Eleven Roses
It was getting late. The sky outside was becoming darker and darker, which signaled that the 9th level of hurricane as forecasted was to come soon. I was studying in the sitting room, while keeping on the alert of the outside door. My friend may come home at any minute.
Earlier in the forenoon I called his mobile phone to tell there was a hurricane
upcoming today. I asked him to come home early, as I feel pretty scared about the approaching perilous weather. So he promised me to arrive home by seven o’clock in the evening at the latest.
Listening for his knocking on the door, Gradually I became sort of listless. The electronic clock magnetized on the refrigerator ticked monotonically. The dial plate showed that was already seven twenty. But my friend hasn’t home yet. The district broadcast downstairs still repeated the potential hazards of hurricane. Felt fidgety by it, I grew to the balcony and closed tight the window.
In my life I only experienced perilous natural condition like this once. And which almost got all my guts out of me. It happened on a wintry afternoon in 1995,
a time when I lived in North Jiangsu Province. I was studying in the classroom on the fourth floor of our study building, when I felt my desk was shaking out of
the blue. I didn’t know what it meant until I heard someone outside was shouting “Earthquake, Earthquake”.
What can I do, what can I do! I kept murmuring to myself and was too scared
to move until my classmate dragged my out of my stool and yelled me to run after
him. So I did. I tried to gather my strengths to run after him and other fellow
students. It was a terrible moment. You felt that the world all of a sudden sunk into clamor, and being in it you could actually do nothing but only submit yourself to the mercy of God.
So what could I do now? In spite that the broadcast host kept saying the hurricane would be unlikely to cause any serious damage, I still felt scared, with all
the past frightening feelings coming back to me. And it was not just about myself. I started to worry about my friend. Would he be safe home? It must have had something wrong that cumbered his coming back punctually.
Just at the moment I heard a loud rat-tat at the door. It was he! I hurried to
the door and saw his familiar figure standing right there, with the bunch of crimson roses in his hand. “ Happy birthday!” he tucked the roses in my arm and smiled to me. I had no tiny idea how to feel at that moment: First hurricane, then unexpected flowers, then my birthday that I myself already forgot! But, anyhow
, I knew it was definitely going to be a memorable day in my whole life.
Caroline
