The Typhoon moved in too quickly and too late in the day for people to prepare. Some children, when asked, claim they slept through the night, heard what sounded like sand falling and calls from friends so distant they must have come from the darker pockets of dreams.
As it happens, when people crept out in the morning, after the kind of storm that appears and then disappears with the rapidity of a ferocious military strike, they found all the houses on one side of the town had disappeared, dragged with pachydermic slowness into the mud-filled valley below.
As it happens, years later, a man travelled to the town to count the people for the Government. He met with the town officials. He asked, “Why didn’t you rebuild those houses on the other side of town?”
One of the officials looked at the census taker with obvious confusion, as if the man had uttered an obscure joke. He said, “Because no one lives there anymore.”
2 Comments