The sky cracked open at 6:17 a.m.

I was on the edge of a field in western Kansas, coffee cold in my thermos, when the clouds split like burnt paper. Not a tornado—just a single, vertical column of rain so thick it looked like a wall. I stood there for ten minutes, watching it fall straight down, no wind, no thunder. The air smelled like wet stone and something older. I didn’t move until the sun came back through. It wasn’t a storm I’d planned for. It just happened. And I’m still not sure what to do with that.