The Last Storm

A crack of thunder shakes the entire house, lightning following, instantly filling the room with a bright flash of power. My eyes widen and my grip tightens on the sheets, the smell of sweat filling all senses, but there is no memory of what has made me feel this way. I turn to the side and reach out to the light on the sideboard. I pull the cord… nothing. After all these years it has finally left me, much like everything else. I roll onto my back and stare aimlessly into the darkness.

Thunder rolls across the house again. FLASH! The room fills up with light; the world is blinded by a power that I cannot comprehend. I tense at the sight of my room, a room I have looked upon thousands of times before. I focus on the nail opposite my bed, the nail I hammered in for a picture of them.

My throat is dry and hands sore from the force of my grip on the sheets. When I was young grip was never a problem. When I was young thunder, lightning, nothing was a problem for me. I had them and for a brief period in time we were… I was… happy. I thought nothing could shake what we’d built. I was wrong. I loosen my grip and reach out for the glass of water on the side. The glass is the only constant which I can remember. In the darkness I lift it to my dry lips, feeling the chip that has always been there.

I tip the glass back only to find there was not a single drop to quench the thirst. The dryness of my throat rips with every breath I take. I sit up on my bed and pull back the cold damp sheets; I pause… a faint tap at the window. I strain my eyes towards the window, tap, tap, tap. From nowhere the heavens water gates open and flood the earth. It no longer taps, as fists of rain beat against the window.

The roar of thunder sends shivers down the window panes as if they’re fearful of the storm; I stare through the window leading to the balcony overlooking the gardens she tended to and he played in. An unexpected blaze of light momentarily takes the already limited sight from me, I stumble towards the window grasping for the handle. My left hand latches on to the cold brass handle and my right hand follows through reaching for the key. As the rain continues to flow from the sky like a river breaking its banks, and as I twist the key and push the handle down, the slightest gap to the outside world appears.

The wind catches the edge of the door. I pull against it but its power is too much for me to take and drags the door from my grip, now fully open and slamming against the windows. A loud crack is followed by the muffled sound of glass smashing on the floor, the howling wind drowning out the sound.

 I slowly stumble out to the balcony; rain drops bouncing off the surface as if stones being skimmed across a lake. The stone slabs are like ice on my bare feet as I walk towards the rail to look out to the gardens.

 Within seconds I’m soaked to the bone. Lightning splits the sky with a giant fork stabbing downward from the heavens into the ground a great distance from me. The thunder cries, questioning my presence. Its sound sends me to my knees. As the rain now begins to batter my back, I crawl toward the edge of the balcony to peer through the stone pillars.

“The gardens will flood” a soft voice says in my head; she did always tell me that the gardens would flood. Why did they have to go? Without them what purpose do I have?  How will I go on without them? I reach up, open handed to capture the rail; I pull myself up and look through squinted eyes as I feel each individual rain drop smash against my face.

 The lightning pounds again, this time an unbelievable sheet of light fills the sky turning night into day for a brief moment. That’s when I saw her. I saw her standing out in the garden, but it was from a time long forgotten. Her red hair soaked, her dress clinging against the soft curve of her body...

 “Rebecca! Come out of the rain!” I yell over the drumming of the rain. She stares back blankly, and points to the statuette in the fountain. I look down to it. The rain drops, which had been moving at an incredible speed, suddenly stop and hang in a timeless frame. The entire world has stood still, the entire world apart from me and I begin to drift back to a forgotten time.

The friendliness of the summer sun shines down on us as we listen to our songs. Songs that we would dance to all night and before we knew it… It would be morning. Those times were flawless.

“You’ll never have to worry about losing me” She said in her soft voice, a flicker of the summer light playing in her ocean blue eyes which always bought a smile to my lips. How lucky I am to have you, I thought to myself, as I stare into her eyes and felt the warmth of her smile. She pulled in closer to me, our bodies sway together with the movement of the words in the song. “Tell me you will never leave me my soulmate” I felt the warm breeze of her voice as she whispered in my ear while we continued dancing around the statuette. I stopped and stared into her blue eyes, took my hand from her waist and held her face gently. I lean in to kiss her, those soft peach coloured lips calling to me.

