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White Lightening By
Evans Munyemesha
Quanita Pamela had jolted
out of sleep, awakened by a soundless noise from
somewhere in the night. Was it just a bad dream? With
her heart humming lightly, she breathed in deeply, a
little bit scared to make a sound.
Silence! Everything was so
quiet, and she wondered if the soundless noise she'd
heard right before being jolted out of her sleep was
only her mind playing tricks. The summer breeze
soughed in the house. Without turning to face him, she
looked over at Tyson, her husband. He was in a
different world, breathing rhythmically.
Quanita could not go to
sleep comfortably again in her house. She won't be
able to. Throughout her childhood and adolescence, so
many terrible things had happened to her so many times
at the hands of her family that she had eventually
learned to view the continuation of peaceful living
and survival just as acts of isolation from the people
that society had taught her as a child to trust. This
house, her house, afforded her a daily reminder of her
new beginning, away from her parents, and the
unspeakable heart-rending and torturous secrets that
their family had kept so tightly within their circle
of pleasurable activities.
Now in the dark, Quanita
lay in bed, certain she had heard a noise but unable
to tell what it was: Was it real or was it just
something she had brought with her from her dream? Her
heart was beating so evenly, she could barely feel its
rhythm in the silent night.
Outside through the window
the sky was dead-black and the moon appeared only as a
somber crescent.
Quanita tried to identify
the sound that had awakened her, but it only echoed in
the back of her mind. Just as she convinced herself
that she was only having a bad dream, a flicker of
light appeared outside from the security porch light.
She rolled to one side, looking---and listening.
Whatever had roused her from sleep was not a bad dream
but something real. Something ominously vicious.
Her even beating heart had
now geared itself up and was pumping adrenaline with
reckless abandon. With her mind, she surged into the
woods of time past and away from now, trying to search
through the files of her previous life.
Something with many legs
fell on her face. It started to move, tiny legs
scrambling across her cheeks. Quanita desperately
wanted to scream, but she couldn't, her jaws were
bolted shut. All she could do was bring her hand to
her face and try to brush off the bug. Nothing on her
face. Her heart was knocking wildly in her ears she
had to calm herself. A spider had built a web of fear
around her. She now turned on her side, facing Tyson,
her husband. He was still soundless, deep in sleep.
Long rid of her troubled past and free to lay in this
man's arms made her feel safe.
Nevertheless, this strange
night at her house, she felt vulnerable, and was
reluctant to close her eyes and go to bed in the
safety of Tyson's arms.
She lay in the darkness on
the bed, still gazing at her husband---and thinking.
She always envied his peaceful periods of sleep.
Throughout their long marriage, he had always
exhibited the ability to sleep through anything. Now,
as she lay watching, she found his somnolent ability
to be a source of extreme exasperation rather than one
of envy.
Beyond the undulating
landscape lay the the serried low-lying gentle hills
seen in the gloom of night an inconstant breeze
stirred through the desert, and sometimes the
sagebrush seemed to roll like waves across the slopes,
aglitter with a soft moonglow. The sun had disappeared
for several hours now and the songbirds of summer had
long ceased their chirping and flying madly about.
When she saw the security
porch light go on again, she was listening to the
crickets, drawn to them by their incessant incoherent
insectile music, fascinated by their apparent harmless
existence and lack of worry. This time the flicker of
light seemed to be only a lunar mirage, an alien
shadow stalking the fallen angels across the stretches
of time.
At this hour, one o'clock
in the morning, the city of Las Vegas was strangely
quiet, especially in the rich neighborhoods where
Quanita and her husband lived. In the great distance
in the heart of the city lay an intriguing spectrum: a
fascinating combination of neon lights and signs on
both ancient and modern buildings; the hustle and
bustle of city night-life; the serial transformation
of inanimate architecture into popular culture's
acceptance. This was Las Vegas in an age of continuous
change, beaming with lust and perversion, yearning for
instant gratification from small pleasures accorded by
the uninhibited.
By a mysterious
amalgamation of the past with the present, the wicked
and the innocent, the metropolis renewed Quanita's
sense of fear for what humanity was capable, refreshed
the memories of her pain and abuse from a decade ago,
and shattered to a grinding still her journey into a
peaceful future. Her new identity dissolved in the
ocean of night. ....society continuously regenerates
itself: People grow up and change; some for the better
and others for the worse; unable to change their past
but eager to control their future; to change oneself
one has to look within to achieve that goal...and I'll
do just that to make that happen...
That was a comforting
thought when it appealed to her sense of courage and
determination, a strong set of emotional weaponry that
was indefinably powerful in times like this.
When the security porch
light came on briefly for the third time, Quanita sat
forward in her bed. Tense. Head cocked. Listening. She
didn't want to believe that the security system had
been tempered with, so she continued to listen and
stare into the night, surveying the hills beyond.
