A Hot Summer Day and Storm No. 2
A one-hectare field of young spruce required plenty of tending to keep it free of weeds. In the morning a forestry vehicle brought us to work together with the logging workers, and in the afternoon, around four or five, it came to collect us. That meant working through the hottest part of the day. Because I had made myself a small shelter at the edge of the forest — a little plastic-sheet hut — I decided to stay there overnight so that I could work in the cool evening until dusk. From a nearby deer feeding shelter I brought a small sack of hay to make a softer bed.
Everything was fine until the disc of the sun disappeared behind the forest. Then the sky suddenly darkened in the south, the wind began to rise and, as one might expect, rain was on the way.
I had always felt there as comfortable as in a room at home, but that night I will remember until the day I die.
A furious thunderstorm began. The whole sky seemed constantly filled with fire, and the crashes of thunder stiffened me with fear.
I thought that by morning I would be crushed flat together with my hut beneath some broken tree, or that the strong wind would carry hut and all into the air like Baba Yaga's house.
It was already around midnight when my nerves could take no more. The lightning seemed never-ending and the rain poured as if tipped from buckets.
I decided to ask for shelter for the night at the tractor driver's home. They were greatly surprised that I had been alone in the forest in such weather. The thunder had kept them awake too.
My family had been worried, and our supervisor had also regretted leaving me in the forest. When the others arrived for work in the morning, the driver's first question was whether I planned to spend another night there.
By evening all my bags and belongings were packed. I had no wish to live through another night like that.