Last night I was merrily driving home from dance class when I saw an entire street lose power like they usually only do in disaster movies. First the traffic lights started flashing red, then the street lights closed their eyes one by one, a power box at the far end of the darkened street sent electricity flying through the air and then, finally, the traffic lights dimmed – like a flat line after a long surgery.
“This is quite strange,” I thought, feeling that I had just stumbled into a zombie apocalypse. I was expecting to see some flesh eating creature jump out from behind a building any time! Then the lights came back on and I drove further.
At 3am this morning, I was woken by the sound of thunder and rain outside my window. How is it that the biggest storm of the year comes to Johannesburg at the start of winter? I shrugged it off and fell asleep again, only to wake up with a dark grey “Independence Day” cloud hanging over my house at 6am. Trees were bent over in the wind like gymnasts at the Olympics and my nine year old brother was sitting at the window, his jaw on the floor. When I asked him what was wrong, he uttered a frightened: “I think it really is the end.”
Routinely, I turned the radio on and thought some music would wake me up, but I was greeted with the words: “a truck is stuck on Empire road and apparently, it’s on fire!”
I was definitely awake now. Two different thoughts crossed my mind in less than two seconds, of which the first was totally blank. My second thought? To draw inspiration from the 2012 movie, pack the essentials (including my gob smacked brother at the window) and run. Then it hit me: where to? I can’t fly to China, I don’t have a handy pilot on hand and I don’t think the Drakensberg mountain Range of Kwazulu-Natal is going to be very friendly this time of year. So I decided to get dressed, have breakfast and… go to work, school then ballet.
If the world does end today, I hope you have lived the way you wanted to and go out with a bang! I believe, however, you’ll be sitting in front of the television tonight, hot chocolate in hand and the world still at your feet (intact, that is.)
This looks unreal! I would also be freaked out to wake up to this. It was the norm this morning in Durbz, despite what the weather man said, but as the day progresses, its getting darker and colder. I hear from Gareth Cliff this morning that you guys there in Joburg are suffering...iesh! brrrr
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