From elsewhere she sensed
an eerie silence and a stealthiness. Alarmed somewhat,
Quanita switched on the lamp on her bedside and
studied the room. It was familiar, known and intact.
Everything was in its proper place in the bedroom. Yet
deep within her, something was wrong. She felt
enclosed, invalidated, stifled, and
stultified---backed against a wall as though her past
had finally caught up with her.
Violated in a way she
cared not to remember. Shivering she nudged at Tyson
in the chest. He mumbled something intelligible only
to the elves and dwarves, and turned on his other
side.
She nudged him again, this
time with a whispery "Hey." He stirred
slightly; he sleeps like a corpse.
"Tyson, wake
up!" She said a little louder.
" Um...What is
it?" He muttered, rolling over onto his side.
When he opened his eyes she said, "The
light."
"What light?" He
said grumpily, rubbing his eyes.
"The porch
light." For some reason she hated herself for
waking him up.
"It came on three
times already."
"Probably just acting
up." Sleepily stretching himself and putting on
his blue silk robe and slippers, Tyson said,
"I'll go and check. It's probably the bulb acting
up again. Stay here, I'll be right back." The
silence was deeper now. And calculated.
He left the dimly lit
bedroom, skulking, heading for the restroom first.
Coming out from the restroom, which served as a
bathroom also, he opened the door to the hallway at
the head of the stairs, flicked on the lamplight,
descended, moving slowly, his sixth sense nagging him
to be careful. He felt no outward threat, but the skin
on the back of his neck tingled and a shiver ran down
his spine driven by an inconsonantly extrinsic
feeling.
As he reached the bottom
of the steps, he was startled by a sudden, muffled
clatter. It was quick and fearful. Patter, pat, patter
What the devil's that? It came from the outside.
He stood on the last step,
looking up and forward toward through the big window
by the front door in the foyer. He listened for a
moment, and then he sighed. Probably house noises,
settling down. He waited still.
A quiet wind. The branches
of a tree scraping lightly against an outside wall.
He crossed the short hall
toward the foyer that led to the outside. As he
approached, his footsteps echoed noiselessly off the
carpeted floor. Suddenly, a movement caught his eye,
though he wasn't sure what he was seeing. The day,
which had been gray and dull to begin with, had now
given of itself to the stalking moonlit night, and
thin fog had settled like a thin membrane on the lawn.
Shadows lay everywhere. The dim lamplight was
illusory, unrevealing; it distorted the images,
enlarging those it touched. In that penumbral
landscape, something abruptly darted out from behind
the thick trunk of an oak tree, crossed a stretch of
open grass, and quickly disappeared behind a bush.
He drew closer to the
window.
That something then
hunched over farther down.
A soft wind lightly
slapped at the leaves of the oak tree, and playfully
whipped the bush back and forth, ---and in that
instant, something rushed out from the bush.
Tyson squinted, stealing
another glance at the night. Dense clusters of leaves
and the deep-red flowers of the oleander pressed
against the window, his imagination morphing them into
demon puppets.
The intruder was crouched
low by the hedges, obscured by the many distorted dark
images in the light mist, a shadow among shadows. It
was vaguely defined by the thick cloud of night and
strangely its true appearance remained at the edge of
perception. He pulled the curtain to get a better
view.
As the heavy-black sky
held fast, a thud resounded in the night. And she
heard it.
Terror --- terror so
powerful it propelled her off into the dungeon of
misery, gripping her with a nauseous steel of arms as
she summoned magical powers that she knew she didn't
have in trying to conjure thoughts of what that thud
meant. She teetered on the edge of consciousness. And
the sky in her mind became even more dark. She was
still in the bedroom.
"Tyson!"
He didn't respond.
Silence.
Quanita played out in her
mind what the thud could have been. Her happiness flew
out the window. She watched it go, not being able to
do anything. Her heart settled in her throat, and she
thought she was going to disgorge tangled ropes of her
bowels. Fear crept in and wrapped itself around her,
changing the mood of the room from glowing stars of
comfort and safety to a somber moon in a cramped
corner of terror.
Quiet. Hush.
"Tyson?" She
repeated, this time her tone showing more concern than
panic.
Ssssshhh
She got out of bed and put
on a robe. It was a snow-white silk wrapper she'd
bought the previous week. She walked over to the
closet.
A loaded .32 automatic lay
on the only shelf. She hesitated, listened to the
silence for one long moment, then proceeded to pick up
the gun. She felt awkward grasping it. She had no idea
what she had waiting for her at the other end: a
multi-eyed monster with impenetrable African crocodile
skin; or probably a teeny-weeny green figure looking
at life through tennis-ball sized eyes with an
intelligible alien accent; or just the silence of the
house playing host to phantoms riding on the wings of
darkness.
She came to the head of
the stairs. And peered down below, making out gleaming
shadows which danced before her in the dim lamplight
below as though attracting her to a ritual for the
dead. "Tyson?"
No answer.
