One Last Call
My dad honked impatiently at the car ahead, frustrated because he was late for work. He hardly noticed what the voice was saying on the radio. Cars around us honked at each other in selfish chaos, each driver rushing off to be somewhere, to do something, to send or fetch someone. People scolded each other in their own private cars, none hearing what the other was saying. Rude faces and ruder signs were thrown carelessly, tempers were short and the word “patience” no longer held a meaning.
Love thy neighbour? Nope, none of those signs here.
I saw men and women screaming away into their hands-free, oblivous to the world around them. I saw children bouncing up and down in the backseat of cars, yelling at each other. There were also many pensive, brooding faces, life’s burdens weighing down on their shoulders. I saw tired expressions, faces aged with worry and depression. All of them, lost in their own thoughts, in their own worlds, in themselves.
I sighed deeply as I turned up the radio nonchantly. As I listened to the breaking voice on the radio, calmly reading out the latest news on the recent earthquake, a terrifiying grip twisted my heart. The monotonity of the voice cannot conceal the underlying tone of panic.
I looked up.
No one seemed to notice the way the sky darkened menancingly.
But I did.
I swallowed hard as my insides grew cold. An overwhelming feeling of dread seized me and my heart quickened to a frightening staccato.
The sky looked as if an army of clouds were crowding in it. At first all I could hear were honking and engines revving up but suddenly, a disturbing silence fell. Not one car moved an inch. I glanced around in great surprise and to my curiousity, I saw pedestrians frozen in place, staring straight ahead. But there was something else. They looked as if they were listening hard.
I strained my ears to hear…something.
I was not aware of what it was I was trying to hear.
But when I heard it, I knew.
It was the thundrous roar of a massive tsunami tidal wave heading for us at a deadly speed.
As suddenly as silence fell, chaos erupted. Women started screaming, men turned white and trembled with fear while children followed suit, not really knowing the fatality of the situation they were in.
People wrenched car doors open and hurled themselves out, racing away from the killer wave as fast as they could. But it was futile. In a few minutes, the wave would leave nothing but death and destruction in the place where we were. Time decided to be kind and it somehow seemed prolonged. Each minute felt like ten and my mind functioned with surprising clarity.
Turning to my father, I saw his pale, rigid countenance relax and a sense of deep peace came over his features. I smiled the brightest smile I could manage in spite of my grief that our lives will be torn from us out of the blue. All my loves, dreams, hopes, and ambitions were to be dashed into pieces in one sweeping tragedy.
I watched as my father calmly reached for his mobile phone. However, I could see the sligt tremor in his hand. Turning his face towards me, he smiled lovingly and carressed my cheek as he dialled my mother’s mobile number.
His words gave my strength.
“I have always loved you from the day I knew you had been formed. I have always been very proud of you, all the time, anywhere, everywhere, and in anything. I love you so much,” his voice faltered as he spoke the last sentence, a tear rolling down his aged face.
“I love you too, dad. Thank you for everything. I’m sorry if I have ever hurt you,” I said quietly, as tears formed in my eyes.
He smiled and said gently, “It doesn’t matter. As long as we love each other and we both know it.”
His words struck me to the heart and I froze a moment, a face flashing before my eyes. My father took my hand in his and held it tightly while he spoke to my mother with a strained voice full of love, grief and longing.
I stared at my mobile phone, my heart feeling as if it were about to burst. Tears threatened to overflow and I could hardly speak.
But I did not care.
“Dad, tell mom I love her always.”
I picked up my mobile phone to make one last call.
Dialling the all too familiar number, I waited anxiously and watched as the wave ascended higher and higher, moving nearer towards us.
***
He grumbled as he stuck a hand out from underneath his blanket to feel for his ringing mobile phone that he had chucked somewhere beneath his bed. It was too early in the morning to be awake and he had had a late night out. His head ached as he finally grabbed his mobile and answered it grumpily.
“Hello?” he muttered in irritation.
“Alan, it’s me,” a familiar voice said shakily, the static making it hard for him to hear her.
“Oh, hi. What’s up? And what’s all that noise?” he frowned as he started to feel deep in his gut that something was not quite right.
He sat up in his bed in concern.
“Alan, I love you,” she blurted out before she dissolved into tears.
“What?” he murmured in shock. Why is she saying this? Why is she crying?
“I started loving you since the moment I met you,” she sobbed unsteadily, “I love you Alan. I love you so much.”
“Sweetie,” he started desperately, using his nickname for her, “what’s going on?”
“I have no time, Alan,”she said, her voice full of unspoken grief, “I just wanted to let you know that I love you. I have to go now.”
“Sweetie, wait,” he exclaimed in panic. What in the world was happening? Why was he feeling so desperate?
“I love you, Alan,” she said quietly, her voice strangely calm. The tears had subsided.
The background noise was eerily deafening but somehow he could hear her.
“Goodb-”
The line went dead before she could finish saying her last word.
He stared at his now silent mobile in fear. A cold hand was creeping over his heart.
In a burst of dread, he bolted out of his bed, mobile gripped tightly in his trembling hand. Stumbling over a pile of clothes on his bedroom floor, he scrambled to the door and wrenched it open, flying down the stairs to the kitchen so he could watch the latest news on television.
Punching the ‘on’ button on the remote, he stood frozen in front of the television. He watched with growing horror as images of destruction and death was displayed on screen.
That was her first and last confession, he realized with terrible misery.
Her one last call.
He did not notice when his mobile phone slipped and fell to the floor with a loud clatter, a huge crack forming on the screen.
It was like his life, broken and scarred, never to be the same again.
She never knew, he loved her too.
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