#03: A Bump in the Night.

I wake with a start, groggy, disoriented, I can’t remember what woke me. A flash outside, ‘what’s up with the streetlights?’ I think. I still can’t remember what woke me. The sky roars. I remember now. Another flash, so bright it’s blue, tears across my window. I count, barely 2 seconds before the thunder. It’s right above the house. I see a light reflection in the mirror, what the hell is going on? If this were a movie the camera would zoom in on a bead of sweat dripping down the side of my face, my neck whipping round to who’s just opened the door, false alarm it’s just my cousin. She’s just making sure I’m ok, how irrational it would be to not be. It’s only thunder and lightning, yes I’m fine. She comes in with the dog and we three sit, staring outside. It’s as if the heavens have opened, the rain is just pouring down from the sky, relentlessly beating any surface on which it lands. The power goes out. We’re encased in darkness. This time, the thunder shakes the bones of the house, the bones in my body. It takes the breath out of my lungs just momentarily, then lights the are back and some kind of peace is restored. We sit for a while longer, talking of colleges and courses and fees, comforting the dog. She doesn’t understand what’s going on, is ignorance scarier than enlightenment? We resolve to get something to eat, I settle for organic strawberry pop tarts. They taste of sugar, too sweet but I eat it anyway, one’s enough. The power goes out again but this time it stays out. It’s darker than before, the streetlights have gone out too. Guiding our search with the lights on our phones, we search for candles and matches. Two candles later and we’re in the garage searching for the flashlights. Now we have two candles, two flashlights, we set them up strategically so the kitchen is bathed in a weird glimmer of light. Harsh but flickering, it works. I decide I have to pee, accompanied by a flashlight I make my way through the silent house. In moments like these I realise my mind is my own worst enemy. It plays scenes of a gunman busting out from behind the bathroom curtain, zombies coming through AC vent. It’s funny, when I first got here I didn’t realise the AC vent was there, on the floor, below the toilet roll holder, it took me a while to realise that it was the AC blowing the toilet roll, and the house wasn’t haunted after all. My mind manipulates scenes from the scarce selection of horror movies I’ve been exposed to and puts my face in danger zone. I hurry back to the safety of our pool of light, the safety of company, the safety in denying there’s something I need to be saved from. It was just gone midnight when I woke, it’s now fifteen to one. A part of me wants to avert my eyes, hide under the duvet but the other part of me can’t tear itself away from the window, the light pierces the sky, it is a literal fork of light. It’s captivating. Suddenly the rain isn’t so loud, there’s maybe 6 seconds before the thunder, it’s leaving as suddenly as it came. The power is still not on. I’m sweating, my t-shirt sticks to my back, my hair to my face; no power means no fans, I can’t sleep naked in my cousins bed. I say my good nights and pad back to my designated room, flashlight illuminating my path in the dead of the night. I lay facing the window, the lightning a mere echo of what it used to be, I can’t even hear the thunder anymore. Over in an hour. I’m not sure how I feel, I can’t work out if I’m scared or excited, anxious or content, overwhelmingly sad or pleasantly happy. They’re the opposites of each other but right now they mean the same thing. I feel everything. I let Dallas Green and Dave Matthews Band sing me softly to sleep, my mind awash with nostalgia and memories and what used to be's. I dream of beaches full of my loved ones and the rain washing everyone away until they are just an echo of what they once were, washing them away until they gone forever.