Cloud of Light

Nambi woke to a cloud of light hovering at the other side of her bedroom, just above the clothes rack. It looked like a cumulus cloud, and though it was bright, it did not cast any rays. She could see through it, as if it were a lace curtain hiding something vague and misty, and it came to her that it was a window to another world. She sat bolt upright, and looked around to confirm she was still inside her own bedroom. She took comfort at the sight of the familiar furniture, the dressing mirror with a starry crack, the bedside table with three books under a worn-out lampshade. Her hand patted the other side of the bed, searching for her husband, afraid to take her eyes off the apparition.

“Buba!” she whispered. “Buba!”

He was not in bed. Her fear peaked. He never woke up before her. She snapped on the bedside lamp, and light flooded the room, but the cloud did not vanish. Instead, it grew brighter.

“Buba!” she screamed.

As if frightened away by her voice, the cloud vanished. After images of it floated in her vision like whiffs of smoke when a candle goes out. She sunk back onto the pillow, dismissing it as a nightmare.

Really? Only a nightmare?

Where was Buba? He was out of bed more than an hour earlier than usual. Had he gone to the girl’s room? She listened, the house was eerily silent. Maybe he was in the bathroom. Maybe he was working in the living room, a section of which he had converted into his office. She wished she had an arty job too, then she would not have to suffer the torture of a terrible traffic jam every morning, endure a boring office all day, only to suffer another monster jam in the evening. Maybe he had a deadline and so woke up a lot earlier than usual. But then, why did he not respond when she screamed?

Nambi struggled out of bed and dressed up in a yellow gown. It felt tighter than when she had worn the previous day. Had her pregnancy grown bigger overnight? She could not afford new maternity dresses, and had to use leftovers from her last pregnancy, nearly four years ago. They were getting smaller every day.

She hurried out. The children’s room was opposite hers, its door ajar. She peeped in, and her muscles froze on seeing empty beds. Now, the silence of the house pressed hard against her body, threatening to squeeze her into pulp. If the girls were out of bed, then there would be a racket. The house would not be this silent.

“Dollies!” she called, her voice echoed in all rooms.

No reply.

She waited. Nearly a minute passed, and there was just this silence.

“Dollies!” she called again, much louder, and still got no reply.

She frowned at the rumpled sheets, at the slippers and clothes and toys and dolls strewn all over the floor, and she had a feeling that the girls had played long after bedtime. The sun rose, beaming a warm glow through the orange curtains, painting pools of gold on the wall, enhancing the brilliant colors in the room. The murals, of animals playing with little children, seemed to come alive and she thought she heard laughter.

That cloud of light…. Something about it nagged her, something at the back of her mind, and it only fanned her fears, for now she was certain it was responsible for her missing husband, her missing daughters, and the troubling silence…. No! She berated herself for being paranoid. They were not missing! They had to be somewhere in the house, maybe up to some prank.

She hurried to the bathroom, only a few feet further down the corridor, but it felt like a mile away. The weight of the baby in her womb increased tenfold, giving her a slight ache.

“Marya! Samsa!” she called, clinging to a vain hope that there was a rational explanation for this unusual silence, that the cloud of light had been just a nightmare, hoping her voice was not too loud and did not betray her panic. “Buba!” she called, throwing open the bathroom door.

Empty.

She thought the baby moved. Had it sensed her fear and was trying to placate her? Had it grown heavier? She stood still, massaging her belly, waiting for the next movement, for cramps, for pain. Nothing.

The corridor opened to another, much wider corridor that ran from the front door, which was locked, the sunlight coming in through the glass and the curtains, to the back door, made of iron, and also locked from the inside. They could not have gone out. They were somewhere inside the house. But why the silence?

Maybe the cloud of light had sucked them – no! She shook her head to dislodge the thought before it took hold. That light had been just a nightmare!

The kitchen door stood near the back door, partially open. Maybe they were in the kitchen, looking for something to eat? Maybe Buba was with them?

If so, why did they not respond?

“Dollies,” she called, quietly, trying not to let the panic show in her voice, as she crept into the kitchen, hoping they were in there stealing something so had to keep silent.

The kitchen was empty.

That light…..

