Meeting old teacher. Telling her she treated me like crap. We talked about it. Went for a walk just before dawn, she chased me, we had a walk around the neighbourhood. Began to forgave each other. She gave me a present. A little picture made out of thread sewn to cloth. It was a heart. Came with a little frame. Went back to the building.
Strip club. I was part of one. Didn’t know the dances, but did it anyway. We danced on these narrow sort of metal planks (OR GIRDERS, WHATEVER). Wore black and red. Knew several people from there. The planks/girders were suspended above the actual club. At one point a dance failed so badly that most of the club left.
Playing in the waves. I was back with my old teacher, and the class from ’03. The waves were small and weak, but at one point some guy managed to surf one without a board, using only his feet. After that I had more fun diving in and out of the waves.
Suddenly the waves receded. On the horizon I could see a single, wall of water. It was massive. The kids around me screamed in delight and stood braced. “This’ll be awesome!” they said. “Best surfed wave ever!” They thought the wave would shrink before it reached them. But I knew the truth. I knew that the closer a wave got to the shore, the bigger it would get because of water displaced.
Time literally seemed to slow down. I was running (in slow motion) towards a sturdy palm tree. Everyone was still by the “water’s edge” – rather, the edge of where the water used to be. I screamed at them, “Tsunami! It’s a tsunami!”
I grabbed the tree. The water was almost upon us, and everyone was scattering in all directions. Time still went slow. I managed to climb up the tree further than I could ever imagine. I encountered a cobra – at least, the person on the tree below me said it was a cobra, though it didn’t look like one. I tried to catch it and gave up. The water was here.
The water crashed onto the shore, and I was hit by spray – luckily, I had climbed just above where it had hit. The water receded. I climbed down.
No one was hurt. A classmate was pulling on a rope, pulling in a life boat.
An ex friend was in there, and came out boasting about everything she’d done. I told her to shove it and looked around. A boy came in with a board above his head. Everyone was safe. The teacher looked a little stunned. The water level was lower than usual, but not low enough to be in danger of another tsunami.
We decided to migrate uphill just in case. Our feet squelched on green, half-drowned grass as we went higher. To our right, stood a huge aquarium – the biggest in record. It had a single tank of water, holding an enormous amount I couldn’t even comprehend.
“We’re safe now,” I said. An explosion sounded to our right. I looked over there to see a huge fire roaring at the aquarium. “Well,” I said. “At least we’re high up enough to protect us from future waves.”
The teacher agreed, saying that being near fire was probably a good idea at the moment if we wanted to get dry. We continued up the hill. I looked back at the aquarium.
Just in time to see another wall of water surge towards us. The aquarium had exploded, and all the water was coming out. This time I ran as fast as I could. The water coming out seemed to have more than the tsunami had. Absolute millions of gallons just flowed out, and I rushed up a tree. This time I went higher than before, higher, and higher –
Then a wave overtook me. I clung on for dear life, holding my breath. I remember the wave – it dwarfed me. Nothing but blue surrounding me. I clung on with all my strength as the water surrounded me.
Darkness.
I saw a brief image – of a hook coming into the water, pulling me out of it. Above, people floated on boards, the crane beside them pulling me to the air. “Wow,” said someone. “Fifty feet down, and she’s still alive.”
I regained consciousness. Surprisingly, I wasn’t in pain. I was on this giant skateboard floating above the water. It was like a bed. Around me, people were on similar things, standing up on them and chatting. It was like a gathering. Seeing I was awake, several people came to greet me. We played games while the time passed. Most people had healed of their injuries, but some still hadn’t. We were in the shell of this enormous building – it had been gutted, but the outside walls, the eternally stretching upwards panes of glass remained.
We decided to stay around in the building – the support, if you will – until everyone healed. We played games while they healed. Talked. Played. It was fun.
I looked around us. The sea level had risen tremendously. As if heaps of water had been dumped into the sea from outer space. No –way- could it raise this much – but it had.
