*** One ***
"Mommy, Mommy! Come on! We are going to miss
Oprah!" my eldest encouraged me to be quick about moving to the lounge and
the television.
It was 5pm. Time for our daily Oprah Winfrey show.
"Hush, you will wake the baby and I just got her to sleep,"
I reprimanded playfully.
She giggled, taking my hand, pulling me to sit next to her on the
couch before cuddling into my lap.
This was our special time. The Oprah Show had been running since
her birth and it had become a daily event for us to take a moment together.
We watched in fascination as Oprah interviewed a woman who had
sustained full body and face burns, showing her daily struggle, talking about the
accident and how she survived and was coping with living in agony every single
day.
It was heartbreaking to watch and we both wept for the courage
this person displayed.
At the end of the program there was a detailed discussion about
what could be done for burn survivors, new technology to assist burns patients,
and what to do in a burn emergency.
The dogs barked at the gate and my eldest jumped up, rushing over
to the window to make sure it was her Daddy returning from work.
It had been raining all day long, the overcast sky threatening
more rain.
My baby woke with the howling of the dogs, crying despondently
until I picked her up, soothing her while my eldest unlocked the door, rushing
out to greet her father.
Drops started falling as my husband settled the dogs before
hugging his daughter, smiling over at me where I stood on the porch, holding
the baby.
*You should go out this evening,* Sensaii told me, standing at my
left shoulder as he usually does.
*I'm exhausted,* I told Sensaii. *You know I have not slept. It is
raining and the baby is threatening colic. How must I go out when I feel like
crap?*
My husband came up the steps, looking into the sky, drops falling
on his face.
"Hi!" he kissed me, before giving the baby a kiss too.
"Are we still going to the restaurant tonight?" he wanted
to know, leading us into the house, waiting for us to enter before closing and
locking the door securely.
"Please, if possible, I would prefer not to," I pleaded,
knowing that he would have loved to go out for a change. We had a valid reason
to celebrate.
"Okay," he stated, defeated, his only wish to please his
wife.
"Have the dogs been fed?" he asked instead.
"No. We just finished watching Oprah," I replied.
My eldest gathered the feeding bowls and helped her father dish up
for all of them.
My husband took up the bowls, leaving through the back door to
feed the pack, our guard dog first in this fenced off area, and then the other
dogs.
It was still raining when he returned.
"Mind when you go out," he warned us. "The back
porch is slippery."
"Will do," I replied. "Do you want to shower before
making dinner?"
"No. What would you prefer to have?" he asked.
"I'm not sure what I want. What do you feel like?" I
asked my eldest instead.
"Chops and fries!" she answered, her favourite treat.
"Chops and fries it is," her dad agreed.
Leaving them to complete dinner, I retired to our bedroom to feed
the baby.
As she had been doing since her birth, she only took a few sips of
milk before indicating that she had enough.
Sighing, I swapped to the breast-pump, expressing enough milk to
feed two more babies, reflecting that I felt like a cow.
Back in the kitchen I decanted this milk into a bottle, dating it
before placing it in the freezer where many other similar bottles were already
stored.
I really disliked waste in any form, making a mental note to
contact the breast-milk donation bank to come and collect it.
Dinner was ready, so Ronald started dishing up for us.
Making sure the stove was switched off at the mains and the oil
removed from the heat, we took our plates to the lounge to watch the 7pm news
while eating.
Barely starting on our dinner, a red flash in the kitchen startled
us.
"It can not be!" my husband exclaimed, leaving his food,
rushing to the kitchen to see what was going on.
"Stay with the baby!" I instructed my five year old,
also putting my plate down. "No matter what happens, stay with her. Do you
hear me!" I wished her to acknowledge, hearing my husband swearing in the
kitchen, seeing my eldest nodding.
Leaving the children, I rushed to help in the kitchen.
The pot of cooking oil was on fire!
The pine ceiling was already bubbling and the fire extinguisher in
my husband's hands empty, confirming where the white dust on our furniture had
come from when we moved into this house a few months earlier.
After a deep breath, Ronald grabbed the lid of the pot, smothering
the fire, swearing as his wrist was burnt in the process.
"Open the door so I can put this pot outside in case it
explodes!" he ordered, holding the pot in his hands, already on the way to
the back door.
I opened the door, pushing it to its maximum to keep it open,
again finding it incomprehensible that a house door should open to the outside
in the first place.
"Lulu! Box!" I ordered our guard dog while treading
cautiously on the slippery tiles. The last thing I wanted was for her to get in
the way and be injured or for Ronald to fall over her.
She obeyed, immediately going to lie in her huge doghouse.
"Move!" Ron warned and I stepped off the porch to stand
on the wet grass while he stepped out of the house.
For one heart-stopping moment time stood still, then proceeded in
slow-motion to highlight every agonizing detail.
As my husband stepped across the threshold onto the back porch,
the lid on the pot in his hands lifted up into his face, a boiling mass raising
out of the pot to hit the inside of the lid, bouncing off it to project right
at me.
Seeing the fire ball heading straight for me, my hands came up
automatically to protect my eyes.
As if an ice cold jelly, it hit me full in the face, my arms
taking the brunt of the fire-ball before the spill engulfed me in flames,
spreading as far as the oil ran down my body . . .
Excerpt from:
The Chronicles
of Han
Living a
Multidimensional Life
Section 1:
Near Death Experience, Life Review, Aftermath
Copyright
© H Gibson Chronicles of Han 2009-2019
Date Published: 3 February 2019
Paperback: 978-1-928471-26-4
ebook: 978-1-928471-27-1
H Gibson Author and Cover Design
Photo Credit: Sri Nithya Sadyojatananda
Set in Book Antiqua
56,391 words - approximately 6 hours of
entertainment
Autobiography
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