Blue Ball Lightning In Hell...

'Before' photo of Gloria Faye Brown (Bates/aka Granny Gee)... Just 'before going to Hell'...



Blue Ball Lightning In Hell...
By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee


I have been sitting here listening to the thunder... watching the rain fall, wind blow the treetops.  I have been hoping not to see lightning... really, I am afraid of lightening.  I'll tell you why... come back into the past with me... just for a few minutes.....

I peeped out of the tiny opening I had made.  I had the quilt pulled tight around me, so... nothing could get inside with me.

All was quiet, excepting for the thunder.  The room was semi-dark, except for the occasional flash of lightening.  My heart was in my throat... my little chest hurt.  I was holding my breath...

I sat alone on the end of the old red, vinyl couch.  My side, back was tight against the arm for support.  The vinyl was cold, it would be warm soon with my body heat... I'd forget it was cold.  I could feel the coolness on the back of my thighs... where my dress slipped up.

I peeped out again, knowing 'it'd still be there'.  Why wouldn't it just go away?  I felt the lump in my throat again, I took little deep breaths.

I heard Grandma Alma and George speaking quietly in the room next to the living room... where I sat on the couch.  Their room where they sat every day was the middle room of the house... the arena where people came to act out, fight, entertain.  The... Arena of... Hell.

I closed my eyes, opened them to peep again to see if it was gone.  No, it still sat there.  A big ball of blue lightning sat on the floor where it rolled out from the bedroom behind it.  'It' was looking at me... I didn't see any eyes... it didn't matter, I 'knew it watched me'.

I never made a sound.  Come to think of it, like so many things... I never thought to tell anyone.  When someone hurt me, I never thought to tell on them... likewise, when I saw 'bad things' there, I never told on anyone.  I grew up like that...

I was so afraid, maybe that's why I didn't speak... the blue ball lightning was alive... I was afraid of it, I 'knew it could hurt me'.  How could it hurt me?  As a child, I didn't think that far... I 'just knew'...

The next time I look through the little opening, I saw that the blue ball lightning had disappeared.  I let the quilt fall down to my shoulders, then... to the couch.  I felt too warm after being tightly wrapped in the quilt.  The cool air felt so good...

I got up, I could go play now.  I walked to the screen door, opened it, went out to find someone to play with me.  I never thought to mention the blue ball lightning... I just thought everyone knew about it...

Later in life, only one of my cousins remembers me telling him through the years about that blue ball lightning.  He's gone now.  He never saw it.... come to think of it, I was the only child sitting on that old red, vinyl couch wrapped up in a quilt.

Blue ball lightning in Hell... it always showed up when a thunderstorm came up... I always knew I would see it looking at me.  I would try not to peep out of the quilt... but, I did.  It sat in the living room on the floor in front of the door opening into the bedroom.  I was always on that red, vinyl couch... under that quilt.