By Donna Forbin
It was going to rain heavily this night. The wind was already howling furiously and it was not even 
six o’clock. The rain clouds had choked the setting sun out of view. The sky was covered in an angry grey black. Clouds of dust and dirt were flying, into my house and everywhere else that they could. I rushed around shutting the windows and drawing the curtains. Neighbors were doing the same everywhere. There were still some unfortunate ones outside; men, women carrying bags and baskets on their heads, babies on their backs, children all running, trying to make it indoors before the storm unleashed its full fury.
Limbe and its rainy season, I thought to myself, muttering a prayer for protection as I heard a zinc sheet on the roof rattle. If these roofs give way lord, I don’t know what we will do. We may not be able to replace them so soon. The trees in the compound were waving in all kinds of shapes. I watched one of my tenant’s wife rush into their house with her laundry basket just in time before the rain came pounding down.
The lights flickered on and off as was usual during such a storm. I rushed to the kitchen and pulled out the fridge plug then did the same for the stereo and TV.
Angry lightning welts split the dark sky with brilliant flashes. Thunder boomed above my head startling me as I watched fascinated through the parlor window. I lit a candle, served myself some of the garri and okro soup with stockfish that Eposi had left for me earlier in the food flask. She was an excellent cook. It was too bad that useless Buea boy could not appreciate her. I wonder why she had to take the children herself to him for the holidays. Why could he not come over himself and pick them up? That boy had no respect, not even for me his father in law. It was a good decision for her and the grandchildren to come and live here two years ago.
I cleared my plate of food, carried my candle to the room prepared to sleep. I was expecting Eposi tomorrow which is just as well, I kept musing- the weather was really too nasty to be driving back in it.
There was nothing more to do but sleep. The wind was howling like a furiously vindictive spurned lover. I was not sleepy. There must be some giants pouring all the waters in the sky on us tonight. It thundered steadily. I had seen many rainy seasons in my life. I don’t remember ever feeling this growing anxiety and trepidation building the way I felt now. The candle in the room burned steadily. I wish I had changed that fluorescent bulb earlier. Now it could not work. I dug through my bedside cupboard for the torchlight. It glowed only dimly because the batteries were almost dead. Even the cell phone batteries were down.
I lay down on the bed. Even the thieves who preferred rainy nights to operate would be discouraged by this kind of rain. When I checked the time on the phone, it was already a quarter before nine. Where had time gone? The rain and wind had already been pouring down with fervor. Was it my imagination or was it steadily building momentum?
Horrific pictures of the latest wave of natural disasters in other countries invaded my mind. The doors and hinges started rattling. What kind of rain is this I asked my self over and over again? The rattle on my roof now sounded like it was a shower of stones. I shuddered, wrapped myself in the other bed sheet. It was cold, cold like nighttime in Bamenda during the Harmattan. I could see it was pitch dark outside through the part where the curtains did not meet.
What a night! The world could actually be coming to an end. What an end!
I jumped as I heard an unbelievably loud crash on my roof. What is that! I wondered, shaken, struggling to reason. Something very heavy had fallen on my house, perhaps a tree branch.
My bed moved. How was that possible? It moved again. I jumped off the bed, still shaking.
I don’t know how I found myself out of the house. Screaming like a woman. My knees were shaking. The ground was actually trembling. The tenants and their families stood outside. What had I been doing in the house all this time? The women and children were huddled tighter together, wrapped up in bed sheets and sweaters, crying, shouting prayers. The men were shouting incoherently like me. The fear and panic was thick like a fog in the pitch black night that surrounded us. The flashlights were not strong enough to cleave through our nightmare. I could make out a tenants wall that had crumbled and some other cracks in the walls. One roof was peeled back to the side, rain was pouring into the house.
What was I doing here, with a team of men? We stood in Saker junction. Horror hit our view. On both sides of the roads, buildings crumbled before our eyes, the water was rising, and it seemed as though the sea was going to swallow the entire town. Cars were swimming in what once were roads with rapid deadly currents. Limbe was drowning, sinking, flooding. We would only know the full extent of the damage in the morning.
The rain was still falling then it seemed to stop suddenly. It seemed as if someone had just turned off a tap. An ominous flash of lightning lit the sky. A devastating boom of thunder deafened me. I jumped. My teeth were chattering. I saw fear in the countenance of everyone else. We heard a strange whistling, the wind rushed at us furiously. I felt myself catapulted off the ground, into the air. My hands struggled against the force of the wind. I attempted to hold on to something, anything. I shouted. Felt myself slam against a wall or was it the ground? The wind stopped. My body was aching. Hurt. I felt my way gingerly, trying to drag my self from out of more danger. Where was ‘out of danger’ of anyways?
Something hit me. I passed out.
I woke up, panting hard. It was only a dream. I sat up, shuddering as I began recollecting; it was dark. The candle had burnt out. The wind howled. The rain was still falling hard. I looked at the cell phone. It was only 11:35pm.
Did the ground just move? I could have sworn it did! Something very heavy just crashed on my roof! I can hear women screaming outside. I am not dreaming!
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