Last week had been really magical. I planned to take a break from work and spend time with myself. A friend of mine suggested Topo Islands to be the best place to rediscover one-self. And it turned out that she was true! The little candy-shaped island seemed to be perfect place to take a body that was drugged with stress and punishment. The journey to the magical land felt like a royal treatment.
When I reached Topo Island, my body seemed to be dancing in the breeze. I was already feeling ecstatic! The first few days in the resort were the time of my life. But the bliss didn’t last long… Local news channels showed that a little island had already drowned in a Tsunami that was travelling towards us. The adventure was yet to begin. After a man translated the news to me, all the cells in my body wanted to run away. It felt like my body would break down into millions of pieces. After I recovered from the shock, I asked the hotel manager what to do next. Then I realized that he was as clueless as me! I didn’t want to die. I had more to live for. Suddenly, I started missing my stupid boss and the other arrogant ladies at the reception.
Moments later, the manager came up with the idea to transport us to a safe place that wasn’t close to the shore. It was impossible to find such a place on Topo Island, so we were carried off to the airport. The airport didn’t look the same as it was before. Hundreds of other tourists were as desperate as me. As everyone started talking in their vernacular, I drifted into thoughts. I did a stupid thing, I revised the swimming lessons I had taken fifteen years ago, in my mind. My brain was clogged as it drowned in the thoughts of death, trauma, grief and devastation and it all overflowed out of my eyes.
I looked around with moist eyes. People gave me sympathetic looks. Maybe they could relate. I tried to make friends, but it was stupidly difficult as I could not understand or talk to them. For some time, I thought about absolutely nothing as I saw flights getting cancelled. It felt like death had trapped all of us. After forty-six hours, the officer in-charge read out that a sunny day was predicted. Even though I never believed in forecasts, I wanted to believe this one. A few hours later, we were informed that we would be shipped to our countries by air. That was the moment when my head and heart felt happy after fifty hours of turmoil. I had to ditch a few of my important belongings at the airport, but, I was heaving a sigh of relief as I could be back to Ibiza finally. On reaching the airport at Ibiza, I smiled to myself and told, “Home sweet home.”