The daylight dims, its 3:00 pm, almost afternoon. It feels humid as the moisture in the air has increased. The skin feels all damp and sticky. My little room is getting all hot as I start sweating. It was supposed to be an ordinary afternoon on a summer day.
“Lets go outside…” I talked to myself.
As I open the door, gusty winds seem to have started to blow away the leaves of the trees. The trees are at unrest, unstable as the air lifts them, just a bit violently than before.
“Get the clothes of the ropes, I think there is a lot of rain coming…”
— Mommy Shouts.
“Yes Mom, but I am a bit scared”
— I said
“Don’t Worry, its just going to rain a bit heavy than usual, just go get the clothes before they soak wet again. I just washed them”
— Mommy said.
I watched the sky, the clouds started becoming denser and denser and so has the ground been hotter and hotter. As I dragged the basket, my feet could feel the heat of heat of the surface but I was glad, it was going to at least rain. The wind would be cooler and the ground would finally start on dropping the burn.
Bliss - the very first drop of rain that hit my forehead, an utter joy of happiness to finally feel a sigh of cool and it didn’t stop. Drop after drop started and my body was overwhelmed with this cool electric feeling. I wonder if this sudden feeling of contentment which was not expected is what true happiness is.
Now the clouds rumbled, forcing everyone to take its attention, rumble by rumble clearing its throat as if it warned those that heard that they are there, so take shelter for what you have, we will pour ourselves as we desire.
I hated the clippers as I pulled away the clothes, they won’t just let go of those clothes that easily. Frustrated, I was to quickly get inside, for the clouds scared me as they rumble. What great monsters they are, so big, so high, as no one can reach them and they can reach all. Just as they were not scary enough, I was trying too hard to ignore them, they flashed and I stopped, what followed was a big rumble, as though mountains had collided, stone to stone, crushing anything, even air in between them.
The second flash followed, breaking its way from the clouds, tearing down through like a piece of paper, a force so magnificent, that it amazes and scares you both and I wonder if fear at its maximum is what amazement is.
It hit the hit the tree, right in front of me, coursing its way through the tree to the ground, and the poor tree, how it trembled and shook involuntarily so quite from fear, an excitement, a weakness, a big quake.
It was no more, but broken down into small pieces. I never want to be that as I felt too sorry for it. It burnt but the clouds rumbled loud and claimed for them that very disaster.
Instant fear, the eerie feeling that something bad is not just going to happen but it has happened, my legs trembled. I wanted to move, run not just back inside but at least somewhere, I couldn’t move an inch. I shouted, but had no voice coming out. Is this fear?, a feeling too intense that my muscles and vocal box has changed its function, its behaviour, I am certainly not in control of myself. It was as if, I had lost all sense of hearing, for a moment, in all this chaos, there was no sound anymore, neither the wind, nor the trees, nor were the clouds claiming their pride and everything was moving but too quiet. I had never experienced such.a moment, and I thought to myself, is this an illusion or has something really gone wrong with me.
A voice creeped aloud from inside my head and all it said was
RUN! A Voice
My legs returned, I could feel them move, my voice was back, I was able to sound, my hearing was back and so were all the sounds of nature and its chaos.
I turned my head quickly saw a dark hole, I called it home, it was the door to my house, never before it seemed so dark yet the only place I now ever wanted to go. My legs twitched but they turned and took the leap. One leap after another, my feet banged the ground and the ground felt hard as a metal and I moved. Was it all my doing, or is this what happens when some basic function in our body takes control of which we can never begin to control. While I was running back to the house, time seemed so slow, I blinked right and then left and saw everything moving so elegantly, majestically, one frame at a time, I could see the flowers in the pots, communicate to their roots, frame by frame, instructing them to move in a flow so slow that it seemed like magic - unexplainable in the physics of my mind.
The door was there infant of me, and I was moving through it, and I could see that from within darkness which it seemed emerged light, a halo of the light bulbs inside. I think again, its my fear, making me hallucinate, the finest details of which was never there or perhaps I never began to take notice. Is it always fear, that makes us notice the details in our lives?
