Join us for a weekly blog party in Six Sentence Stories, hosted by Denise and attended by some mighty fine, fun folk. Prompt word=THUNDER. Read, write and come back for more SIX SENTENCE STORIES.

Thunder just past midnight wakes me, causes my cat to lift his head and chirrup, then press himself deeper into my side and relax: all is well with the world.

Earlier in the day, a friend and I had emerged from a soft dirt path and shaded woods by the Mississippi into a blaze of July that took our breath away and slowed our steps.

Startled by shrill cries, we searched the sky and found a pair of adolescent eaglets stretching as high as they could from their massive nest in the tallest tree, as the adult circled and banked, a huge fish in her claws, and then dipped into the nest, quickly remerging and climbing the sky over the river to hunt once more for her ever-hungry brood of two: all is well with the world.

Earlier than that, we’d strolled through chain link, cut and peeled back, to see how close we could get to the government building’s real fence, marveling at the wild blooms of graffiti art that overtaken an abandoned building just outside the protection of the camera-adorned, warning-signed, locked-down gate.

Messages, friendly monsters, and cryptic tags beautify the rusting building, her windows broken but enough structure beneath, that those living rough might find Winter shelter in her deep belly, and in the smallest script, a bold message, defiant:

“If they left it to rust
Then they left it to us”

All is well with the world.

© Liz Husebye Hartmann (2026)