“You open your eyes, your hands cupped tightly to your mouth. With a heart that is pounding like it had never before, you look around. People screaming, crying out loud, running. Time has no significance. Everything is a blur against a background of chaos.
You scramble to your feet, the ground shaking as though it would tear up any second and suck everyone down. No where to go, no place safe, no one to help, no idea as to what’s happening.
The sun is hidden behind a curtain of smoke and ash. Buildings collapsing around you, poles falling down, trees being thrown about like they’re made of paper.
A huge blast, a thundering wail, your hands now tracing your cheeks all the way to your ears. Half stooped, unable to bear the noise, bolts of panic rush through your veins like lightning striking a tree.
This is not just an earthquake, you say to yourself, this is something bigger. Confused and frightened, back on your feet, the thundering revelation seeming to prolong into eternity, you make your move into the direction of the crowd. Shades of red from people around in stark contrast with the brown and yellow of the surrounding air, nothing to be seen, hazy, bleak.
Tired. Lost. Hurt. The fear of death instilling the energy to get your legs moving, you make your way past the rest of humanity. Oblivious to the screams of people, adapted to the red and yellow, drawing deep breaths to get enough air to inhale, you move to a presumably safer ground.
Dark clouds now befriend the envelope of dust and smoke, not a sliver of the sky to smile upon the world. You’re blinded, eyes shut unable to cast sight onto the streaks of horrendous and bizzare flashes. Stooped again, face cruched, eyes wrinkled, your hands shuffling between all the senses that existed. The smoke, the bolts and the blasts, like three brothers looking down on the world collapsing.
You look towards the horizon, nothing but dust and smoke prevailing all along. Wait, there’s something else, a tower, high and mighty, but no, its moving. You rub your eyes, look again. The structure moving toward you. Its blue. Its empty. With heavy heart you realize what it is. The very element of sustenance, that of growth, that of life.
The highest of waves you’ve witnessed all your life, wearing the clouds as its crown, mighty, a spectre to behold, but not a happy one. Clueless, confused, frightened, you stand your ground, everyone around you brimming with the fear of the reality.
Suddenly, a sense of calm, no more panic, no more pain. An indication of the impending outcome. The towering beast now closer than ever, an arms length away it seems. You draw into yourself, as much of air as the voids in your body can hold. One moment, two. The blue now all around you.”
You wake up, completely drenched in sweat. Relieved are you? Happy it’s not doomsday after all. Well then, get up from that bed of yours and take a look outside. Witness the damage we have done and continue to do to this planet of ours, to our home.
With the current trends in climate change and the alarming population expansion that is taking place as we speak, the above dream is not far from reality. It’s only matter of a few years or decades before the the earth would expel us, the very reason for its suffering.
Lets do our bit, little by little, lets reverse the damage that we’ve done to this haven of life, this wonderful abode of ours. Lets not let the generations after us suffer because of our failure. Let us stand together to build a better tomorrow.
