THUNDERSTORM

Rick was frustrated after finding out the lady he was about to get married to, has been sleeping with his best friend. Devastated at the betrayal, he decided to end his life. He went to a nearby bar, to drink away his sorrow to numb the pains he was feeling. He drank to stupor until it was late at night. His colleagues had to book a cab for him to take him home.

On the way home, during a thunderstorm, the taxi driver left Rick outside his house and zoomed off. Rick was so drunk, he wasn’t even aware of his environment. Soaked from the thunderstorm and barely conscious, he managed to get inside. Rick fell on his bed, still feeling like he’d been hit by a bus, but determined to write a farewell note, explaining to the whole world, how the two people he cared about most in the world, has driven him to commit suicide by there betrayal. As he was about completing the letter, the thunderstorm outside, decided to up the drama, by falling the branches of a big tree that cut the electric wire supplying them light, putting the entire neighborhood in total darkness.

Now, Rick couldn’t see a thing, but he was still determined to go ahead with his plan. He got a rope from his drawer to tie on the ceiling fan, when he noticed a shadowy figure on the wall. He wasn’t quite sure of what he saw, so he went ahead with what he was doing. Then the lightning from the thunderstorm struck, Squinting through his drunken state, he saw or thought he saw grim reaper, standing right there in his room with a hat and his disappearing cloak.

Rick was so terrified, he ran like a baby to his bed, holding his bedsheets so tightly and screaming at the top of his voice “please don’t kill me, I don’t want to die…..” no one could hear him because his voice was barely a whisper, compared to the heavy thunderstorm out there and the rain hitting the roof. The next round of lightning struck again, Rick saw the man almost grabbing him with his hands, jumped from where he was to the edge of the bed for safety.

In his frantic state, he didn’t realize his windows was wide open. The grim reaper, apparently annoyed, that Rick has changed his mind from committing suicide, did some magical gestures with his hands towards the windows. The window slammed shut with a crash, shattering the glass. Few pieces of the glass scratched his face and out of fear, Rick shit in his pants and he passed out.

Rick woke up in the afternoon, as a result of the call he has been receiving from work, to know how he’s doing. His head pounded with a hangover, and he squinted at the bruises all over his body. As he was trying to adjust his eyes, he noticed his window was in pieces, he thought he had been robbed and they came in through the window. As he turned to face the other side of the bed, his heart jumped into his tummy. The flash back of the incident that happened last night replayed in his head. The grim reaper that tried to kill him, now glaringly obvious in the daylight. He laughed at himself.

The grim reaper was just an hallucination fueled by his drunken state last night. What was there was just his winter suit and hat that was hung on the wall hanger. The supposed “hand" that had reached for him was merely the shadow of a fallen tree branch that was on top of the electric wires, reflecting on the wall and the shattered window was as a result of the thunderstorm’s wind slamming it shut.

He saw his unfinished suicide note he wrote down and the rope he planned to use to kill himself. He thankGod he didn’t go ahead with his plans. From that day, he vowed never to drink alcohol again and put his happiness in the hands of anyone again. That was what brought about a turning point in rick’s life.