The Tempest Within

His eyelids snapped open to stare at the dark ceiling above him. Water dripped from a tap in the bathroom in a rhythmic decline to disappear down the drain into an abyss. A flash of lightening blazed the room with fleeting brightness followed by the loud boom of thunder near enough to rock the ground.

His arms gripped the sides of his bed as his body lay frozen under the covers. He tried to close his eyes to hide from the tempest outside but the storm inside him raged louder conjuring up images too unnerving to allow sleep. Another boom and he felt pieces rain in from the window as its pane shattered, bringing in wetness with the glass. He screamed unsure if the storm from inside him had escaped and started to live out loud around him. He was becoming buried from within and crushed from outside. The whirlwind surrounded him penetrated him as if it were a ghost elevating him in the air to toss and turn like a toy. He clung to his bed feeling the wetness on his face, tasting its salty flavors, shaking his head to shower away the sprinkles.

His mind travelled faraway, floating over the ocean, flying above a long desert, speeding past the birds, racing with the jet bombers over high peaks. He saw shattered homes below, tattered clothes of dwellers, a deluge of refugees with hunger and loss painted on their faces. He reached out to a child, lost among the forlorn, dried blood caked on its head, dried tears stained on its cheeks. He held on to its little finger to help guide it out of the commotion towards a sanctuary only to be blocked by bureaucracy. Abandoning the tiny, delicate, helpless hand he ran and flew away to safety watching a cloud of dust rise behind him and thunderous uproars pulsate through the sky until the land was flat.

The thunderous roar shuddered through his room, his body quivering from the memory. Another lightening flash pierced its brightness as prelude to the promised boom. The room whirled around him with images never to be forgotten under the cloud of explosive rumble.