Severe Thunderstorm

I'd never heard an emergency siren before a few minutes ago--a screeching, awful thing, evocative of my childhood nightmares about Soviet nuclear strikes. "What's that?" I asked my driver.

"It is for severe thunderstorm," he explained. "It is to warn us."

"What should we do?"

"Nothing different," he said, "It is just for knowing." He turned left toward O'Hare, hitting the brakes. I'm in no particular rush because my flight is delayed ninety minutes. "Rain turn highway into parking lot," says my driver. The wipers swish back and forth. Mostly, I want to sleep, and with my pillow here, it's hard to resist.