Origins

SeaFoam, age 16

It's strange how people remember traumatic or life-changing events. For instance, my mom remembers exactly where she was and what she was doing on September 11th, 2001. A friend of mine clearly remembers the ordeal he went through when he had pneumonia seven years ago. My grandma still remembers how she met my grandfather.

My life-altering event began when I was floating around my backyard pool on a nice summer day, finally relaxing after finishing all of my summer work.

As it was, I was listening to my absolute queen Beyonce with my AirPods when the incident happened. I'd only listened to about five or six songs by that point and was just floating around on my back like a pro, just chillin' with my eyes closed. I was too content to notice the sky had gotten darker from behind my eyelids. When the wind began to pick up, I lazily assumed that a breeze was coming in.

I'm not entirely sure what happened next. One moment, I was blissfully lounging in the pool. The next? I cracked my eyes open only to see an enormous bolt of blue lightning shoot out of the sky, aimed directly at where I was floating.

I only had enough time to think Oh crap and flip onto my stomach in a lousy attempt to paddle away before the lightning hit me square in the back and everything went dark.

Dizzily, I opened my eyes, but it truthfully didn't change the level of darkness. My eyes flicked around, but I was surrounded by nothingness. I was feeling pretty panicked until something caught my eye — a tiny glimmer of light at the edge of my peripheral vision, glinting just out of reach. I wanted to turn to see it better, but I felt like I couldn't move.

I caught the outline of something grasping in the inky darkness and jumped, only to realize it was my own hand reaching for the tiny light. For a moment, I thought I was dying and 'seeing the light,' but when my hand reached the speck, it vanished.

I pulled back, hoping it would return, but the spot stayed dark. A few moments later, another mysterious shimmer of light appeared, this one closer to my face. I could see it better this time, but not nearly well enough to make out its shape.

Suddenly, there was another, and even more in quick succession. Before I knew it, I was surrounded by thousands of separate twinkling dots that defined this strange new world. They looked like a collection of constellations, stars so numerous that they would be hard to see anywhere except perhaps the most remote countryside in Wyoming.

As I was admiring their beauty, the spots began to merge together making not shapes, but colors. Swirling, shifting shades of blue and green, dark and light, deep and brisk. Most merged together into tiny waves, but some of the dots stayed separate. They refracted the colors, and eventually they took their own shapes. I watched them bounce around playfully for a moment, wondering what all the tiny, happy specks were.

I realized they were bubbles.

Bubbles, which meant I was presumably underwater. How long had I been unconscious? Had I been underwater the entire time? Most importantly, hadn't I just been struck directly by lightning?

I flailed my arms and legs, half expecting nothing to happen and for the world to go dark again. Instead, I burst to the surface, spraying huge amounts of water in every direction. I couldn't help but obnoxiously gasp for air and spit out the pool water that had been filling my lungs.

My mom burst out the French doors just as I pulled myself onto the deck. "Kohl!" she shrieked. "You okay? What happened? What color is the sky?? How many fingers am I holding up?"

I looked up, reaching towards my ears for my AirPods. "Uh, three?"

Despite the warmth of the sun, I shivered while she fussed over me. I couldn't help but think about the shimmering dots. The bubbles. Something definitely strange had happened to me when the lightning hit. I closed my eyes, trying to remember the mystical ballet. Oddly enough, it felt as if the bubbles knew that I was coming.

In fact, it was almost as if they'd been...welcoming me.