Joe pulled out his prize beauty: an Alfa Romeo 678, a gift from Jamie on his sixteenth birthday. Hitting the accelerator, the ashen faced youth zipped past the Bayport Marina. His Gucci watch struck 7:05 am. One hour fifty five minutes to reach the Grand Canyon. Jamie was a maniac- 500 km in two hours. He angrily swept aside one of dangling curls. Now was the worst part. The city traffic. New York was one place Joe loved but today he felt like bombarding the place into smithereens. Another five minutes over. Joe thought he was racing in the F1 Formula Race. He had always been an avid fan of Sebastian Vettel. Today he felt he could outrace him and even break his records.
Traffic lights approached. Men in blue.
“God!”, groaned Joe, “Have mercy!”
Deftly the impulsive youth swerved and zigzagged through the vehicles approaching him like an army. Brakes squealed and horns blasted at the crazy driver in the Alfa Romeo. But Joe was determined. Half an hour ticked past. It was lucky the cops didn’t get to him but he needed to be careful now or he’d land up in jail or be trampled into mincemeat by other vehicles.
“Jamie”, he thought, “I’m coming. Another 350 km to go.”
Joe was so overwhelmed in his mission that he hardly noticed the blare of sirens behind him.
“Gosh!”, he swore under his breath, “Now this is going to get ugly” and slammed his foot down on the accelerator in rage. The next half an hour was a blur. Hair streaming all over his eyes and sweat trickling under his sweatshirt, even though the A.C. was doing its best, Joe could never remember what stunts he’d tried that day. He was jolted, swirled by other drivers and he surely must have spun a 360 at least thrice but he thanked his lucky stars that he was alive in one piece and that his beloved car was still surging ahead, although he hated to know its present condition.
The sirens now had died away. The clock showed 8:15am. Not good. The impetuous teen had just come out of the city. Ahead lay the deadly, rocky terrain of the Grand Canyon. Even Hummers couldn’t do that landscape, forget a battered convertible. The only option Joe had was to sprint. Even as he got out, he wondered why he was up to such madness just due to a call from his freaking brother. Maybe it was a prank. Maybe not.
Jogging past thorny sagebrushes and the jagged fjords, avoiding a look at what maybe his doom if he slipped, the disgruntled youth muttered a countdown for the next forty- five minutes as he ran. One missed step and he’d be falling a 1000 ft drop down a rugged mountainous terrain into a roaring river. Thirty minutes left, he kept running.
Fifteen minutes, still running.
Only five minutes left until kill time, Joe ran like a crazed psychopath.
Two minutes....
A silhouette of a chopper filled Joe’s eyes.
Joe surged ahead, wanting to reach it. A hand extended out to him. Jamie. Struggling for air, he sat beside his brother as the chopper gained altitude, leaving the mountains far below them.
“Why on earth did you...”
Joe stopped momentarily mid way of his scolding as his eyes beheld the scene below.
What earlier had been brown and green and clearly stood distinct from the sky now seemed undistinguishable. It was as if the earth and sky had merged and blended as one. Waves devoured everything that lay beneath them mercilessly, sparing not even the hugest of trees or staunchest of boulders. The earth did seem like a blue planet today only it was too overwhelmingly sad to comment about it just then.
Joe’s blue eyes met his brother’s green ones as if searching for an explanation.
“A tsunami.” he gasped
“Only hours ago did I discover some unusual behaviour in the Pacific when I went out to collect some algae samples. I reported it to the department but all of them ignored me. Yet I persisted and strongly recommended them to check out this unnatural thing but he too dismissed me and told me not to unnecessarily cause panic in the masses. But I had that instinct in me, warning me to flee. That’s when I called you up, Joe. I know it would have sounded mad, as always, to you and would have caused you to panic therefore I didn’t tell anything at that time. Sorry.”
Joe didn’t hesitate this time. He lunged ahead and both brothers fell into a tearful embrace.
THE END.......TADAAA
