ULTRALIGHT

CHAPTER 1

It was a cool morning, so cool that it verged on being chilly. The air seemed heavily laden with an impending storm.

My name is Desiree Ukomma fondly called Dee by my family and friends. I stood in the front porch of my parent’s home savoring the coolness of the impending storm. There was an electric charge in the air that sparked some inner plug of exhilaration in me. I was almost giddy with excitement as I stood there searching the sky for some sign that the unleashing of the storm was imminent.

“Dee, you should come in before the rain starts.” my mother called softly to me as she poked her head around the door. I turned to her with a smile.

“Good morning Mum. I will be in soon.” I promised as I turned back to watch the stormy atmosphere.
I felt  my mother shut the door as she moved on to other activities. I breathed in a lungful of the cooled air and let it out slowly, savoring once again the coolness of the air and the prickle of an electric storm along my skin. I loved storms! I had loved them all my life, for as long as I could remember. I smiled again in giddiness, mentally hurrying the storm along. Soon, mother would call for me again and then, I would have to go in to attend to her and I would miss that first moment of the unleashing of the storm that I loved so much. It felt powerful to me and it seemed that whenever I witnessed it, I drew some strength from its power. It may be that I was being fanciful, but things always seemed to turn out right in my world after a good cleansing storm, no matter how off key it was before. This one promised to be one of ‘those’ storms and I was excited for it to begin.

Suddenly, there was a booming crack of thunder. The sound was so loud and sounded so close by that for all my anticipation, I was startled. The only warning I had was the exceptionally bright light coming at me from my right side. I barely had time to blink before there was an impact so powerful that it seemed to me that I was lifted off my feet by the force of it. As I crumpled to the floor I could hear a loud creak with the last wave of my consciousness and then the front porch collapsed on me in a loud explosion of plaster, metal and other debris.

Mercifully, it went black just as the first clump hit me.

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As I stirred awake, the sound of chaos welcomed me. I could hear loud wailings from both people and sirens. There was the sound of frenzied activity all around me. I tried to open my eyes but there was sand in them. Quite a lot it seemed. As I tried to make sense of that, it all came back to me. The streak of a ball of ultra-white light, the thundering before it and the flash of my neighbor Daniel, who had just stepped out of his front door, falling before the blackness, had claimed me.

“Help me out! I think I can see...something.”Someone called out. There was the sound of grunting and shifting and then, a gust of fresh clean air. The air felt odd for some reason. I searched my mind for why it felt odd but could not quite understand it. Before I could grasp its meaning, I felt hands gently pulling, shifting and lifting me out of the debris around me.

“Jehovah! She’s breathing! Quick! Get the paramedics here!” Someone shouted loudly enough to make me wince. My head had begun to throb rather painfully both, I suspected, from the trauma of being hit by falling plaster and also by trying to make sense of my jumbled thoughts, impressions and memories.

I could feel myself being lifted into what must be a stretcher and being hooked an intravenous line. Someone was trying to place some contraption on my neck and I must have winced or something because I felt the person jerk to a stop and address me.

“Are you awake, Miss?” “Can you hear me?” I tried to nod but my head felt too heavy for me to move. I must have made some movement in response though because the person continued.
“I’m just going to put this brace around your neck to protect you in case of trauma.” her voice was soothing as she explained what she was about to do calmly to me.

I appreciated her professionalism and wondered if my smile of appreciation reached my lips.

“This is nothing but a miracle.” Someone said close by. My paramedic began to wheel the stretcher gently but swiftly.

There was a commotion as someone demanded loudly to see me. I recognized my mother’s voice immediately. I would have called out to her if I had the voice to but it seemed that my vocal chords had lost its strength to the dryness in my throat.

“Madam, please you can follow in your vehicle.” “We need to move her urgently if we hope to improve her chances.” My paramedic said even as she continued to move me with the help of someone else into what must be an ambulance.

There was another cry and an answering rumble from my Dad. I felt some tension I had not realized I was in the grip of, ease at that quiet, soothing rumble. Dad!

As they settled me into the coolness of the ambulance, it struck me, what had been odd about the air that had had me baffled.

It was warm outside. Like the sun was shining brightly. Like there had been no impending thunderstorm just before I collapsed. It did not feel wet either. There was no moisture in the air and it still felt like morning rays.
I began to wonder about just how long had passed since I collapsed. My thoughts were interrupted by the wailing of the sirens as the ambulance began its journey to the Emergency Centre.

‘There must have been a sedative of some sort in that drip they hooked me up to.’

Those were my last thoughts as I fell back asleep.