I was inside finally, and I forgot how to breath, I tried mushing in air through my nostrils, but it never seemed so hard as of now, I hissed as I tried and forced air in my nose, was it something blocking my nose, NO!, but why can’t I breath. The hissing won’t stop, I need to blow out, its called breathing. Now, I was hissing out, I need to stop, I need to blow in. Am I breathing, I repeated again and again, the same process, and I missed out when to blow in and when to blow out.
Now it was finally resting, I was slowly returning to my senses, inhale by inhale, exhale by exhale, the hissing was going away, and I could finally start on forgetting how to breath, as it was going to be automated by my body. I do, wonder whether we tend to automate the basics of our body by forgetting them and maybe they become a response to our actions, whether voluntarily or involuntarily.
I held my knees with my hand and took a second, to just collect together what had just happened. I was out, a storm struck in, a lightning fell, a tree broke down, I got stunned and now I am back inside. Its a relief that I am back inside.
I think, I should go get a glass of water. I went into the kitchen and got some water in the glass, as I drank the first gulp, it was more like stone going down my throat, its just I am still in fear. After finishing the glass, where is mom.
Now a new type of rumble started coming to my ears, I could now hear constant increase in a rumble of human voices. It was growing louder and louder, something has just happened outside, and all my neighbours were out of their houses but where is mom. I went in the basement, I went upstairs and I went in my mom, I couldn’t find my mom. The rumble of people started dimming, I should now look outside the window because there is no way, I am going out.
As I approached the window right next to the door, where I cam running in, the sun was finally rising and I could see sunlight coming in and the shadow of the windows moving on the floor. It was finally getting brighter inside, and what a sign of relief that the clouds are finally going away. The rumble of the people was also dimming and I knew it, peace has finally returned to me. I quickly opened the door to see it and feel it.
The knob seemed hotter than usual, but its a summer hot day, it turned and slipped but then firmly holding the knob on the door, it turned and the door clicked open. What I saw to my amaze, was not the view that I had pictured, it wasn’t the sun, nor was it the clouds.
A bubble of heat, it seemed to burst on my face, no one there but what about the rumble of the people, where is that crowd, wasn’t it there, no it was not, the lightning that fell and broke the tree, had created a fire. It wasn’t just a fire, but it was everywhere, the trees on the left, the trees on the right but where is the entrance to our small section of houses, it was always right in front of our door. The entrance was there but all distorted, it seemed like I was altogether in a new place which I did not recognise. I told 2 steps back and saw the very picture outside, bend to the left and then to the right, it was the heat, bending my sight. Far way on the path to my house, was a crowd, my people, my neighbours, so far away and just there was my mother in between shining the beauty she was, my mother. I wonder how distantly can a mother shine so bright, though I have never noticed her like this before.
This is section of houses, this place is on fire, that was for sure. I took all my might and speeded forward towards the path. The crowd magnified a bit, but as I ran faster and faster they didn’t seem to get closer, farther did they seem, getting away from me.
Don’t Leave Me!
Don’t Leave Me!
Don’t Leave Me!
— I cried
Just as I thought, that I am getting closer to them, another cloud rumbled and roared, the black clouds had hid the sun, and it was dark. The rumble was loud, louder than before, because it the sound vibrated in my body this time, and my heart was no more, because the rumble was all that was there, my heart beaten no more.
I think I was running, but where I am, it felt like my bed, so soft, so cozy. I think I had just awoken from a bad dream. No it wasn’t a dream, the rumble before dropped a lightning on a tree which was next to the path outside that section of houses. I was going to run through it, but the tree splintered and the impact threw me away. My arms were in a little pain, my body trembling, those little pieces of wood had just pierced the top of my skin. There were about 10-12 pieces. I moved my arm and they moved with it. I plucked on out and it pinched a bit, but I was glad there wasn’t cut open. Wherever I plucked, it did leave a red spot, a spot of red ink, we know as blood. It just stayed there, the red ink, didn’t become a bubble and poured like rain drops.
The tree had blocked my way, was there no way out, no there was not. It was on fire. The only think seemed fit was to go back to my house, through that dark hole from within which emerges light.
My house doors shut, windows shut, I sat on the floor, just trying to figure out, what would be happening the next moment. I could see my hands, fingers entangled together and the red dots on my arms, they seemed fit for a tattoo, I guess.
Mommy, I really need you, I am scared, I don’t know what to do, what can I do, are you ok, Mommy!!!
— I was talking to myself
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