K - Above and Below Thyme

School had been out for a week, and Thyme was beginning to relax.
The hunt for a babysitter was abandoned within days. She couldn't
tolerate them, and they couldn't stand to be around her. Thyme solemnly
promised to stay out of trouble, and Sharon trusted her. She really had
no choice.

It was mid-morning when Thyme woke up that day. Nocturnal by nature,
thyme lived upside down from the normal waking world. The clock on her
bedside claimed it was 10:30, but the sky through her window disagreed.
It wasn't the blue black of night, but a uniform dark gray. Her first
thought was of Tera's eyes, followed by realization. A storm was moving
in, and she'd almost slept through it!

She took the time to pull on some shorts and a tank top, then headed
for her backyard, feet still bare, hair uncombed. The vibration, the
tingle were both there! She could sit out the storm with no
interruptions. Stretching out on her back, palms to the ground, Thyme
watched as the tones of gray lightened and deepened with the moving
clouds.

When the first flash came, she didn't so much as blink. A few moments
later, the familiar vibration came from under her, then up through her.
She had released it and waited for the boom to follow. As the next bolt
lit the sky, she caught the shaking and pulled it to her, hoping to
shake herself loose from other and see it standing alone, but soon the
vibration escaped and the sound came.

Lightening again lit the sky, and Thyme realized it was dark where
herself hid, or at least the path to herself. The rumble ran it's
course, and she concentrated. If she could pull the thunder, she could
channel the light, the power of the lightening.

Lying perfectly still, feeling with each inch of her skin, she
recognized the preceding tingle and pulled. The streak came closer, the
shaking deeper afterwards. Just a few more times and maybe it would
work. The winds kicked up, swaying even the trees older than her
mother, groans silent to most filled the air as the old ones bent long
stiff trunks. Birdsong had ceased and squirrels huddled together in
those trunks, startled motionless by the movements.

Thyme held on to the lightening and thunder, but turned enough of her
mind away to "look". Frustrated at the void, she pulled harder. Tera's
eyes drifted back through her mind, followed by the eclipse in motion.
Separation. There was no way to separate who people were from who she
was, from herself. Why not, her mind asked. Lightening flashed, the
thunder rose up from the earth, through her, and then again the boom
sounded. Thyme knew, knew what she did not know. She did not know
herself.

That was the problem with separation. Too many people she had "known".
She'd been too young before. The world was still her then. She had
never acknowledged Other. For the first time, she fought through Other,
and words poured in a torrent, feelings slightly thicker and slower,
but fighting for recognition. But she didn't want them; she wanted
more.

The lighter grays dissolved, leaving an almost black yet starless sky.
Thyme fought to "see" as the lightening flashed closer and the thunder
rose quicker until it seemed every flash burned away the feelings and
every vibration disintegrated words, speeding in her mind and in the
sky, blurring till the electricity struck faster than the thunder could
rise.

The people in that neighborhood still speak of that storm, when sound
caught up with light, the laws of nature itself bent, as a searing
white bolt was accompanied by a boom of thunder that literally shook
paintings on the walls, one awful instant of terror. Collapses and
heart attacks were reported all over the town.

One little girl lay on the grass of her backyard, a blackened ring
outlining her small form, wisps of smoke rising around her, but not a
mark to be found on her perfect skin. Thyme's eyes were still open, but
she saw nothing, nothing outside herself. In that awful split-second,
Thyme had "seen" herself.

She never noticed the jolt that ran through her, the smell of burnt
grass, the rain that poured in torrents, it's floodgates loosed by the
convergence. Nothing else existed.

She was still lying there when her mother found her that evening.

They put her through every test the doctor could think of, and some
he'd had to look up in those thick books on the shelves. Thyme had CAT
scans and MRIs, neurological impulse evaluations and blood tests for
exotic diseases. Poked, prodded, punctured, she never made a sound,
never shed a single tear.

From the markings on the grass, they concluded she'd been struck by
lightening, but with no detectable physical damage. Oh, her hair had a
little more static, and the bottoms of her feet peeled for several
months, but that was it. Well, except for her voice. She hadn't said a
word since the summer storm.

They removed her tonsils, even ran camera tubes up her nose then down
her throat to her larynx, finding nothing unusual. Doctors prescribed
numbing medications, certain it was pain blocking her speech. They were
closer than they ever knew.

Thyme had done what centuries of religion, decades of self help
programs, and thousands of people had tried to do. She met herself,
knew the raw truth of her soul. She'd "found" herself. What she
couldn't understand was why people would want that knowledge.

When the battalion of physicians allowed visitors, having no proof they
would be harmed or harmful, Tera was there. She sat in silence beside
the bed, but never touched Thyme. There was no telling how strong the
gift had become, and she wasn't willing to risk another comatose
period. Four days had been too long, at least according to the doctors.
They had begun mentioning oxygen deficit and potential long-term damage
under their breath.

Three days into her vigil, Tera ventured to speak.

"The doctors say you hear and understand, but I don't know what to say.
I'm here."

Like clockwork, the nurses came in to check the machines, her
temperature, her pulse. They chattered at the helpless child about the
weather and the lunch menu, and how they would know what to order if
she would only attempt to cooperate. There was no response, so
eventually, they left.

"They seem to think you can talk."

Thyme's eyes left the window and settled on Tera's face.

"So you do understand. Can you move?"

The small head, leads and wires mixed with the long, straight hair,
nodded.

"Ah, communication! Don't like them, eh?" Tera asked, tossing her head
toward the door. Thyme shook her head.

"Then I'm honored." The green eyes rolled up. "Now, don't take my one
small pleasure away." The huge eyes fixed on her again, and a slight
suggestion of a smile skittered across the small face. Strangely, Tera
felt more trust from Thyme than ever.
She looked around at the tubes and monitors, the emergency equipment
lining the creamy mint walls. Thyme could see it all, but there was no
fear.

"All these gadgets aren't really necessary, are they?"

Slowly, the head shook again.

"And you could probably talk if you wanted to."

The girls gaze never wavered, but her shoulders raised, then lowered.
There was no deception; Thyme wasn't sure either way. And she had no
intention of testing the waters.

"Sometimes it's better to be quiet. Gives you room to think, room that
words will suck up, given the chance."

Thyme nodded, and the Mona Lisa look floated over her face again before
she closed her eyes. Once her chest was in the easy rise and fall of
sleep, Tera slipped out, content to wait on words.

The nurses were an ongoing annoyance, but there was still peace in
between invasions. Normally, the room would have bored her, but Thyme
didn't notice. Deep inside herself, she was struggling to cope with her
newfound knowledge.

At first, she felt pulled, the rope in a life or death tug of war
match. Part of her knew, would always know, and the rest wanted to cut
itself off, insulate itself, become two inside one. But she would be no
better off, the safe Thyme still assaulted by Other, by everyone else.
She knew what secrets did inside people, and fought off the
split.

That left facing the truth and accepting it. The burden from Other was
one thing, herself entirely different. There were no excuses, no
explanations, no buffer. She'd always assumed others could change, had
chosen themselves, yet she had no memory of her choice. She tried to
reason that others had caused the anger, the superiority, but it came
from her; it was her. At her core, Thyme was judge and jury, certain of
her right to that position. She was the ultimate; she was Divine. And
she was wrong.

The tears flowed freely. She hated her own soul and could not express
why, chasing her mind around her skull. She was Above and Below and
helpless.