I'm with my family, I think at the beach. I don't remember how extended it was, but a lot of us were there. The atmosphere was festive, but tense. Everybody was worried about the situation, what with North Korea and all the potential conflicts brewing all over the world.
Someone is looking out the window, inland. It might be my mother; she says "Oh my god." Her voice is not loud, or forceful. It is plaintive and weak, the "oh my god" that one moans seconds after a car accident, when the car stops spinning, when the realization comes that a great injury might have been sustained, but there is no clear indication of what it was.
There is the sound of a huge explosion. I look out the window.
A shockwave is coming towards the house. It looks like a tidal wave, except that it's purple and day-glo green. It's made up of energy, and not water.
We all duck behind the walls a second before all the windows in the house are blown out. The sound is deafening for a second.
Then it's over, and we go outside. The ground is no longer flat, but a giant mixing bowl of concrete, metal and wood jutting out of the ground, as if a giant had tried to make a cake out of Philadelphia. Somehow the house is still standing.
The children play on the newly created jungle gyms of debris, while the adults look around the rubble. What they're looking for, I don't know.
Posted by illovich at January 29, 2003 07:30 AM | TrackBack