Lightning Strike!

She worked part-time as a seamstress,

An ordinary sort of girl,

But one with a dash of blue-eyed wit,

An endearing brunette curl.

I’d plucked up the courage to ask her out,

For me it was more than like,

And everything seemed to be going well

Before the lightning strike.

 

One day we walked to the countryside

By the fields of wheat and hay,

Rambling on by the hedgerows there

On a darkening Autumn day.

I stole a kiss in a grove of trees

From the lips that taste like wine,

And then she whispered her love for me

All coy, with her eyes a-shine.

 

The clouds were gathering overhead

And soon it began to rain,

We sought some shelter, under a ledge

Right next to a field of grain,

But she was nervous, clung to my hand

When the thunder growled on high,

‘The gods are grumbling over the land,’

She said, and began to cry.

 

I said, ‘There’s nothing to fret about,

It’s only an Autumn storm,

We’ll just stay here and we’ll wait it out,’

But Michelle was lost, forlorn.

A mighty clap came from overhead

And she screamed, ran out in the rain,

When a bolt of lightning struck her there,

A flash, then a shriek of pain!

 

I dashed on out, and I picked her up

But her clothes were burned and charred,

Her hair was white and it stood on end,

Full of some potent charge.

She rolled her eyes and she looked at me

Her face, a panic attack,

And then I saw that her sky-blue eyes

Had turned to a deep jet black.

 

The clouds were tumbling overhead

Though the rain was passing on,

The lightning strikes were further away

She cried, ‘Has the thunder gone?’

She sat there trembling in my arms

But focussed her gaze on high,

And said at last, as she stared above,

‘There are demons up in the sky!’

 

She spent a month in the hospital

And they said she’d be okay,

I’ll never forget the way she looked

When I picked her up that day,

She huddled up in the car and said,

‘The world outside has changed,

For fire and flashes are everywhere

There’s a lightning strike in my brain.’

 

‘And now, in the darkest corners I

Have visions of swarms of rats,

While up in the eaves, and waiting there,

A host of vampire bats,

There’s crawling things that I didn’t see

Before, when my eyes were blue,

And awful spiders with fourteen legs,

Right now, they’re crawling on you.’

 

I took her home, and put her to bed,

I thought that she needed rest,

A week went by, but she’d sit and cry,

I thought she was quite obsessed.

Then I started hearing crawling things

At night, when I went to sleep,

And woke to a creature on my chest

That made my own flesh creep.

 

There’s demons up in the clouds,’ she said,

‘And fires scorching the ground,

And everywhere that I look, I see

Where evil spirits abound.’

I couldn’t take it a moment more,

These things invaded my mind,

I did what anyone else would do,

And now, Michelle is blind!

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Avinash]

Your signature style in full force David. All I could guess from your writing is that you have been a compassionate lover to your ladies and a gentleman. I thoroughly enjoyed the story with all its twists and turns as I always do. Hope and wish you are doing well.

[B.J]

What great imagery and style. You work comes from an inner being. Straight from another time

[A Soap Mess Stories]

A well entertaining tale...shocking twist....

[Thomas Fitzgerald]

A most powerful piece that searched to entertain and fright! well done.

[TL Boehm]

another stellar story - witty, formidable and with that surprise ending at which you excel. Poor Michelle.

[Colorado Brian]

Great story filled with descriptive imagery and fun, too!

[Woody]

desperate times call for desperate measures. always impossible to guess the outcome and I love that.
another fine one, David.

[Marie]

Who would have know that lightening could do all that...

Th endreminded me of a an old movie called "The Man With the X-Ray Eyes..."

[Leigh]

You do tell a fine story Sir.

There is something of this imprinted into my brain, just like her change of eye colour. I can see her black eyes staring up, just like a babies. Of course I got struck by lightening myself, not a direct hit fortunately, but my fillings buzzed and the street lit up blue. This was a great read.