She noticed a smell of cake. Buba loved to bake. Had he woken up early to do it? Where was he now?

She peeped under the dining table, she opened the cupboards and even looked into the refrigerator. Nothing. She touched the oven door. Warm. It confirmed her suspicion. Buba had used it recently.

But what if it was not Buba? What if something had cooked her family in the oven?

She closed her eyes and shook away the eerie image. How could she think like that? She was a positive person. She only thought happy thoughts, and only enjoyed the kind of stories she watched with the girls on Disney Channel. She had never had nightmares until that morning.

That light…. it reappeared, in the periphery of her vision, though it lingered for only a few seconds before evaporating. It gave her the feeling that it had something to do with all this – the missing husband, the missing daughters, the silence, the monster cooking her family in the oven – she closed her eyes tight. If all this had happened in a morning that she had not had the nightmare, she would not have panicked like this.

Really? Would she have stayed calm if she woke up to an empty house, her husband and children missing, and the oven door inexplicably warm?

The baby moved. There was a bit of pain, not too sharp, not too much to distract her from the silence and the emptiness of the house, something like an itch below her navel, as if something with claws was inside her womb, trying to scratch its way out.… She shook it off. Why am I having macabre thoughts?

That light….

The taste of salt filled her mouth as it finally came to her. She had first heard of it on TV two months ago, and like everyone else she had laughed it off as another ploy of a pastor to make money. Members of this pastor’s congregation claimed that their beloved relatives saw visions of light on the day they died, and the pastor claimed it was proof his followers were going to Heaven. But everyone laughed at the pastor, accusing him of stealing the idea from a folk tale in which the grim reaper, Walumbe, appeared as a vision of light to those it had marked.

No! Nambi shook her head. No! No! No! No!

It was just the lies of a phony pastor. It was just nonsense from a folk tale. Visions of light did not mean Death was coming for her. No! She was in the prime of her health. She went for regular checkup. The doctor told her she had nothing to worry about. She was not going to die. No!

She hurried out of the kitchen, fighting to stay calm.

“Dollies…” she called, softly, struggling to keep the alarm out of her voice. They have to be in the living room. She should not worry them with a frightened voice. “Buba…” She inched toward the arched opening in the corridor, the entryway to the living room. The floor tiles were cold ice under her feet.

The living room was large, and divided into three parts. The first, near the window and looking out to the front yard, had a set of red sofas with flower-print cushions, and an entertainment unit with a forty two inch TV. The middle part was a play area for the girls. Further inside, tucked away in a dark corner, was her husband’s office. Two computer screens sat asleep on a desk, which was cluttered with hard drives and discs. A shelf stood beside the desk, with a mess of books, discs, hard drives, and broken computer parts.

They were not in the living room.

She closed her eyes, took in a deep breathe, telling herself there was a rational explanation for all this. She caught the smell of cake, it was so strong there had to be a cake somewhere in here.

And then she heard a giggle, and she quickly opened her eyes. It had come from near the window – from behind a sofa? Had it sounded like Samsa?

“Sammy?” She took a step forward, holding her breathe, blood frozen in her veins, her eyes aching from inability to blink.

And then it happened. They jumped out from behind the sofa, all three screaming at once, “Happy birthday!”

She leapt back in fright, with a scream, which only excited them more. The girls blew vuvuzelas while Buba held up a cake. He sang “happy birthday to you” as he lit the candle and the vuvuzelas played along. They had obviously practiced this for a long time.

She sometimes was envious of Buba’s relationship with the girls. Since he worked from home, he spent a lot of time with them, while she only saw them briefly in the evenings, when too tired to tolerate their cheekiness, and on the weekends, when she wanted to rest.

Tears wet her face, of fury, of joy, of relief. She blew out the candle and kissed Buba and hugged the girls and she cried for she loved them all too much.

The light came again. It flickered in the periphery of her sight like a faulty neon sign. She opened her eyes sharply, turning her head toward the arched entryway, but the cloud was gone. All she could see was the plain greenish wall of the corridor, with a noticeboard full of the paintings the girls had made at school, sunlight pouring in from the front door like beams from another world.

She could not tell her husband about it for that would ruin the moment. She did not want the smiles to fade away from the faces of her little girls.