Her fears intensified. She
didn't want anything bad to happen to Tyson. In her
mind she could make out the stranger speaking from the
shadows with vengeful eyes. Cold and demonic. Little
electric shocks went through her body. She felt like
it was a dream. After all, her life was more or less
like a fairy tale.
She has no real loving
memory of her father. She'd always known what
happened, she just couldn't let herself know---or
think about it because she could not handle the pain
and couldn't deal with it. She believed that was
called repression.
Even though she couldn't
admit to that single act out of personal discretion,
it manifested itself in many other ways, and still
continues to. She didn't have specific memories for a
while, but it's not because they weren't there---it's
because she didn't allow herself access to them. She
didn't want to remember.
It's been over ten years
since she dealt with acute panic attacks. She still
tries to deny it to herself sometimes. She tries to
convince herself that maybe she made it all up---to
get attention, to feel loved, wanted maybe?
Time might have dulled the
pain a little, but it's not going to solve anything by
itself. Unfortunately, she was the only one who could
do that.
Holding the gun in her
right hand and in front of her, she started to descend
the stairs, breathing fast and soft, unable to stop
herself from shaking just a bit. Half way down the
stairs, the many dancing shadows solidified into one
figure. It was Tyson.
He was sprawled diagonally
across the doormat lying on his back, facing the
ceiling and the Heavens beyond in perpetual
supplication of redemption; his hands clutching his
throat as though he had been trying to reach for
something embedded in there.
Bruised and battered, he
lay surprisingly silent, his blue night-robe now
soaked in his blood. Thick bubbles of scarlet gurgled
from his throat. It was an awful way to die.
Everything seemed to have
happened in slow motion, with Tyson grabbing his
throat, his hands covered with his own blood as he
fell, staggering to the carpet. The carpet was now a
deep body of red. The horror of it all seized her and
wouldn't let go. If it weren't for the fact that her
own hands were pulled into a vise-grip around the
trigger, forcing her into an upright position, forcing
her to watch every tortuous sign of death, she would
have liked to have bent at the waist and retched all
over the floor. The stench of death forced bitter bile
into her throat; the shock alone, however, of what was
happening to her--- in front of her--- could have
rendered her immobile. An eerie scream, like the
shriek of a disgruntled spirit, rent the air and she
realized it came from her own throat.
Quanita's sobs and screams
filled the room as she descended farther down and sank
to the floor, cradling Tyson's head in her arms, his
blood seeping into her robe. She couldn't believe it;
only moments ago they had been in bed, and now he was
lying dead on the floor in the foyer. She would do
anything to turn back the clock, to do everything
differently. He never would have come downstairs. He
was gone from her forever. It was all her fault; she'd
made him rise out of bed.
Then the stranger spoke
from the shadows. She looked up, her eyes met with
his. Little shocks of disgust went through her body.
She looked into his cold demon eyes, and was
catapulted to time past. Daddy has come... Daddy has
come to play child games, again.
As she became aware of the
danger present and the ramifications inherent, torn
between the long fingers of surrender and the
unyielding grasp of survival, she raised the gun with
malicious intent unbeknownst to her conscience, aiming
at the stranger. The shot boomed out in the silent
night, sending nocturnal small animals scampering for
safety in their burrows. For a moment---and just that
moment--- the neighborhood experienced a preternatural
gap in silence as the stranger stuttered backwards.
Along the sleepy street
came a chilling wind searching the boughs of the pine
trees for hidden birds. It rustled the leaves on the
branches of a nearby group of jacarandas. Under the
sky, cold-black in the night and closer to the earth,
the clouds seemed to carry an enormous load of
indefinable portents.
The bullet had torn
through his chest, carrying with it, for a momentary
second, a chunk of his heart, and then had exited
through his back, then through the eaves removing a
layer of wood just as the moment of recognition had
peeled off one layer from Quanita's peaceful
existence.
The wind suddenly changed
direction, rattling a loose metal fixture on the roof.
The big satellite dish creaked dismally between its
stands, conveying a gloomy heavy cast mien. The wind
groaned across the woods, playing with gold dry poplar
leaves, like a shepherd counting his sheep after a
long day of herding.
In the distance, a
familiar persistent shrill cry cut through the night.
She slumped down on the wet carpet, her hands to her
face, sobbing, as the evil hands of her past receded
into the past where they belonged. Her mind was a
murky spinning web of ideas and thoughts.
She was torn between a
gleeful relief and a saintly sorrow. Relief for having
finally stood up for herself; turning humiliation and
fear into weapons of defense and survival, freaking
daddy!: Sorrow for the loss of Tyson, her husband; she
saw a future that will always haunt her.
Then she realized that
she'd no control of the past she surely had it within
herself to start anew. Grow, regenerate and be free,
again. That was the promise she made to herself...to
go on living not only as a survivor, but a victor.
With that gleam of hope,
she shuddered.
© Evans Munyemesha, All
Rights Reserved
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