Everyone grew better. We gathered for an assembly. They told us it was time to go home. To paddle home using our boards. They gave us advice – if you could find extra clothes to protect you from the sun, use it, as the sun would be reflected from the waves and that there’d be no shelter from the sun in the water. To drink our own urine if we were still stranded in the sea, since the water was contaminated thanks to the damage and that salt water’d drive us mad.
We went to these gates in the water. They pointed us on our way – east, west, north or south. I found the north gate and went that way. Before the disaster, I had been south of Sydney, so I knew going north would lead me home.
I came into this sort of bay area. I was around a group of other people of around twenty, and slowly they trickled their way as they made their way home. Me and three others sat on our boards as we drew steadily inland.
There were these rapids in the land that went north, apparently, said one of the girls. Another said that begging at the side of the rapids was a good way to make money. “Really?” said the third. They went into a discussion, but I didn’t want to drift into the rapids – they were going faster than cars, and they were actually going south. In the rapids, I glimpsed a lion from the zoo struggling for air. Once I was in them, it’d be impossible to get out. I managed to get out of the current.
I made it to land. A cobbled street – one side of the street had been destroyed, and that’s the side I landed on. The road was devoid of cars. I saw a café on the other side of the road. I abandoned my board, walking over. It looked like it had been raining. The blue sky was gone, replaced by a cover of grey.
I walked in. The café was absolutely crowded. I saw sobbing clutches of people. The innkeeper just watched impassively. Some people I saw looked half drowned. Others looked dry. I realised that these were families and victims alike, waiting for loved ones to come home safe.
The innkeeper came over to me with a clipboard. “Name?”
I told him. His eyes scanned the list. Flipped a few pages. “I’m afraid there’s no one here waiting for you,” he said. “I can add your name to the list and you can wait for loved ones here.”
I shook my head. Told him my family was up north. Besides, the café was crowded as it was. He nodded, clicking his pen. I left the café.
I continued walking. By then, a lot of the people I’d been with in the building’s shell had made it to the shore. I roamed down the street. Some dragged their boards behind them. They all had the same, blank look on their face. They kept going because they had to. They had no other choice.
I went into this huge cave. I realised it had once been a tunnel, but the way it had been damaged it had changed dramatically. The water was ankle deep here. Other survivors finally began to abandon their boards as well and kept going.
I started to sing. Face of Fact, by Kotoko. A Japanese song, but somehow I got the Japanese right. Other people joined in. We smiled. We sang. We kept going. As the song ended, we began to feel renewed hope, and exited the cave.
I passed some apartments. By now, the buildings were less damaged – we were on high ground now, after all, but the streets were still soaked. I reached an intersection. Still no cars in sight. I’d lost my way by now. Which way was north?
Then I realised I knew where I was. Still in Sydney. The Harbour Bridge wasn’t far – all I had to do was cross it and keep going north. The Harbour Bridge was… I looked to my left. That way.
I quickened my pace. I did some calculations in my head. If what took a minute to drive in a car took twenty for me to walk, then, well, a twenty five minute drive should be… I decided not to think about it, telling myself I’d keep going regardless. I had to keep going. Home was on high ground. It should still be there.
I reached the Harbour Bridge at last, but there was a huge crowd of people just below the entrance. I suddenly realised – it was people from the north, waiting for their loved ones.
Then I glimpsed something. A familiar dark coat. I widened my eyes and craned my neck to look for it. “Mum!” I called.
No one responded, though some people turned their heads. It was an enormous crowd. Some people were being reunited with their loved ones, with victims. Some mothers looked around in vain for their own children as I called for my mum, but after seeing me they looked away, resigning themselves to more hours of waiting, perhaps even days. I saw the coat again. “Mum!”
I saw her. She was talking to a victim and laughing. “MUM!”
She finally turned to me. We were reunited at last, laughing and smiling. Suddenly, it was all over for me. No longer did I have to search for home, have to struggle to survive. I had her with me.
“I was on the bridge when the tsunami came,” We walked onto it, and as mother spoke she looked to the south – to the beach I’d been playing on when it came. “I saw you there. Then I lost sight of you.”
Then we crossed the bridge together.
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