They sat on the floor, and ate the cake.

“This is the best birthday I’ve ever had,” she said.

“It was Marya’s idea,” Buba said. “She planned it all.”

Nambi wondered if he was using the child as an excuse, maybe he had realized that she did not think it was a very funny joke and so had to apologize before she berated him. Yet the way Marya grinned left no doubt as to who was responsible.

“I’ll revenge on your birthday,” Nambi said, playfully pinching the girl’s cheeks.

“Okay dollies,” Buba said. “Party’s over. Let’s get ready for school.”

They protested. They did not want to go to school. They wanted to spend this special day with their mother.

“You will,” Buba said. “We’ll pick you up from school and go straight to the beach.”

“Yay!” the girls screamed. “Beach!” And they raced each other to the bathroom.

“It really was her idea,” Buba said, smiling hard. She loved his dimples, they always lifted her out of bad moods.

“You frightened me,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have gone along with it, but hey, it sounded fun.”

The light… tell him about the light. The kids were out of the way. She had to tell him now. She opened her moth, but then she saw the way he was smiling and instead kissed him. The light could wait. She would not spoil this moment.

“I guess I have to call in sick,” she said.

“Oh yes,” he said, rubbing her pregnancy. “They’ll understand.”

Then he hurried off to help the girls get ready for school. Nambi stuffed a bit more cake into her mouth, eating slowly, savoring its sweetness, and yet wary of the light. She twitched at every mirage that leapt onto her vision, but she did not see it.

Maybe there was nothing to worry about, she thought.

When Buba and the girls vacated the bathroom, she went in, washed her face, brushed her teeth, and then returned to the living room, not knowing what to do with herself now that she had a day off. She had forgotten about her birthday. With the new baby coming, she worried a lot about bills that just kept piling up, about her husband getting less and less work, about her salary not being enough. They might soon have to sell the car, and even move to a cheaper and very noisy neighborhood. With all this in her head, how could remember her birthday?

She turned on the TV, settling for a day of idleness, of being pampered, of forgetting all her worries. The girls ran out, almost looking like twins in identical uniforms, and with the same style of braids. They kissed her goodbye and ran out in a cacophony of happiness. Buba pecked her forehead and followed them out.

In a few minutes, the car’s engine had faded away and the silence once again engulfed her. And the light…. It returned, as though it had been waiting for her family to leave. At first it was dull, like an outdoor bulb in the daytime. It grew steadily brighter, until it was the same shape and hue as the first she had seen it, a cumulus cloud of light. The TV signal became fuzzy, as though the cloud was interfering with it.

Am I going to die?

The light hung in the arched entryway, blocking her only exit. She unconsciously rose to her feet, and backed away, moving toward her husband’s office, to get as far away as she could. It grew brighter, but still not cast any rays.

Call Buba!

She should have told him, maybe he would have taken her to hospital. Call him! Though it would spoil the celebration he had planned, though it would ruin the happy moment for the family. Call him!

She ran back to the sofa, snatched up her phone, and retreated to her husband’s office, speed-dialing his number as she hurried across the room. No signal. She tried, again, and again, and did not even get the robotic voice of the telecom company. Just a harsh beep as the call failed. The TV became so fuzzy and the hissed static like the breathing of a monster.

The same sound came out of the cloud, only louder, and much more intense. It indeed was a doorway, a portal to another world, a grim and dreary world of ice and mist, and a monster was climbing out of the doorway.

Just like in the folk tale, the monster was made entirely of light.

Why am I dying?

Walumbe had come for her.

But why? She was in the prime of her health. She had two little girls who needed her. She had a baby inside her. Why?

The creature floated out of the portal and beamed itself into the living room, hovering a few inches above the floor. Though made of light, it did not cast any beams, and it had the vague shape of a limbless human body. Its face was made of water, a pond so clear it was a mirror. Though across the room, she saw her face in the mirror.

