<< Adrenalin.
The great preserver and sustainer. Never experienced it before, but boy did I ever feel it then. Powerfully surging into every pore, it is holding me together, the unbelievable depths of life force that you never had reason to know were there.
These seconds may well be my last on planet Earth and in reflection, it really is incredible how fast your mind and body can work together when death is right up in your face.
I stagger and slide in the fearsome salty brew. The waves are still gushing in every couple of seconds as I hold onto the doorway and press myself against the outside wall, the only thing that looks solid enough to hang onto. Again the sensation was as if the water had hands that were desperately trying to drag me from safety, to fling me off into the ungodly torrent.
I look to my left and see Helen hanging onto the next doorway, only a meter or two away. We are the only people left out here. Everyone else has vanished, I don’t know where. There is a look of sheer terror, of panic and pleading in my beloved’s face for a second or two. Then she is gone, and in her place a big, empty, black water tank is floating; blocking the doorway where a second ago she was standing as the water level still pulses wildly from thigh to shoulder deep.
Without losing my tenuous grip on the wall / doorframe, I kick the water tank away. It flies off, light and empty as a dream. Still I cannot see her. Nothing. Just me and this squalling, hissing serpent of H2O that is seemingly bent on destruction and murder.
Now all I can do is debate how to survive myself. There is no one left to confer with, to give or receive help.
About 3 or 4 meters in front of me on the right hand side is a concrete staircase. Although it too is partly underwater, it’s tempting me as the only visible way out. In a second or too I have a life or death decision to make: jump through the water to the staircase and possible escape to the upper floors, or hang on to the wall and hope that the waves will stop before they can drag me to my death.
I almost go for a jump to the staircase, and then stop myself. The chance of being sucked out to sea or ripped away and smashed against debris just seems too great. I choose to hang on, as the odds of getting killed look pretty high if I jump.
So I turn my back on the waves, heaving spitting water and sobbing silently as the level now rises again up to near head height. I brace my whole body against the wall, as flat as I can possibly be, one hand digging in desperately to each doorway of the front of the guesthouse.
3 distinct waves hit me in succession from behind, smacking me into the wall. They are coming thick and fast, at head-height and I am having trouble keeping my head above water, snatching breath. It’s taking every last drop of the strength in my arms to hold on. My fingers only have tiny ridges to grab onto and they feel as if they are being consciously prized from the wall by some evil force.
Then the big one hits, unannounced. >>
