Starting soon after her mother’s death, five flashes of light began to shine through her bedroom window, every morning at five a.m.
The first time it happened, she was in a reoccurring dream in which she walked through a dark forest, arms swinging, body so weightless she sometimes floated. In her dream the night sky started to burn. Fever-white sparks, then a great cloud of fire and light. A pressure on all sides; her limbs grew heavy, her eyes burst translucent red. Eyes unfolded to brightness, everywhere. A light was flashing through her window; saturated-bright, a torch signaling through the morning fog.
Heart racing, she sat up. Her wife still slept.
She still had trouble believing it, that she had this life, two wives in their bed. She hadn’t spoken to her mother in the five years before her death. Her mother had raged the last time she saw her. You, engaged? What is a wife and wife? Eyes darting, fists shaking, words bitter on her tongue.
The light must have been an electric storm. Or a break in the northwest June clouds. It stopped. A prank, some kid reflecting mirrors off mirrors. She fell back asleep.
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The next night, she dreamt of walking in leafy shadows. At once, she was fully awake. High wattage bulbs, her mother yelling to turn off the mebrahti. Her body was charged, embraced by the bright light. Electricity transmitted down her spine. She counted, one to five, then lay down, tense as she waited for dawn
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The morning after that, she woke up minutes before it started, her cells humming.
She shook Samara awake. See! The first flash. See the light? Samara’s voice cotton-soft, emerging from sleep. I don’t see any light.
Waking up at 4:50 a.m., then 4:40 a.m., then 4:30 a.m. Breath tight, electric fists banging against her ribs.
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She remembered how Samara had hitched up her long skirts to get down on one knee. Such airy happiness she had felt; for a moment, they were separated from a world of screaming clocks and metallic shame. Encased in a milk-shell, they kissed in pre-birth light. But then, bright spots began to shine through those eggshell walls. Her mother had haunted her even before death.
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Another night. She fell asleep and dreamt of swaying canopies. In the forested darkness, she heard the light before she saw it. One. She woke up. It was a hard light, all sharp angles. Two. Illuminated screams. Three. God, so bright, unforgiving. Four. Unlike a soft sun diffused through cloud layers, this was an equatorial light. The world cracking open. Familiar anger, burnt coffee and splattering oil, tanned leather and buried stone, anger piercing through a membrane. Five.
One, then two, ophthalmologists said her vision was absolutely clear. No retinal detachment, no macular degeneration.
What was the sound of the light? A cracking noise. Bones splintering. Denied truths, decade-old fights and centuries-old bitter spirits. Her eyelids were now hot to the touch.
EEG clear. No migraines.
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She had stopped speaking to her mother, or wait, her mother had stopped speaking to her.
Years ago, she’d called Samara on Christmas Eve, curled up on her childhood bed, giggling like she was sixteen. Snow fell in Seattle, ambient winter light hushing everything. A creak. Her stomach clenching. Intruders. A creak. She hung up. A wheeze like a swinging chain. Her mother had heard, she was in trouble at thirty years old. A smaller part of herself wanted to hide in her parents’ bed.
She wished her own grief was a dark curve, like the back of a new moon. The curve of wailing funeral cries, rising and then falling. Spirits sailing back to the homeland, burying themselves in cold deserts. This was not just grief. This was a split skin, cut anew each morning with a knife made of fierce longing and bright rage. A circular logic; what once was, what once could have been, what should have been. Never never never rang through her head. If only she had been more generous and forgiving. If only her mother had known time was running out. In a fog of if onlys, she sleep-walked through dark halls, dreaming of being a baby in her mother’s arms.
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Her heart began to race as she approached the bed each night. Samara rubbed her shoulders, whispering, You’ll be okay. No. Her angriest ancestors and her mother were all gathered in a luminescent ether. In league with the sun, the angels, opening their mouths and releasing beams of light that would wrap around her neck.
Last year, after their mother was diagnosed, her older brother called her at 4:55 a.m. Slurring down the phone, each syllable slick with oil and rum. He said she had made their mother more sick, that she was selfish, that she didn’t keep personal business airtight. In these moments he was not unlike their mother, love becoming possession, sun concentrated through a magnifying glass. The light began to flash, his words joining the sound of buried bones breaking.
The flashes continued for two weeks. She decided to figure out their origin. Hunched over her laptop, old library books strewn across the table. Samara brushed the top of her head and she jumped. Cold iron bar under the bed. Incense burned before sleep. The light still came, each flash brighter. She read the Bible. A saint asked Abraham for mercy, praying that Lazarus drop his finger in water and cool their tongue, relief from the blazing fire, that ḧawi.
None of these solutions worked. Another week passed and the flashes kept coming. Her digestion slowed, food gurgling in her guts, her sex drive stilled; by early morning, she woke up, her breath naturally quickened, blood racing to her limbs, readying for the threat to come. Samara handed her a glass of ice water each night, and another in the morning, making sure not to touch her. In these days, her skin was warm and sensitive to the touch, and she startled easily.
She called her younger brother, the corporate lawyer. She mentioned the lights in passing, as if it was nothing. He told her to move on, to forget.. She couldn’t. One day he confessed; he was there the moment their mother died.
An electric current shuddered through her.
Her brother described how the hospital machines screamed. Their mother’s eyes opened one last time, and they were glowing. His voice trembled as he spoke. She’s still around. She is a lonely ghost, and therefore vengeful.
Something cracked open in her after her brother’s confession. Her mother was still here. There was hope. Instead of fearing sleep, she sought it out. In sleep, she dreamt she was in the old country. She walked past houses of white concrete and humming violet flowers, then into the shadowed woods. Spirits shone with brown velvet light under large, leafy trees, and as dark came, they lit fanus, so many oil lanterns. Some spirits burned too bright. Skin shining, hands emitting beams, blood running out of bright eyes and mouths.
She saw her mother, so much light she was a red blaze. Crackling, splintering. The daughter poured water on her mother’s head, cooling the fire to a gentle smolder. Rest.
She woke up and counted to five.
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Z. K. Abraham (she/her) is a writer and psychiatrist. She completed a Master’s in Creative Writing with distinction from the University of Edinburgh. She has been published in FANTASY Magazine, The Rumpus, Chestnut Review, Podcastle, Apparition Lit, and more. She is completing the Tin House Online Winter Workshop in winter 2024. She can be found on Twitter @pegasusunder1 and zkabraham.com.