Just like in the folk tale, which her mother once narrated to her. It was not a favorite tale, and Nambi never retold it to her girls, partly because she had forgotten most of it, largely because she thought it boring. Now, the details came just as if her mother was telling her about the quarrel between two brothers, Kintu and Walumbe, and how Kintu left to start a new life on Earth. She believed Kintu was an alien who fell in love with an ape, and they gave birth to human beings, who were immortal like their father. Then Walumbe discovered Kintu’s new home and he came to destroy it. He removed the immortal spirit from Kintu’s children, trapping them in that grim world of ice and mist, and left the ape body to rot. He appeared to each child as a light, so that humans could send a message to their father.

“No,” she said. “Please, no.”

Her mother said the only way to beat Walumbe was to rip off its face, but that was impossible, for the face was made of water, which Kintu’s children could not get a grip of for it simply slipped through their hands.

“Not now,” she cried. “Please not now.”

Walumbe came closer, the sound of static grew into the buzz of a thousand angry bees, and Nambi cowered against the wall, helpless against the light monster.

Rip off its face!

She could not go, not now, not to that bleak world of ice and mist, not when her girls still needed her, not when her son was on the way. A boy, it is a boy, she thought with certainty, and she could feel him kicking in her womb. A boy. Buba did not mind the sex of the child, he even wished it was a girl, partly because they would not have to buy fresh male-baby-stuff, but Nambi wanted it to be a boy this time. He could use his sister’s stuff until they could afford male stuff. A boy. He kicked again, only that the kick was so hard that she yelped in pain. That was not her baby. That was this creature doing something to her baby, turning her baby against her. She fell to her knees, screaming, something warm coursing down her thighs. She did not have to look to know it was blood, a river flowing to the floor. She could not stop screaming.

Walumbe stood a few inches away. Dizziness hit her like a chilly wind, and she fell to the floor, hitting her forehead hard on the tile. She could feel the baby inside her, struggling against something, alive, she could not lie face down or else it would squeeze the baby. Even though she was semi-conscious, she turned and lay on her back, her fingers massaging her belly, to reassure her child that it would be all right. It’s pulse, his pulse, it beat against her palm with desperation.

She tried to stay conscious, to hold on to the feel of the baby. She lost.

She had a sensation of weightlessness, as if the ground had opened up and she was floating above a hole. The pain vanished. She regained her sight, and the first thing she saw was Buba’s office, with the reflection of the portal and of Walumbe on the computer screens, shimmering like a heat wave.

She scrambled to her feet. Walumbe seemed to stand idly, just looking, and she could feel its force pulling at her, nudging her toward the light.

I am dead.

The thought thundered in her head, cracking her skull. She looked down at her feet, and saw her body sprawled on the floor, in a sea of blood that kept growing bigger, and bigger. What happened? Had the doctors not seen something? Her yellow gown contrasted with the blood, and the gray floor tiles. It might have been a work of Buba’s art. But it was not. It was death. She was dead. Was the baby alive? She thought she saw a movement in the corpse, she thought she felt the baby trying to escape the tomb that its – his – mother’s body had become.

Entombed alive.

No! Not her baby boy!

She attacked. Her hands clawed at Walumbe’s face, but just as her mother had said, it was made of water. Electrified water. Jolts of electricity numbed her elbows and she screamed out in pain as the shock threw her across the room. Her fingers were wet, and slimy, as though she had dipped them in a bowl of cold porridge. She did not give up. She was back on her feet in a second, attacking, even though her hands were semi-paralyzed, her fingers unable to form a cup to scoop out the water. The power pulling her toward the light became stronger. She tried again, and again, screaming in fury, but barely managing to splash out the water. Her baby was still alive. Entombed alive! She could not go, not now. No!

Was it laughing at her? She felt so. The static now sounded like the chatter of monkeys. It was confident in its power over her. She could never rip off its face….

She could. Not with her hands. With her mouth. Maybe she could drink off that face…. Her spirit-body was numb. If she was in her ape-body, the shock would have already killed her, but her spirit was immortal, and though its hands were rendered useless, she had her mouth.

Her lips touched Walumbe even before the thought was fully formed, and it was like kissing live electric wires. Sparks flew out of her mouth as her teeth and tongue sunk into the porridge-like water, and she sucked, and sucked. The water rushed down her throat, and she felt Walumbe’s confusion, its surprise that she still had strength to suck even after the electricity had half-cooked her. It tried to beam itself away, but though it was made of photons, it could not move as fast as light. She sucked and sucked, the water gurgled into her mouth, and in a few seconds it had all gone down her throat.

