The Rhythm of the Storm

The last rays of the setting Sun were partly obscured by the approaching storm clouds looming on the horizon. I stood at the sink in my kitchen looking through the small square window washing the dishes from tonight’s dinner absentmindedly. I watched as the rim of the Sun disk sank below the skyline and disappeared. The dark clouds drove in closer, and the sky grayed. The sound of the steady stream of water from the sink and from the ocean just a few hundred yards from my cottage washed over my ears and flushed out the thoughts running around between them. I closed my eyes, running the dish sponge over the plate rhythmically, even though the plate had been clean several minutes ago.

Turning off the sink finally and drying my hands, I shut the blinds on the approaching storm as a thread of lightning flashed briefly against the darkening sky. It would be a bad one. I would probably lose power. I grabbed the candle and matches from the cabinet and sat down on the couch. I turned on the TV, not really paying attention to the images on the screen but letting the white noise of voices and music comfort me. A small smile slightly turned up the corners of my mouth and the gnawing, empty feeling in the center of my chest subsided. Then a distant roll of thunder twinged my heart and my lips returned to their natural state.

I opened my phone, scrolling through Facebook – random memes, videos, and posts from friends I no longer spoke to appeared on my phone screen and then slipped away. I lingered on a couple of funny pictures that made me snort, and on a couple of photos of my friends smiling with their young children or their significant others, which either elicited no facial reaction from me, or the lifting of one corner of my mouth and perhaps the softening of my eyes. I liked to think so anyway. I was watching a particularly amusing video with a cat when a bright white light shone through my blinds, followed quickly by an explosion of thunder, and I was abruptly pitched into darkness. The noise from the TV cut off and the video on my phone stopped, a small wheel in the middle of my screen spinning on top of the frozen image of a cat leaping into the air. My eyes flitted to the top corner of my phone screen and noticed the low battery icon: 10%. I turned off my phone and sighed. Though I didn’t have the foresight to charge my phone before the power went out, I at least had placed the candle and match close at hand. In the brief moments before I struck the match, I felt my heart squeeze and the breaths through my nose came shallow and quick. It’s quite astonishing how stupid we become in the absence of light. Now, with the flickering light of the candle, the crashing of the wave crests on the sand, and the eruptions of thunder, I was alone again. Then the rain started.

I sat on the couch for an hour, maybe longer - I wasn’t quite sure. My concept of time was as blurry as the rain that undoubtedly streamed down the windows. The only gauge I had was the amount the candle wax had melted, and that looked like an hour to me. I scooped up the candle, careful not to let the wax spill on my hand, and walked to my bedroom. I immediately noticed I had forgotten to close the blinds, and I saw the rivers of rain flowing swiftly down the pane. Through the streaked surface, I could just make out the wild spray of the ocean. I was about to shut the blinds, but a streak of lightning illuminated the dismal scene and I thought, could almost convince myself, that I saw a darker shape amidst the crashing waves on the beach. I froze; my eyes widened as I leaned closer to the window. A subsequent flash of lightning revealed nothing but the roiling of the sea. I pressed my hand over my eyes and shook my head. I’d heard that when we stare out into the darkness, our eyes play tricks on us and make us see things that aren’t really there; our brains have a way of filling in the empty space. But why do our brains have to fill it with things that fill us with dread and fear?

I quickly shut the blinds and went to my bed. I lay there, focusing on slowing my breathing, timing it to the rush of the waves on the sand. The lightning occasionally broke the darkness, and I tried not to think about what I thought I saw, what I’d tricked myself into seeing, on the beach. Eventually, the rhythm of the storm lulled me to sleep.

I awakened with a feeling of panic, like a heavy weight was pressing down on my chest. I felt the dampness of sweat clinging to my forehead as my eyes opened wide into the void. The candle had burned out, so I knew I had been sleeping for a little while, though it was still dark outside as the storm raged on. I did not stir from my position, but my senses were heightened. My ears tried filtering through the sounds of rain and the ocean and the rumble of thunder to find something, something out of place that would account for my current state. I began to think that I was only awakened by an especially loud clap of thunder, but then I found what I was searching for. Footsteps. Or something that resembled footsteps. Outside my window. It was the soft padding of feet, I could swear, barely discernible through the howling of the tempest. I sat up then, concentrating, but the footsteps had stopped. Whatever it was had halted nearby. Something tugged at me to go to the window, to open the blinds, to look out at the storm. But something inside me, the rational part of me, resisted. A compromise: I gently slid out of bed and got on my hands and knees and crawled silently to the window, like a child trying to sneak around the house to spy on its parents arguing quietly in the living room, past its bedtime. I got to the window and lifted the bottom blind just enough for me to peer through.

