In the midst of a quiet dream, I heard what sounded like someone turning my front door knob, who (unable to get in) then stomped across the porch floor; whereupon, this unknown, unseen visitor rattled the window beneath my room. In the cotton-wool-logic state of my sleeping mind, I thought something was wrong with daughter or grandson and called out to them, two or three times, each time less heartily than before. I know I awoke enough to roll over and look at the bedside clock. My mind, rapidly returning to full sleep mode, registered that it was 2:30 AM. As I rolled back over, Brain said, “You don’t have a knob on your front door.”
“Oh, yes,” I replied, then sank into darkness.
Shortly before 4:43 AM (when next I looked at the clock), a bomb went off in the street below. This time, I was almost fully awake when I heard the hissing of the next incoming shell. Bright light illuminated the walls as if every light in the house were now in my room. Nearly at the same time, and we’re talking increments of a second here, the windows rattled fiercely and the walls reverberated horrendously. Shaking the last of the cotton-wool from my head, I looked at the clock again; still 4:43.
“Nice of you to join me,” Brain said. She can be so sarcastic at times.
“What’s…?”
“Thunderstorm, dolt. And from the sounds of it, a real doozey. Get your flashlight.”
By the time I found my flashlight, Brain and I were fully integrated; well, nearly so. The Rubik’s Cube® section of my mind had restored events from the last waking memory, and I realized the sounds which had stirred me almost awake earlier must also have been…
“That’s right, another storm.” Oh, shut up!
Downstairs now, I turned on the computer to check the weather report for this area. Thunderstorms were forecast from now through most of the coming afternoon.
Flash, flicker. Ka-BO-O-O-M!
Backup battery/surge protector began bleating, its high-pitched warning buzzing in my ears. I shut down the computer and stumbled back up to bed.
Flash. Boom. FLASH! BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!
The last time a storm went through here, the serviceberry at the gate fell across the alley. I could hardly wait to see what this storm will bring.
5 comments:
Well written, Martha. I liked this post. Isn't it weird how our brains take things going on around us while we are sleeping and fit them into our dreams somehow. I have dreams like that quite frequently.
There are stairs outside my bedroom, and either people use them at night or I share the apartment with a spirit walker. Maybe both. So it's 3 A.M., and time for the bathroom call. Yeah, I put on clothes or wrap in an afghan lest I alarm the company with my alltogether, then I realize I don't have company and the apartment is not laid out as I thought I thought.
Maybe it's getting about time for a thunderpot at the Penny hose, not that I'll ever consider having such a thing again.
I remember storms like that when I was in Kansas. They do weird tricks to one's dreams.
We appear to be sharing similar experiences - periods when we emerge from dreams but where it is difficult to pin down the exact transition from unconsciousness to consciousness. Thus I am engaged in one of those apocalyptic disaster movies where Jahway has smitten Planet Earth and I'm left with only a third of a tank of fuel in the car to get to - where? Gradually familiar surroundings make themselves known and I recognise it was all a dream. Except that instead of driving the Skoda (still new or newish; 6400 miles on the clock) I'm driving the bed instead. And you know what? It's not easy to drive a bed. It doesn't respond well to turns on the steering wheel because there doesn't happen to be a steering wheel. Meanwhile I know there's one of those niggling communications from HM Revenue and Customs on my desk and I need to timeshare myself: work out my response to the letter while driving the bed.
I don't think I could bear to come to terms with a storm as well. Better to get up (Hey, it's only 04.51) and creep into another world which is Googleable. I read this dialogue you're having between your Brain (with me that wouldn't be a capital letter) and yourself and I'm not comforted one little bit. And one of my bolt-holes is blocked up; I am into the last fifth of the second novel and the first step of Jana's great love affair has been taken. Great feats of imagination, an ingenious rapprochement and some stuff about languages I'm really proud of. But what's the next step? Always reminding myself that I mustn't over-hurry. What I have to say must be slow and easy - like a pot roast cooking - I've got 17,000 unwritten words to cover events as Jana steps up out of the murk, sees hints of the dawn and starts edging towards a new and brighter day.
Meanwhile, in the midst of what we all used to call an electric storm (While in the US I edited a book called Understanding Lightning by a Westinghouse research scientist) Crow is turning on her computer for a weather forecast. That's dangerous, Crow, and the Westinghouse guy told me why. Ah, you've turned it off and you're back to bed.
But what the heck's a serviceberry? I'm supposed to be writing about an American (Born and raised in a suburb of Flagstaff, Ariz) and I don't know what a serviceberry is. Would she?
Tell you what. Perhaps writing a comment will straighten out my mind.
Daisy - Strange sounds in the night sure can lead to strange dreams.
Jim - I'd forgotten that name for chamberpots. I wouldn't want to have to use one again, either.
Zhoen - They sure do.
BB - There is physical brain, and there is metaphysical Brain. The Brain and I communicate on a regular basis - some of my best conversations, in fact.
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