Walumbe flickered, became fuzzy like a bad TV signal, and the hiss of static became so loud that it deafened Nambi. She did not hear the explosion. Walumbe evaporated. The portal exploded too, and vanished, and her living room regained its ordinariness. The TV signal returned and there was a music video with half-naked girls shaking their bums at the camera.

Have I won?

No. Not yet time to celebrate. Her corpse was stiff on the ground, the blood still flowing away. She checked the pregnancy for signs of life inside. Nothing. No movement. No pulse. Was the baby dead? It had to be alive. She had defeated Walumbe.

Had she? Why then was her body inanimate? Why could she not feel the baby?

She had to go back into her body, but how?

What did her mother say? Nothing. The folk tale only talked about how to defeat Walumbe, not how to reunite spirit and body after the victory. Maybe in the distant past it had been part of the story, but over the eons, humans treated the tale as just another fable and they forgot to tell their children what to do after victory.

There has to be a way.

Walumbe’s water dripped from her mouth, cold and slimy and thick like saliva, and a thought occurred to her. Maybe if she gave the corpse a kiss of life…..

She knelt beside the body, and saw its face, her face, as though it were a dream. She touched it, her body, touched the pregnancy, touched the nose, and then opened its mouth, breathed into it. The cold, slimy, salivary water dripped onto its lips, her lips, and for a second Nambi got the feeling that Walumbe’s water was a living thing, a parasite that resented a living spirit, and so it was rushing into the corpse…. but the body did not come to life.

She tried the kiss of life again, and again, and instead of the corpse reanimating, something started to happen inside her, something turbulent, it made her think of a whirlpool. Walumbe’s water? It indeed was a living thing, and now that it had sensed there was a corpse out there, it was trying to get out. It raged inside her and she felt sick. She jumped away from the corpse, but the water did not relent. It threw her this way and that way as it forced its way up her throat, and then it was gashing out of her mouth. It twisted about in the air like a snake, flying without wings, and then it splashed against the wall, where it congealed into a rectangular pool, like a framed painting.

It was not a mirror anymore. It was a portal, the doorway to that dreadful world of ice and mist, and something was pulling her into it. She resisted, she clung to a sofa, but she was powerless against the suck, and before she knew it she was in that world of ice and mist, a cold wind whipping against her flesh.

From this side, the portal was a small window through which she saw her world, her living room, with the corpse still on the floor, dead stiff, blood flowing away from it. She tried to go back, but a force field could not let her pass. She was stuck in the world of ice and mist.

Then it happened. Her body moved, a slight twitch of the toes. Nambi froze. Had it been just her imagination? She watched, enthralled, and waited, and the seconds became minutes, and the twitch came again, as if a fly was bothering the toes and her body was trying to flick it away. Nambi smiled, warmth flowed through her veins. When the body’s legs – her legs – moved, she knew she had defeated Walumbe. Her body was alive! She was alive!

But how could she think of that as her legs yet she could not feel them? They were like legs of her other self, of her doppelganger. But how would the doppelganger live without a spirit? Would it have the memories Nambi had? Would it love Buba and the girls the way Nambi had loved them? Was it really her?

But….

Something was wrong.

The pregnancy heaved. The baby was alive, and she should have been excited about it, but the movement was not natural. It was violent, as if the baby was trying to get out of the womb. The smile vanished from Nambi’s face. The doppelganger sat up, slowly, as though waking up from a long sleep. It looked like Nambi, it had her face, and her body, but a thick liquid drooled from its mouth, a liquid that Nambi knew was cold and slimy. Walumbe’s water? Had the few drops that had slithered off Nambi’s lips reanimated the dead body?

It eyes… she could not think of it as her anymore. There was something wrong with its eyes, the pupils were too black, the whites too white, there was no life in them.