I saw the rivulets swirling in their paths down to the sill, the movements of the ocean beyond, and two dark orbs glinting in the reflection of the window, the reflection of my eyes and the spark beneath them. But there was something else. Something else staring back at me, with two dark orbs gleaming with their own spark. I fell back, stifling a scream, hand clamped over my mouth. I bit back my shock so hard that I felt pain as my teeth sunk into my tongue, the taste of iron in my mouth. The rain started pouring and the droplets tinkled against the glass of the window. Amidst the tapping of the rain, an even softer tapping, barely noticeable, elevated itself through the noise of it all.

Tap tap, tap tap.

I was imagining it. It was just the rain.

Tap tap, tap, tap tap.

But I couldn’t shake the thought that the tap tap tapping resembled the sound of a fingernail tapping on glass. I sat in the blackness beside my bed. I quietly snuck to my nightstand where I’d left my phone plugged into the wall, hoping if the power turned back on that my phone would start charging. I pressed the side button, keeping the screen close to me to blot out the light from the screen as much as possible with my body. Dead. I almost cried, out of frustration, out of exhaustion, out of despair. I wanted to throw my phone, to open the window and toss it into the ocean, and let in the thing that wanted in.

I left my phone on the ground and crawled my way to the living room, and then to the kitchen. I sat up on my knees and opened the drawer where I kept the kitchen knife. I plucked it out and held it gingerly, how someone would hold something precious. Above me, the rain pounded against the small square window above the sink. It wanted in. I wouldn’t let it in. Almost I thought I could hear the tapping again above me, but I didn’t dare look up and find the two dark orbs staring back at me. 

Just as I began to get comfortable in this new state of fear, my eyes shot to the front door. Had I locked it? I had a bad habit of leaving it unlocked, especially if I came in carrying groceries or my hands were full. I would set down my burden and forget about the front door. I shuffled almost frantically to it; the knife was gripped so haphazardly in my hand I’m surprised I didn’t slice myself open scrambling to the unlocked door. My hand shot out and quickly turned the deadbolt. I slumped against the door, a dry sob gripping my throat and shaking my body. Just then, a thump against the door stilled me. It came again, this time louder. The rumble of thunder shook the cottage just as the thing outside shook my door. I was sure that even deadbolted, the door could not withstand that amount of force. I clamped my hands over my ears; the knife now sat uselessly at my side.

Through my shielded ears, the banging on the door could almost be mistaken for the rolling thunder or the crashing waves. I could almost convince myself, almost. The noise was nearly unbearable. I shut my eyes against it as a wail, animalistic and low, glided just beneath it all. It took me a moment to realize that awful sound was coming from me. It grew until all I could hear was my own howl above the howl of the storm. The howl became a scream of terror, became a lament of grief, became a bray of hysteria. I was terrified of what lay beyond that door, of what wanted in as much as I wanted out. I grieved for all I had lost, for all that I would never gain. I was hysterical over the unknown, of the impossible depth of it. My noise quieted as the noise of the storm took over again. The unrelenting thumping on the door didn’t lessen, but some fey determination kindled itself within me as I rose to my feet.

I swung around to face the door. My hand flew to the handle and pulled. The deadbolt. I had forgotten. The banging grew louder as I placed my hand on the deadbolt, my fingers on either side, ready to turn, ready to slide the lock and release that thing, the storm, myself. But something stilled my hand, and I froze with my fingers on the deadbolt. I stared at my hand as I forced my ears to listen to the monotony of the raindrops on the roof, on the windows, against the ground outside. I listened to the ebbing and flowing of the waves against the sand as I timed my breathing with their rhythm. I saw the white blaze of lightning through my eyelids and the answering rumble of the thunder as it reverberated through the walls of the cottage, through the ground, through the soles of my feet, to my chest. My fingers slowly fell from the deadbolt to my side and the storm diminished. Then everything was still. Everything was silent. I was alone again.

Through the small window in the kitchen, a gray light striped through the blinds. I returned my hand to the deadbolt and the handle. This time, my hands did not tremble but were sure and steady. I opened the door and stepped onto the clean damp sand, letting the grains sink between my toes. The ocean continued its steady rhythm, more subdued than before. I walked to the beach as the reddish-pink hue of the rising Sun greeted me. I smiled then. When the next storm came, I would be ready.