night, we were celebrating with a couple of Belgium beers the arrival of a new member of our community. We were sitting on the rooftop terrace, when we suddenly saw a huge lightning storm in the distance. After stumbling to bed, I woke up feeling as if I had a particularly horrible flu. I realized that there was a brick missing in the wall, my radio alarm clock had exploded like a watermelon and there were pulverized rocks in my bed. The electricity and phonelines in the entire 5-story building were out. That night, I tried frantically to replace the fuses with no success. Early in the morning, one of my roommates came home to find me rocking back and forth in a corner. When he asked me what happened, I replied, "I have rocks in my bed."

While driving to the hospital in a U-Haul used for the previous day's move, my roommate came to the conclusion that a lightning bolt must have hit the building and passed over me in my sleep. At that point, I slowly was becoming aware that my eyesight was going.

The personnel in the hospital weren't very receptive to our story. They spent over an hour asking us if we had used any kinds of drugs lately. In order to get rid of us, the doctors decided to make an electrocardiogram. When I removed my T-shirt, two sun-shaped burn marks were revealed on my chest, one under my right shoulder and the other about a hand's-width under my heart. At the sight of those marks, all of the doctors started to kick into action and realized that I had actually been hit. Apparently the two marks were "Entry" and "Exit" marks from the lightning bolt which had just barely missed my heart.

The next ten days I spent in the neurology ward, with a kind truck driver who was having a tumor the size of a tennis ball removed from his cranium.

After a successful recovery and my release from the hospital, I came to the conclusion that life is pretty short and that one can die at any moment (even in one's sleep). I also realized that it's a good idea to pursue one's dreams, better sooner than later. With that resolution, I put together my portfolio and headed off to Hollywood."

- Christian Lorenz Scheurer

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