Blood splashed and for a second Nambi could not be sure of what had happened, until she saw the baby ripping its way out of the womb, tearing its mother’s flesh, shredding the yellow gown. It was drooling too, thick and slimy saliva rolled out of its mouth like a waterfall in slow-motion. It was malformed, with a head too big for the body, the limbs too small. A boy, Nambi noticed, though that did not bring her any joy. It slithered on the bloody floor like a wounded snake, trailing the umbilical cord. The mother stood up, seeming not seem to notice that a fetus had just torn its guts open, and that its guts were spilling to its knees. The umbilical cord snapped into two, and the unborn child slithered under the coffee table, lapping blood off the floor like a starving cat. The mother tried to walk, but tripped and fell. It did not seem to notice that it had fallen, or that guts had entangled its legs. It too licked blood off the floor.

Oh ancestors, what have I done?

Nambi heard the gate open, a car drive up to the house. Buba was back.

“Don’t get into the house!” she screamed. “Run!”

He did not hear. He exchanged greetings with a neighbor. “You woke up early today,” the neighbor said. “Yes, it’s the missus’ birthday,” Buba replied. “Oh really! I should buy her a gift!” “It better be a crate of beer!” The two men laughed heartily. “I better go in and make her breakfast,” Buba said. “See you later.” “See you later!”

The two corpses showed no sign that they had heard the men outside.

The front door opened.

“Don’t get in!” Nambi screamed, but sound could not pass from this world to that world. Nothing could pass from here to there. “Run!” she cried. “Run!”

Buba walked in, a package in his arms, a big smile on his face.

“Hey honeypie, where’s the –” He saw the mess in the room, and his voice dropped to a stunned whisper. “Birthday girl.”

He seemed unable to digest the scene, the blood on the floor, his wife on all fours licking it up, her guts entangled on her legs, and something wriggling under the table, something like a furless, oversized rat covered in blood and drool.

“Honey,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.

The package slipped off his arms, a gift box rolled away. It did not open and Nambi could not see what he had bought for her. He staggered forward, to what he thought was his wife, as it lapped blood off the floor like a dog. His lips trembled, maybe he wanted to say something, maybe he wanted to cry.

“I’m sorry,” Nambi wept.

As he stepped closer, the mother corpse now noticed him. It turned its face and what he saw there, maybe the eyes, frightened him. He stopped moving. The baby too looked up from the blood. Then it happened in a flash. The mother leapt, almost as if levitating, arms spread out like eagle claws, teeth bared, and it fell on him. He crashed to the floor, screaming, with it on top of him. Its teeth sunk into his throat, and it sucked his blood just as she had sucked Walumbe’s face. Buba screamed. He tried to get away, but the corpse pinned him firmly down and drunk his blood until he stopped screaming, until his body stopped twitching and he went dead stiff.

The baby slithered on the floor, attracted by the fresh blood, like a thirsty pig rushing to a pond. It made a hissing sound that reminded Nambi of the static. The mother too, Nambi realized, made that same guttural, hissing sound.

The neighbor walked in. “What’s the problem?” he asked.

He did not get a chance to understand the scene. The unborn baby levitated, and then flung itself across the room, slammed itself against the man with such force that he fell backwards. By the time he hit the floor, the fetus had wrapped its tiny arms around his neck, and its mouth was on his throat. Its toothless gum sucked with such force that blood splashed, and then it begun to feed, just as though it were suckling a mother.

Oh what have I done, Nambi cried.

She felt someone materialize beside her. She knew it was her husband even before she turned around to him. He looked from her, to the window, to the world beyond where his wife’s corpse was sucking blood out of his corpse, and a fetal monster was sucking on the neighbor’s throat, the neighbor screaming, but with his vocal cords torn could only make a pitiful chocking sound.

Now the mother corpse slithered away from Buba’s corpse, to join the fetus. Had it already sucked Buba’s corpse dry? No, Buba’s corpse jerked, as though jolted with electricity, and it sat up, a gaping hole in its neck, thick, slimy saliva drooling from its mouth.

Oh ancestors, Nambi cried. What have I done?

Three more neighbors came in, attracted by the screams. This time all three corpses, father, mother, unborn child, looked up, and they levitated, and they jumped, almost in unison.

Nambi could not watch anymore. She covered her face in her palms and wept.

“What is happening?” Buba asked. “Is this a nightmare?”

He touched the window, and the force field separating the two worlds vibrated. The neighbor popped up beside them, and he too had that confused expression. He could not understand how he had been sucked into someone else’s nightmare.