WHITE LIGHT

By Madubuike Michael

It was a cool windy evening, siting on my late grandma’s rocking chair I watched the kids play in a field in the distance. They were running after each other and laughing, and as a father of four it was a beautiful scene to watch.

Suddenly the skies started turning dark from the distant horizon, dark clouds were moving
fast towards the habited areas of the vast land which was gifted to a few men of the royal navy for a service to her country, as one of our retirement benefits. Along the road that ran across the front side of my house was Mr. Sawyer driving his noisy farm truck home, we waved at each other as he drove past. Just then one of the kids screamed. I jumped to my feet and called out to my youngest who had fallen to the ground and bruised her knee.

“Funke! Come back to the house now. All of you come back home, the rest of you can go back to your houses.” I said as I peered through my thick bifocals to see if they were obeying my instruction. Moments later, they were entering the house and my youngest daughter behind as she cried softly and wiping the tears from her cheeks with the back of her left-hand peeping at me with an eye.

“Alright dear, isokay, come! Come! Come! kPele oh my dear” she changed direction and came towards me still crying. I lifted her up to my shoulders and consoled her. There was a loud and sharp thundering sound preceded by a bright flash of light across the dark skies that lingered before fading away, unlike normal lightning. “Strange weather- rain in December…hm” I thought to myself. I looked at my wrist watch it was 5:15pm but it looked like it was 8:00pm already. “Oya, let’s go inside” I said to my daughter who lay quietly on my shoulder, patting her on the back I went inside my house, a 5-bed room duplex with modern fittings and furniture. As a retired highly placed government official my retirement benefit bought me adequate comfort.

After supper that evening, I sat and watched the news. The news reader had mentioned something about a strange weather phenomenon but waved it off as a trivial issue that shouldn’t bother anyone. While watching the news my mind drifted and started reminiscing about my late wife who died 7 years ago having our last child. I could remember how she made sure I took my meds for my heart condition, kissed me gently on the forehead or teased me by pulling my beard. How I miss her so, I wish you were here to see our kids growing up strong and beautiful. In my mind, I could see her sitting in front of me knitting and smiling at me. “Daddy! Daddy! My leg is paining me” cried my daughter. I opened my eyes carried her on my laps and gently rubbed the lightly bruised knee until we both fell asleep.

Suddenly there was a loud and aggressive bang on the door, startled I jumped off my sofa almost dropping the little girl still asleep in my arms. There was another flash of light so bright that it felt like dawn was in a hurry, slowly it became dark and quiet again.  I looked into my dining and saw my other kids’ wide eyed and looking at me. I quickly motioned to them to go upstirs to their rooms and hide. Immediately I reached for my pump and walked quietly to the door, the loud knocking continued. “Mr. Babs! Mr. Babs!” called the voice from the other side of the door.

“Whos it?” I asked calmly but there was no response. Immediately I cocked the pump and pulled the door open. My eyes darted left and right but there was no one there. Scared, I let out a warning shot into the night sky. “Whoever you are, know that you are playing with fire oh.” I yelled and slammed my door shut. I took a second to calm myself before going to check on my kids. Moments later I was sitting with them in the bed room. After much inquiry about who was at the door, I did my best to remain calm and told them it was nobody. My eldest daughter asked that I told them a story which I obliged to ease the tension. Mid-tale, we heard another loud banging on the door. Oh! someone was going to get it now.

“Lock this door behind me” I instructed my eldest child which she did as I walked briskly down the stairs. I pulled out the hog-leg which I had stuck in at the back of my trousers. On getting to the door again, the knocking had stopped. Gently and silently I opened the door but found no one. I grabbed the flashlight on the table beside the door and ran the light through my compound, nothing out of the ordinary was noticed. Just as I was about shutting the door, I heard my name again, Mr. Sawyers wife was running to my house carrying her baby and screaming, sweating profusely. I was about calming her down but she pushed me aside and ran into my house. Quickly I shut the door and locked it for safety.

“Iyawo, jor calm down and tell me what is going on” I asked calmly.

“They are gone” she screamed “Just like that.”

“Who?” I asked but got no reply. The woman was crying frantically sprawled on the floor in my sitting room. I tried to calm her down. I took the child from her, helped her up and guided her to one of the sofas in the room. She was still crying and I wanted to take the child to my kids’ room for safety but the woman refused and asked that she wants to be with her child. I pleaded with her to remain calm and explain what had happened to me. When she did, I felt she had lost her mind. None of it made any sense. Everything she narrated was like it was from a “white people film” as we usually call it. I had to see for myself, so I locked her and my kids in and decided to go to her house to check on her husband my comrade in arm. In my hands were my pump and a flash light, I strode through the dew wet field until I got to the dimly lit house, the front door was open so I went in. on the floor I could see Mr. Sawyers knife, I remember that knife, it was custom issued to him during one of our missions overseas. On the dining table, I could see a plate of half eaten eba and okro soup. The house was empty, I called out to my friend but there was no answer, went upstairs and around the house but nobody was around. As I was about leaving the house, I stepped on something, when I looked it was a pile of ash some meters long on the sitting room floor. “An odd place to find stuff like that.” I thought and remembered what my friends’ wife had told me. Immediately I bolted through the door and across the field, in a matter of seconds I was at my door. I reached for my keys and opened the door to find two strangely dressed children standing by my window with something in their hands. “Ah! How did you people enter here.” They both turned simultaneously and looked at me. That instant I saw one of them blow something like a little bubble from a small hoop. The bubble was yellow in color and floated towards the woman and her child who were screaming at the top of their voices. The children seemed harmless at first glance but there was something sinister about their presence. The other child blew his bubble also and it went in the same direction as the first. “Stop that!” I yelled, just then the bubbles landed on the woman and her child and they instantly turned to dust. I screamed and started firing at the weird kids. First shot from my pump took the boyish looking creatures head clean off, a second shot blew the other into little pieces with orange watery matter splattering over my walls. Immediately it was as if time froze, there was that bright light again, blinding this time everything went white, I did not see for some seconds. There was this strange loud sound, it felt like my head was going to explode, then everything went dark.