Shattered Paradise
 
The boats were smashed to splinters. Their hulls were now fated to become firewood. Even the coast guard skipper had been ripped right out of the sea and hurled at the picturesque beach. The ferocity of the storm had sent gale force winds and whole battered seaside dwellings into towns and cities almost one hundred miles away. The damage was terrific. The streets were covered with all sorts of ruined objects and the palm trees had been torn out of the ground and were standing precariously at painfully sharp angles. Coconuts simply fell out, onto the sand that was now merely six feet away. The grand hotels that once thrived on the soft white beaches were now abandoned roofless shells. The barren carcasses of million pound mansions, which were once hidden by lush green trees, were now ghostly and menacingly murky. The once welcoming beach with its attractive young population was now a deserted wasteland with debris littered everywhere. It had only been two days since what seemed like the entire South Pacific Ocean had been hurled upon this helpless little island. People screamed, people ran and people drove as far and as fast as they could. Thousands of rich tourists, poor islanders and all those in between died in the terrible carnage that ensued. It had only been an hour since the beginning and the town hall had been wiped clean off the map. It was as if the world was punishing the people of the island for all the sins they had collectively committed. Crows cawed and seagulls wailed in the now derelict bay. No one was around. If anyone had survived this horrific battering, they were hiding and simply too frightened to come out. At the airport airplanes lay strewn about recklessly. The last relief flight had taken off twenty minutes ago. No one ever returned. From under the smouldering wreckage of a destroyed car two eyes glinted. A little boy, about eleven years old crawled out from under the car. His eyes were red and puffy. The street around him was deserted and littered with all sorts of familiar objects. With an uneasy sense of potential danger lurking in his heart he took one step. He walked over to the house that he could once have called home. Now it was just another burned out building like hundreds around the neighbourhood. He pushed the door open cautiously and peered into the misty darkness. His eyes adjusted and revealed the horror that lay inside. The ceiling had fallen in, only the doorway to the living room still stood. He crept into the eerily silent room. The piano, covered in a fine layer of dust stood magnificently in the corner of the room. Across from the piano were the TV, the couch and the coffee table. Everything seemed normal, but nothing was. He walked towards the bookshelf and turned left towards the kitchen. It was horrific. The entire room looked like it had been torn out, shaken vigorously and then dropped on its top. The counters had huge gaps torn out of them. The washing machine, the dishwasher and the fridge lay smashed on the marble floor. Jack then saw the plate. It was two years ago when he made it. He could remember it vividly. The plane had been flying back from Singapore. His mother, Jessica had gone to meet world leaders at a very important UN meeting. The Qantas 747 was slightly off course and was to make a stop over in Jakarta, before going on to Sydney where she would spend a week and then come home. She never did come home. The 747 was approaching runway 2 at Jakarta International when the pilot noticed a large yellow plane taking off from the same runway. The DHL 767 was travelling much too fast to abort take off and the 747 was too close to the DHL plane to pull away. In one massive fireball both planes erupted and exploded and imploded all at once. It was a catastrophe on a tremendous scale. No one survived. His dad explained to him what had happened. He cried for days and was totally inconsolable until his friend Natalie heard about it and came over. They spent everyday after that together. They were inseparable and always had time for one another. They were a very cute couple. When his mother died he painted her picture on a plate. That plate now lay in hundreds of shards across the kitchen floor. A tear welled up in his eye. Another one, and another… they began to flow down his face and he fell to his knees, holding the one piece that had her face on it. He gradually got his strength back and got up, crossed the room and climbed up the stairs. This was a daunting enough task had it not been for the lack of every second stair. He attempted to climb up but gave up when he saw that the entire inside of the house upstairs had fallen in. Then he remembered that Natalie lived very close to the centre of the island and might have survived where others died. He ran out of the house, cutting his shins on the glass shards as he sprinted out. He didn’t even notice them. He ran for hours and miles until he got to her neighbourhood. Her door was swinging open crazily. There seemed to be no one about. Disappointment crossed his face until he noticed that ambulances were parked at the hospital and that there were people walking around. He walked over to the hospital, every step seemed to take an hour and time crawled by agonisingly slowly. Natalie’s mum worked at the hospital. She would be in the operating room he figured and he asked around to get there. After fifteen minutes of getting lost and meeting dead ends he pushed the door to the operating theatre. On the bed was a badly mutilated body. He winced and then continued. There were ten doctors and nurses surrounding the bed and he tugged at the aprons of each and every one until a familiar pair of eyes greeted him. She kneeled down and told him to go wait outside and that she would be there soon. Her eyes were red too. Five minutes later she walked out and they talked. Natalie was okay. She had been crushed under a ceiling beam but managed to make it out alive. The doctors had operated on her an hour ago but her ribs were badly fractured and horribly bruised. She slept through the whole operation and didn’t feel a thing. When he asked to see Natalie, the doctors explained to him that he would be too shocked by what he saw and shouldn’t until she got better. He didn’t understand! Everything was so sad now, where had all the happiness gone. Everyone was so serious. Dad had gone away, so had his two sisters and he didn’t know where they were. He guessed that God probably did. They were out on a boating trip when the storm brewed up. There was no way they could have lived. Jack was just getting home from school when the first bombing of rocks and boulders from the beach smashed into his house and the school bus. He ran for cover and hid under a car like his dad had taught him to. “If the sun comes out everything will be better” he sobbed quietly to himself. A grim shadow was cast over this little island and Jack knew it better than anyone. He spent the night on the pavement just outside his house, which had still not stopped smouldering. Spring 2003 - 13 years old