Bolt of Lightning

Written By: Maham Shahbaz.

What is it about that shining light I keep on going towards? Is it there or am I just hallucinating like the time I hallucinated about that person? The one who stood there all night, beside my bed while I lay there sick with high fever? Why did he stand there beside my bed when he had a million errands or maybe he didn’t but no one is just that free. I remember my father coming in, trying to sponge away that high fever and I remember that person holding my hand whispering in my ear that I’m not in a bad place, there is a place much more horrible and he won’t let me go there. As I lay listening to that mesmerizing voice which eased the sting of ice cold water I saw a blinding light and passed out, or so it seemed.

I was in a field, a vast big green field. I was wearing my favorite blue dress and my hair were open lose, I felt the sudden cold and warm wing rushing through and I knew it wasn’t real. It wasn’t real because there was peace in that place and places which have peace, have no humans. The restlessness is the only driving force that keeps them alive, so why would reality have peace? It’s ironic how many wars we fight for peace.

I saw him there, standing behind me smiling. I should have been alarmed but I felt comfortable, natural. Comfort in nature? That should have been my first warning. "You look good, not pale anymore...yellow? Don’t wear yellow..." he said, there was something about the way he commented but I didn’t care, he continued, "you see unreal things, you need not to scream and shout try to breathe it all in you are strong..." I couldn’t make sense of what he was talking about and I got a little uncomfortable so I turned around and noticed that I was in a broken house, I was startled. Is it because of this high fever? I turned back and that person was no where.

I remember calling out to him but he didn’t come...a woman did and before I could see her I was in another house, it started to get scary I wanted it to end...am I dreaming? This house had a happy atmosphere so I walked around from room to room finally feeling good, then I idly looked out the window and I saw people with hollow bodies, screamed and suddenly I was in my house, in the backyard... I saw the person again, he smiled "that was not bad, you just can’t accept a happy place, you find a reason an excuse to hate it..." I wanted to tell him that that’s not true but before I could two kids ran past me, this time he was startled. I wanted to comfort him but I had the urge to run after those kids so I said its okay to him and ran after them, I heard him shouting from behind asking me to stop.

Those kids stopped and I turned around to see him but instead saw a woman, the very same one, in white clothes and dark face running towards me or the kids? I felt paralyzed with fear and suddenly a bolt of flashing light came and I woke up in my bed, my father still trying to cease the fever. The person holding my hand firmly. Funny how no one noticed him holding my hand. My lips started to turn purple from the fever and my hands and feet started to twist around, I saw my father cry and pick me up from my bed, running towards the hospital. I heard a woman's voice "I will be back" and then I blacked out. When I woke up on the hospital bed, saw nothing, not the person nor the woman. So I lay here wondering what was that bolt of lightning?