The Colorful Storm

Every night at midnight, the purple clouds came out to dance with the blushing sky. The clouds rumbled, gradually growing bigger until they blocked out the rosy sky. Flashes of rainbow lightning tore apart the clouds, and beams of blinding white light rained down.

The first time Sarah saw the colorful storm was a warm night when she was five years old. She lay awake in bed, watching in amazement as the colors danced and bled together. Another rainbow lightning bolt zigzagged through the periphery of her vision. No sooner than it had, searing pain exploded in her head. She screamed, holding her face on the side where she’d seen the lightning.

Moments later, a lamp flickered on. Sarah whined, turning away from the bright light. “What’s wrong?” her mom asked.

“Head hurts!”

The room spun as Sarah tried to sit up. She wobbled so much, she had to grab onto her mother’s arm to keep from falling off the bed. With her mom’s help, she managed to sit, propped up by a mountain of pillows. Her dad appeared in the bedroom doorway, awakened by the light and noise, and both of her parents exchanged a confused look.

Mom mumbled something, and Dad left, returning a few minutes later with a cup of red liquid that smelled like a combination of cherries and licorice. “Here, drink this. You’ll feel better.”

Sarah made a face at the smell but did as she was told. Her insides lurched as soon as she swallowed the disgusting liquid. She had barely enough time to lean over the side of the bed before she threw up. The sight and smell of the mess, the bright lamp light, the pain in her head… it was all too much!

She burst into tears, her head throbbing more with every sob that racked her body. Mom and Dad hugged her until she stopped crying. They cleaned her up and helped her back into bed. Draping a cold compress over Sarah’s forehead, Mom turned out the light. “Try to get some sleep, sweetie.”

Sarah awoke the next morning feeling weak and shaky, The pain in her head had faded to a dull ache, and with it went her memories of the color storm until later that night when the process repeated. After a few sleepless nights, Mom became fed up with Sarah’s headaches and took her to the doctor.

Sarah lay on the exam table, her eyes closed against the fluorescent office lighting while the doctor examined her. She shivered as the icy cold stethoscope touched her. “Mmhmm,” the doctor mumbled, and Sarah opened her eyes to see him writing something on a clipboard.

He looked into her ears and then her eyes with a bright light, so bright that it made Sarah see spots that somewhat resembled the rainbow lightning bolts that flashed in front of her eyes at night. She turned away, closing her eyes against the spots. She didn’t dare look again until the doctor said, “Say ahh.”

Sarah had no sooner opened her mouth when the doctor stuck an object that looked like a long q-tip down her throat, and she had to fight the urge to gag the whole time. The doctor handed the long q-tip to a nurse, and she stepped out of the room. When she was gone, he turned to Sarah and asked, “What does it feel like when you get these headaches?”

“It storms colors.”

Mom and the doctor stared at each other, then at Sarah. “What do you mean?”

“The sky turns pink with purple clouds. Then it storms rainbow lightning and rains light.”

Mom laughed. “Oh sweetie, you must’ve been dreaming!”

“That’s not possible,” said the doctor. The nurse came back and handed him a slip of paper. He frowned. “Medically we can’t find any reason for the headaches. We’ll run some more tests, but this may be something we have to let run its course. In the meantime, I can prescribe something for the pain.”

****************************

As Sarah grew, so did the frequency of the colorful storms and the headaches that accompanied them. They were no longer limited to happening at midnight, as she learned on her eleventh birthday. It was a warm, sunny afternoon when she saw the pinkening sky and purple clouds rolling in over the ice cream shop parking lot.

No no no, that shouldn’t be happening! Not here, not now! Maybe she’d just imagined it. She blinked, hoping the purple clouds would be gone when she opened her eyes. But they were still there. Her heart sank. She knew it was only a matter of time before the rainbow lightning and bright light rain happened. Then came the headache and nausea, and… she didn’t want to be out in the open if that happened!”

“Come on, Dad! Let’s get inside!” She led the way into the ice cream shop, tugging on his hand to make sure he followed.

“Wow, someone’s excited for ice cream!”

Rainbow lightning bolts slashed across Sarah’s vision as she read the menu, blurring the ice cream flavors. Unable to read the menu, she went for a small cup of vanilla ice cream. That should be safe, right? Wrong! Just the smell was enough to make her stomach turn, and she absentmindedly swirled her spoon around the cup of melting ice cream.

“You’ve hardly touched your ice cream. Is something wrong with it?”

Sarah shook her head.

“Well, where do you want to go after this?”

:Can we just go home? I don’t feel so good.”

Sarah kept her hands clapped over her mouth the whole ride home, fighting back the rising wave of nausea just long enough to make it to the bathroom.

Doctors were baffled by the sudden change in Sarah’s symptoms. After running a battery of tests, they were no closer to finding a cause for her headaches. All they did was switch her to a different medicine for her pain.

****************************

As the colorful storms and the sickness they brought persisted, Sarah noticed a pattern. They only happened in warm weather, and bright light made them worse. School became torture! Seven hours a day, five days a week, she sat stuck in a hot bright classroom while colors flashed before her eyes, trying not to give in to the pain and nausea.

One day, a disturbing new symptom emerged during math class. Sarah sat in the back row, staring at her test packet as the colors blurred. First pink, then purple, then rainbow zigzags. The numbers blurred into an indistinguishable blob on the page. Her mind refused to process any more equations, and the pencil felt heavy in her hand.

She laid her head down on the desk. As she closed her eyes in a futile attempt to block out the kaleidoscope of color, two large green dots appeared before her, like eyes staring into her soul. “Keep going. You can do it,” a voice whispered. It was a man’s voice, but not that of her math teacher.

Sarah looked up, her tired eyes searching the room for the source of the voice, but there was no one else there. Confused yet somehow spurred on by the mystery voice, she forced herself to pick up her pencil again and push through the pain to finish her test. She lasted just until the bell rang before beelining for the office to call her mom to pick her up. As she waited, she heard the voice again, “No, you’re not sick; you have the gift. I have it too. In time, you’ll see what the gift means.”