Solace For The Forsaken





Fear is that I am already sedated by the horrific scenes continuously being aired from Japan.  The wall of  mud, debris and  sea water - the  first  TV footage of a country  rocked by a powerful earthquake - swallowing acres of  farmland embeds itself in my head.  There was a sailing boat under the bridge carried by a torrent towards the city, scores of  spectators shell-shocked from the earlier tremor watched helplessly on top of the bridge.  

Air  raid sirens wailed ahead of the tsunami.  Buildings engineered to hold out against the seismic shaking might have saved lives. But this was not enough, even for a  country  like Japan to cope up with the tidal devastation. In the aftermath of Friday the 11th, countless lives were lost, communities disappeared, and a stunned people finding ways to accept the lost walked aimlessly in the mornings on  mud-washed streets.

Recalling past lives.

Images of  collective destruction bid themselves to stir up empathy. I  plea guilty of  half-insanity after news of the earthquake broke out.  Beyond  the threats of  tsunami, terror was  fanned by the idea - the ring of  fire picking us as the next target: the major fault line at the periphery of the metropolis suddenly slipping beneath the crust and shaking the earth like it has never shaken before.

But after the panic had subsided, I was catatonic like everyone else.  There is no escape should the big one comes and no hope. For the planet has spoken and these powerful jolts - from the Armageddon in Banda Aceh to the ruins of Port Au Prince; to the Lambada in Christchurch to the ghost city of Sendai must be understood as warning.
Meanwhile, may peace finds its way to the broken and the suffering finds solace in these harshest of the nights. The rest of  humanity maybe trembling but in our heart we weep.