A great bolt of lightning struck Seattle a moment ago. The flash and roar of it filled this Pioneer Square cafe. But how harmless lightning is in this city of clouds. It never really kills or injures. Its roar is the roar of a toothless lion. Lightning here is reduced to nothing more than fireworks. Back home in Zimbabwe, even in the city of Harare, lightning was a real killer. You feared it like the folks in the Old Testament feared the fury of God. Particularly in the Inyangas, the Highlands (Zimbabwe’s mountain region), the location of my tribe, the Chimanicas, and my tribe’s capital city, Mutare: when you suddenly saw a bright flash, you were happy you saw that bright flash because if you didn’t see it—yaahwee!—that brief crack of light was your exit from life.