EXODUS:

The Day after Yesterday’s Nightmare

~Marie Sachie Mitsui Padillo Turiano~

The sun reflected the slithery mud covering the road and the boulders still crashing along the highway. People were riding shank’s mare by foot, carrying baggage, pales, gallons and various kinds of chattels. They were portraits of survival with throats scorching from the dreadful feeling of thirst and with knees shaking from mere longevity to end a journey to an unknown sanctuary. The fact that water was never scarce those days, that that cosmic element of nature was free flowing in the nearby river under a short bridge-less than a hundred meters away from our residence, people kept hankering for water.

“Why? Haven’t they had enough or should I call them refugees, people without a place to go?”

I asked myself as I glanced at my father’s face, trying to figure out the burdens and emotions that he had that sunny morning. He looked miserable, or maybe he looked distressed or peaceful. I don’t know. But I do believe that his face neglected the presence of a dream, which he pictured before that nightmare.

“Dad, are we wearing the same face as others do or do I look like them? I asked my father.

But he wouldn’t answer back. I then swaggered into the doorway until a thought stopped me. My mind spoke in soliloquy, in an unconscious voice uttering the words of an oblivious man…

“What happened yesterday?” I wondered

“Is this reality?” still wondering…

“If I’m sleeping…can anybody wake me up?!” I exclaimed and insisted.

Words were spontaneously running and flowing into my head…but one thing was for sure, I’m alive. I felt the heat of my blood rushing into my veins till…

“Mitch! Come here!” Father called as he parched all soaked books and magazines along the sidewalks of the road. Then, at last! In his voice, I was back to the present scene of today’s destiny. I finally found out…

“Everyone was wearing the unimaginable façade of hopelessness, mourning, depression and sorrow.” I explained.

Suddenly, I stepped out and made my eyes seize every creature.

“Oh my God…” I whispered as I glanced here and there, as if my eyes were seeking to see a different view of my atmosphere, the original place where my family used to live a peaceful, normal life, as if my eyes do not deserve to witness the existent death march of countless crowds and as if my sight would rather be blind than to see the day that I have ever wished for… last night when I thought tomorrow will never come again.

Last night, when I slept on the simplest house that I’ve recognized a home, a domicile, where for the first time, in a single room lighted by a candle sealed by the humidity and calmness, tranquility of an extraordinary being of endurance and survival, eight people unlaxed their eyes against the coldness of the Earth, quietly…

I stepped into the front door and long last I recalled the nightmare or rather the truth…the worst truth of yesterday’s history. Everything was made clear, starting from the day before that Thursday morning came…

The sky was filled with dark blue and black colors and hues without even a peep from a twinkling star. The night was humid…totally calm. The highway was as if abandoned by busy people and sounds from noisy vehicles. Some old friends came for a visit to jam and have a drink or two with a toast of friendship with my older sister, Dimple. At the last drop of wine…

“Bye guys! Get ready for tomorrow! Take Care…” Elvis bade goodbye…

“Don’t worry…we’ll be safe anyway…God Bless and …don’t forget to pray!”

I answered back

However, that was just the night before the typhoon tortured the city until…

I t’s already eight in the morning and everyone is anticipating a great strike from a typhoon…the worst catastrophe, the nightmare of Legazpi City.

“Typhoon Reming will hit Legazpi at as early as nine in the morning…prepare people…this is a 225 kph running typhoon… this is our last warning, if your case is too risky…better evacuate now!

The radio announcer reported.

Before we listened to the radio, we secured the whole house-from the floors, doors to windows and walls to ceilings. Everything was a matter of cooperation, strength and endurance. The windows were sealed with large-sized tarpaulins tied at the grills of each window. The doors were locked and the pails were ready for a heavy hold of water.

Then… the winds started blowing away every weak creature that passes and strikes its way, smashing galvanized sheets of torn roofs from left to right leaving everything damaged as it blows…the rain poured down heavily that only a white scattered hue of liquid touch was seen when I laid my eyes staring outside the window.

Whooooooooooppppppppp! The wind roared at a bitter strike.

BOOM! BAGG! BOG! BUG!

The roofs sounded as the wind tore each one by one.

I stood at the door near the office then, a drop of water-a raindrop from the ceiling-a raindrop that touched me like an electric shock and thunder that struck my nerves, synapse to synapse, then I grabbed the pails and at a split placed them under the leak from above.

Later, the ceiling got worse, when we found ourselves as if fashion models changing clothes for every ten to fifteen minutes –barely wet and wearing jackets and raincoats inside the house.

“Mom! Hand me more pails!” my brother, Joshua shouted, trying to keep the raindrops from flooding the floor.

