The collapse: Chapter 2

“Refugee, or a rich man!” Hails boil up from a bunch of suit-wearing people around me. It is on the higher base of a lamppost a man yelled out those words. As if to catch a train, he then tries to channel them toward the entrance, but I just slip away into an almost empty street.

But as I walk further, the hails get anomalously louder, louder enough to draw me back from my dream and only to find myself seemingly in another.

Now the hails have been gradually mixed with noises, to be more precise, cries and exclamations. Even though I’m lying on the couch, I can know that the sturdy feeling of the ground returns. ‘It stops!’ I can’t hold my excitation and jump to my feet. However, when I look outside, what once to be an open view from the balcony has been overshadowed by another ship loaded with several blocks of apartments as high as the one I’m in. The light can only creep in between the distance of the two ships, more than enough to enable my sight as well as my grief and horror, because the flat I’m directly facing has fallen into utter destruction. Its furniture shatters around with dirt and glass all over, and a body that’s way too stuck into the broken glass. There are those who haven’t awaken from the strike drop into the deepest valley of their life and lose every smile on their faces; whose mournful eyes you never have the courage to look into. And those who have wonder take up their mind buzz around the never-before-seen environment and new neighbors. Still, I can see kisses and hugs, and feel the true delight. The ships indeed stop, but this result comes with a knowing that nothing will come back to normal as before.

Amid debris, people take to their rescue works for those who might still have a breath. Going on in the same time are the cleansing, tents setting and wood collecting for the first coming night. Chatters start up carefully with basic help requests in fear of accidental hurting. Life is trying to trudge out of a disastrous thrown back, but that sounds too great an ambition to achieve within numerous years.

Keeping my observation, I notice people are gathering on the top roof for something beyond my sight. I decide to go up there for a better view of the whole situation.

But what else can I go up for?

Far as my eyes can reach from the top roof, my heart sinks step by step by astounding scenes of scar-riddled buildings, burnt, dissembled, crashed, needless to say those floating debris, hanging corpses and bloods on everywhere as reminders of possible fate. They are thin as a paper, stranded helplessly on the water, waiting for nothing other than the complete destruction.
All in all, the world just unfolds below in the most unrecognizable way.

“I only wish there’s anyone to tell me why it would become like this.” A trembling voice comes from a woman. “If we didn’t do anything wrong, then why we have to suffer all this?”

There’s just silence, not only from her friend who’s comforting her but people around. And soon it’s taken over by another topic about another bunch of people. One ship away from here, they converge together as if for discussion, knocking around, kicking and pushing, until an agreement was made by actions of wielding an axe into a medium-size abandoned boat.

“They seem to have no idea.” says an observer.

“It doesn’t quite matter what it made of. The question is, who build it? You have to see, every building has a bulk to stand upon, just like it’s planned.”

“Look! It’s wooden! I’ve told you!”

“There’s not even an engine in it.”

“I feel we’re trapped in this endless floating. And my families are all dead.”

“That’s something can only be done by upper power.”

“Then what’s the point of what we’re doing here?”

I can say nothing but stand there to watch a great mist of confusion and wrap around us. It’s just like those heavy old books of mystery, answers to which the initiators would never bother to tell.

After going back to my apartment, I refresh myself with foods and water, while keeping myself busy thinking about everything, about my seldom-contacted friends, I might never know them again; about my parents, what they’ll do if they live to experience this, but more frequently, that it must be, about my life, about what the whole world would be. I turn to my bag and estimate that the foods I have can merely last for one day or two. It means a long hard road ahead, a road I haven’t prepared for. What am I supposed to do? I throw the bag to the corner and feel the rush of frustration. Why now? Why this time? I can’t help asking. A few days ago there’re palm trees dripping morning dews in front of my balcony, and the ring of a wind chime when the wind passed. But they have all been crashed into somewhere under the water before bidding a sweet farewell to all of us. The remaining are ships of cold buildings and loads of things waiting to be restored. Just like every thought, bright sides keep me thinking: we still have foods and water, many of those left in buildings that stand through the calamity can offer us unpredictable treasures. I can learn to make fishing rod to fetch fish, and fire shall be put up by rubbing the wood. If I’m hungry, just hunt around for anything edible. Life can be gradually secured, and I would plant a tree outside my garden, if there’s any, and see how it grows.

Like the people in any phase of history, I can survive the world, I can survive….

Screams that follow several striking sound of things hitting hard on the ground interrupt my association. I run to the balcony and leave out almost the same terrifying scream by the blood on my banister and to whom it belongs on the lower platform of the building. A true indicator of the coming disaster we all can accept no more--the ships are on the move again!

Things keep on falling and people are threading their way to any place that provides shelter. This time, I can feel the much stronger rush of the currents that long for mere devastation in this world.

“What do you want from us now?” That are the words I only know to utter as I’m cling desperately to the door.