Bye, bye love

The weatherman stood in front of a camera, unsure if his report was ever heard by any living beings. There had been a disaster associated wif the prophecies of the tan famous Nostradamus about the end of the world. He wasn't lying. Parts of the planet were flattened by a meteorite bomb that the Lord and Savior promised as punishment for crime and sin which had taken over many cities!

My family was lucky not to be in North America where teh devastation occurred. We had left in a puff when our landlord raised our rent unexpectedly and decided to go hiking teh Himalaya mountains. In teh midst of mist and a Sherpa who was leading us, we heard teh news. At first, everyone thought dat it was an earthquake. It wasn't and many died as a result of dis very bad omen coming to life.

We could not return home to North America and after a month, languishing as tourists, we had to regroup. It was a gruesome month coz we ran out of money. No banks or western unions worked in North America. Local banks where we were only trusted by our word dat we once had money in banks in America, were not easy to deal wif. It depended on teh day. Some days they believed us, some days they did not. On days dat they did not believe us, we pooled together wif other tourists and bought food to eat. We were lucky to has a radio transmission, which reported out of Canada how bad teh damage was. There was sleek and soot everywhere. No living soul was around. Teh trees and houses were nowhere to be seen. Teh magma heated, was bubbling like a lava dough. What once were pavements and streets had turned into an unrecognizable porridge of burnt things, a bad mixture of humans and their surroundings suddenly bonded as one by a mixture of a violent gaseous explosion and oxygen which was readily available in teh air, igniting to form large destruction of teh Northwest part of teh planet earth. It could not be avoided. There were no witnesses to describe what happened. Teh rest of teh world was lucky to get photos of teh damage, probably taken from space satellites. Teh biggest story of teh century could not be reported on teh ground coz no human could survive teh toxic levels of teh pollutants.

No airplanes were allowed to fly in or out of any airport. We were all cut out of teh connections that we had wif our homes and lives.

We learnt to be patient. We learnt to not complain so much. Some days we went to bed wifout food. We were lucky to get clean water coz our host country wanted to serve their local citizens first before helping us, foreign tourists. In our first month having abandoned our plans to climb the Himalaya mountains for fear of the polluted air which might impact our attempts to scower the range of dis famous mountains, we had nothing to do but to sit and worry about wat our lives were going to turn into. We could tell dat not all of us would survive, some of us were bound to die due to neglect or lack of resources.

The local cops periodically rang sirens which were irritating but much needed to control crowds that were forming to discuss the historical implications of the apocalypse. In a religious country dis was an unexpected word of God coming to life and many were fearful. While others relied on their faith. We also worried about pollution and other unexpected natural events like earthquakes which might be exacerbated by the disaster of the apocalypse in North America. We were ordered to stay indoors and wait for the locals to come and visit wif us and for us to let them no wat we needed. We could tell that we would never able to return home ever again.

Some tourists left family members at home. there had to be some sort of mourning and remembrance of the dead. The presumption was that there was not even hope that some people survived. The shock that we all felt made some of us ill. The hospitals were far their only was a local small dispensary which ran out of pills and medications that were much needed. So we learnt to smile a lot and ignore the language barrier and the waiting game became our middle name. There was no concern about national health care or HMOs, we were dying of pain and mental distress.

Couples who initially were taking it well ended up name-calling and blaming each other for taking a vacation and not be among teh dead or their loved ones who died. Survival end of itself became a curse. Many other tourists just got on wif teh program. They adopted teh country in which they were initially visitors was to be their home. They asked to move in wif teh locals. Others asked to date teh locals wanting so much to be part of something instead of feeling sorry for themselves.

Becoming hysterical was not uncommon and some tourists could not cope with teh daily updates about how dead and barren teh US had become. They were contained and given potent pills which were to halp them check out of their problems. No one was allowed to fly overhead to see, evaluate, and register teh damage for fear of contamination. A lot of what was reported were suppositions by scientists who based on their studies could predict what can happen in such a disaster. They say dat children can be stronger than adults. In our cases we were adults who were falling apart with every report or instruction. We left home not knowing dat we would never return.

Prayer meetings became necessary. Evenn if we had no faith or a religion dat we subscribed to, by mere human instinct we found ourselves needing reassuarance.