“Dad! Dad! Help!” my younger brother, Jasper cried as he was pushing the door against the heavy bash of the wind; getting weaker and weaker until the door was forged to move and sway with the bitter flux of the wind. It opened in a whack…it stopped my brother from resisting. My father and I nailed a wooden lock into the door and we were safe.

Maybe we were safe…for a few minutes after a sudden surprise changed our mood…a little fellow-a winged rare bird, finding itself a safe home to dwell in…flew in into our house with as if victorious crash and not even land…but victorious crash.

“Is that a miracle?” I asked myself with my eyes staring at the creature with long sharp beak and my breath as fast as a bullet train. I shook my head and heard Dimple, my older sister.

“Mom! Oh No! This is bad…the floor!” she cried

The water was already a foot below my knees when the floor bursted out cracked with founting water. The floor was wet-totally flooded. Then, the situation got even worse…when the roof finally gave up fighting against the slam of every blow from the wind. Now, the enigma was undeniably…more…miserable.

Father decided to transfer all our possessions to a higher surface… a surface one and a half feet higher than the first. We helped one another bringing up the clothes, the cabinets, the foods kept in a biscuit jar. We laid down the closet to serve as a stepping area if ever the water gets higher. Then, my brother placed the mysterious bird into an old case and placed it above a cabinet… The bird was peaceful, still… quiet…

Suddenly, we were singing a song, a jolly song… a song from God.

Smiles were on our faces as we stood on a flooded floor.

The water came higher and had reached two feet higher from the under of my drenched feet, when the rush of thought came to me and I asked and wondered.

“Will the fields be plowed today?” I said.

“The city will be underwater for a long time now.” Mom answered back, but she didn’t hear what I uttered.

“We’re all going to die!” my brother cried in a funny manner-he’s laughing and his eyes convey a happy, outrageous feeling.

“Was it simple felicity?” I wondered.

Then silence broke into the strange ambiance, as we listened to the rushing sound of water from outside walls…we were shocked to see that the water outside was already much higher and deeper than the water inside.

That instance, forced us to move quickly to save our lives, our possessions as we give our best shot, to save things ungrasped by our little hands.

“Does that mean we’re all alone in here…?” Father said with a hopeless face.

“Father, we can make it through this…isn’t it… I mean can’t we?” my mom replied with a breathe-short, fast to follow.

Father pushed the television into the broken walls when mother pulled and grabbed him away…causing him to let go of the television and weakness caught him nearly out of action.

“Does he know what he was doing?” I asked myself, totally out of focus.

“Let it go! Let it go!” Mother demanded and shouted as tears rolled down her face. She’s hysterical; out of focus…she lost her only sword and armor… her Faith.

I didn’t have the chance to do the same thing, coz I was the last, strongest hope. So I did my best and valued the opportunity. I took my twin youngest brother and sister and I placed them above the double deck.

The water was above my head, deeper than my height. The brown, muddy water; have almost covered the whole house reaching two feet lower than the ceiling. No buoyancy… I can’t swim freely… everything was floating. What an obvious irony! My family was drifting… in vain. I cannot just snatch them from the jaws of death in a time, which seemed so fast but too slow- that the day was so long to end.

“Why can’t everything last in just a few minutes?” I shouted inside an idle heart focused to save lives but not to escape from reality.

The water arouse even higher… when at last we were right in front of the door-locked by a firmly nailed wood, it was a lock, so impossible to untangle, but…

Was it adrenalin rush?

Father held the wooden locks with his bare hands and he grabbed it without hesitation. A miracle… it was unlocked faster than it was sealed. There, I found out that God was still watching over us.

He took my youngest sister and held her tight in his chest as he stepped off the house-without strength but complete weakness, dread and sorrow. He made a single step then he fell down-holding my sister tighter. Against the force of the rains and storms and the bash of the overflowing water above the bridge… my father carried all of us in a sanctuary- the house of a family friend.

Mom was crying… her tears were unbearable and her face was sorrowful. I felt her burdens deeply until I realized… as I stood at the side of the table near the closed door… I was safe… we were safe… ALIVE! BLESSED BY GOD!

I pondered with my eyes widely opened… and my heart beating fast. To live… was a matter of faith…choice…luck…presence of mind and alertness… and of course the WILL to survive!

I recalled and remembered:

We have been through ten almost fatal calamities, but none have ever really costed us our lives to death… and I never thought that that day would ever come…

today…November 30, 2006.

As I looked back, I treasured the best meal; we – family – together shared at a single table for the last time in our old HOME… OUR CAMP…

I ended my recollection, seeing the new

Environment of my world…

Now a truck passes, loaded with unfortunate people who died and left the reality on Earth

But not their destination.

Now, maybe they are peaceful…

Peaceful and quiet like the sounds of silent footsteps

That bridge the gaps between the rocks and boarder lines

On an Exodus…

Which held the cold feet of the travelers that walked

After yesterday’s nightmare…