Let's try to make it the simplest I can.
It started with a missed alarm and realising I was late for work. Stock-take day, where we have to report at seven in the morning instead of the usual ten-forty-five. If you know me, that's my biggest nightmare: being late and/or not fulfilling what I was supposed to.
Everything that happened after still burns in my mind now. The call from a part-timer who left weeks ago, his name flashing across my phone screen. The meal my colleague was eating and the conversation we had. The t-shirt my other colleague was wearing, the one with the three aliens from the Toy Story franchise. Crystal clear like it just happened yesterday, even though it was as far away as another universe.
We left the store in the middle of the day, my China and Ipoh best friends and I. Bras Basah MRT was just ahead of us, and that was when we saw them: three tornadoes, lingering behind the station and staring right back at us. No, wait... I counted again. There were five, each about eight storeys tall.
Speaking as the subconscious: I felt the wind blow through my hair, I swear to god. I grasped onto my China colleague's arm, and that was when she grabbed us and we ran, taking shelter in the station. I watched backpacks and bicycles and bodies get taken in the meantime.
Somehow I made it to my home in Pasir Ris. My best friends were gone, though unclear whether I just lost them or they got taken as well. My only girl cousin from my mother's side was there, bringing in the laundry with my mother. I told them about what I had seen, five tornadoes that may or may not have chased me back. I didn't get to finish before they looked behind me and saw for themselves.
They must have grown a little more, because we live on the ninth storey, and they seemed to go higher than. It was enough to send my cousin and mother panicking, making them frantic with the laundry. Before we knew it though, one of the poles escaped my mother's hold and we watched it disappear among the tornadoes, just as well as swarms of vehicles.
We ran in but my cousin stayed by the gate and held her arms over it, yelling at us to run into the room. I didn't know what she was doing but my sister-in-law and her children came running out from the kitchen, so I just grabbed my nephew and followed them running into the bedroom.
I heard the cars banging against the window and some muffled screams here and there. By this time it was just me, my mother, my sister-in-law and her kids. My back was to the window because I didn't want to see or hear or feel or know. And then they said my name; I looked at them both and they pointed behind me, asking me to look.
It was right outside the window, right in front of me: the eye of the storm. The moment it paused I saw what it really looked like, with its metallic arms and red eye staring right back at me. This was what the hurricane looked like from inside.
My sister-in-law whispered to me, asking me to creep closer until I had a chance to remove that eye. For a moment I had a connection with this 'storm', resembling one of those alien things from War Of The Worlds. I stroked its face until my hand was so near its eye, but even then, I didn't grab it. The two women behind me start yelling for me to destroy it, yet I refused.
I got thrown back in time suddenly, like a flashback happening right there. It was revealed that I was a younger Audrey Hepburn in my previous life, with that iconic black dress from Breakfast At Tiffany's. I was somewhere in the 1960s, bustling about with all these girls and their beehive hair and little dresses.
It didn't take long before that fell apart. All the girls I was talking to previously ran away screaming, pushing me/Audrey until I/she fell. We fell into water, too deep to be a puddle but too shallow to be a pool. We looked up, and a tidal wave eight storeys high stared right back, waiting. It carried us, and the last thing I saw was Audrey Hepburn cuddling in the tidal wave, her face relaxed and almost in love.
I'm sorry if it doesn't make sense. I wish I could record everything. But I know a little of what it means, just that I will sound stupid saying it out loud.
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