Thunder smashed my thought of years gone by and in an instance everything is blank. The rain which had hung all around me is now chasing each drop down to the ground even faster than before. My hand is suspended in the air as if I was holding someone’s face.

 The taste of salt in my mouth is the only sign I had that I had been crying. Why was I crying? My mind is racing with questions but every answer just out of my reach. Why am I out in the rain? When did I get out here? I shudder at the cold, I need to go in.

I turn to walk back into my room when a sharp pain shoots through my foot, I glance down and I can’t see anything; it is too dark to see what it had been. I reach down to the ground to feel what it was; pieces of glass were all over the floor. “Arrgh” I caught my finger on the edge of the glass. What has happened here? I look all around and turn back out to the garden and cry “Where are you? Who are you? I’m not afraid of you!”

An understanding voice speaks in my ear, “my love, you’re bleeding… let me tend to it. I can’t have you in pain, that would break my heart even more so.” There she stands at the door of our room; the cold and wet of the world in the air is met by a warm breeze blowing from behind me from years gone by. Again the world halts for me and the rain stops in its downward decent.

In the warm breeze a sweet scent is found, I look down to my hand and see the blood from my finger. I spin back towards the garden to see broken glasses on the floor, only one survived the long fall, suffering only a chip on the lip of the glass. All but one of our wedding glasses are ruined.

 The sky is a mixture of rose red, dusky orange and a hint of yellow which feels as if the day is dying. A soft touch on my shoulder turns me from the wondrous sky, for the smallest of moments the world flashed to night in the middle of a terrible storm, before the beautiful light of summer beat back from the misery. She takes my hand in hers, and wraps a piece of cloth around it. I look into her eyes, the flicker of the dying light of the day still dancing in those eyes, but when once they were ocean blue, now they seem dim to the world around them. I stare and say, “Rebecca my sweet, are you okay? You don’t look at all well.” She responds in her gentle tone, “You know how I feel... You have not forgotten him; I don’t understand why you’re not as sad as I am…” I snapped back, “What do you mean?”

 An extraordinary light fills the sky banishing the dying summer sun from the sky. “Rebecca, what do you mean?” I mouth. In a single blink of the eye the world went from a beautiful summers evening to a windswept storm of great power. “Rebecca!!! REBECCA!!!” I bellow at the top of my lungs as thunder masks my call for her.

As it continues to rumble on, I sit in the rain sobbing to myself. “Alone, so alone, why am I alone?!?!” I begin shaking from the cold. I need to go inside. I need to sleep. I need my Rebecca. What is missing? What was she talking about? Him...

“Pa, Pa where are you?” I hear on the wind as it wraps itself around my body. I look around through the rain trying to find the voice. Frantically I begin to turn my head from side to side, “Pa, where are you hiding?” I hobble over to the rail of the balcony and stare blankly over the grounds searching for the voice as the rain beats against my face, foot still throbbing and hands still numb. I see a child running across the grounds from the corner of my eye. I turn my head and take a step towards him, putting my full weight on to my wounded foot. In an instance I fall to my knees once again, knee smashing off the floor, the pain too much for me. “Where are you?” I hear a child’s voice plead to the world.

I roll onto my side clutching my knee, gazing up to the sky but I can’t keep focus. This pain is too much, everything is. Now his voice is all I can hear and I can’t find him. “Pa, you can’t hide forever!” The dark world gradually becomes darker; every time I blink it feels as if I won’t open them again. Thunder echoes across the grounds and my eyes spring open to the sight of a forest in autumn.

“There you are Pa, I knew I would find you” A young red haired boy says with a cheeky smile. I answer in a soft tone “I knew you would too son, I know you will always find me” The boy giggles as he runs and hugs me like he used to.

“George, have you seen your mother? Or are you still looking for her too?” I ask. He smiles and says “I found Ma ages ago, it was only you left and I’ve found you now.  We can all be together.” I answer with a smile, “I would like that son. I’ve missed you both so much.” He offers me his little hand with a smile.  We walk back to the house through the forest with the crunch of the autumn leafs under our feet and a soft sun dancing above.

We walk to the edge of the forest. I see our fountain with the statuette. I look up to our balcony and there she is.

We’re a family again.