Reality Junction

My heart pounded as the initial boom of the explosion hit my bedroom. It sounded larger and closer than any explosion that I had ever heard. My eyes opened wide, but I wasn't exactly awake yet. Brazil being the surreal country that it is, I am no stranger to random, unexplained blasts at any time of day or night. When these happen, it's usually in the form of a hollow, dry sound, which is characteristic of gunpowder. I mentally went through the usual suspects, trying to match the noise to a .38, a shotgun, the usual four-shot fireworks, but I just got more and more alarmed as the noise grew, instead of faded. This all took less than a second, really, because at that point the room started to light up as if a huge film set spotlight were slowly warming up ouside my window. I don't know if my next thought was a byproduct of growing up in the Reagan Era, but before I knew what was going on my left arm threw the sheets to the side, and my legs were taking me to the closed slat-wood window. As the sheets slowly descended onto my wife, I grasped the window's warm latch and pushed it quickly to the left, opening the whole thing in one quick gesture. The noise kept escalating, louder and louder. I couldn't think. If I had, I would have darted in the opposite direction, to take shelter behind the appartment's support column, or just gone back to sleep with a resolute smirk. But my body didn't wait for anything, it was on automatic pilot. As the window slammed at the end of its sliding rails, my naked chest was immediately warmed up with a barrage of light and heat, and I was completely blinded as the light hit me straight in the eyes. The noise wouldn't stop. For a second, I stood there, dumbfounded, contemplating the end of my life as I looked head on into a flaming fireball that I knew would soon engulf me. I tried desperately to focus, both my thoughts and my eyes. The latter were still under the influence of what was just a moment ago a great dream, and turned the whole scene into one large, warm, fuzzy white blur. If this was the end, I wouldn't say that I was going into heaven with any particular composure. Just a stupid expression of awe. Wish that I could've at least brushed my teeth.

I stood there for a few seconds, taking in the experience, trying to understand. My heart was still pounding. The noise, however, was slowly getting muddled... dissolving and stumbling over itself as the Doppler effect took over. Eventually my eyes started to focus a bit, and I was exhilarated to see that the huge fireball in front of me was nothing more than a beautiful sunny day. The clouds overhead were moving fast, and as one moved out of the way of the sun, another one took its place. I could finally focus completely, and I could now see the black spec that sped away at the speed of sound, leaving its white trail behind. I laughed heartily, both at the simple realisation that I was happy to be alive, and at the amazing coincidence of events that I had just lived through. The sonic boom must have happened right above my building, I thought. The cloud that had been in front of the sun moved away right on cue, and gave me just enough time and reason to jump out of bed and check to see if my worst cold war fears were right. When I did, I opened up the window, and the sun had the chance to play its trick on me, both with its light and with its heat. The timing, the number of factors and senses involved, and the absurdity of it all made for an amazing experience. I slid the wooden pane back into its place, and once again the room was comfortably shadowed. I kept laughing as I tried to explain what had just happened to my sleepy wife. "You're nuts", she concluded, with a smile. "Now let's get back to sleep, it's early"! Might as well. We're all dead, anyway.

As the sheets slowly descended onto my wife, I grasped the window's warm latch and pushed it quickly to the left, opening the whole thing in one quick gesture. My hair and eyebrows curled as the first heat wave hit me head on. I couldn't react, it was all too fast, too loud, too impressive. I couldn't look away. The beauty of the mushroom cloud that evolved, blossomed, expanded in the horizon was just too much to ignore. Might as well enjoy it, it is the last thing that I am ever going to do. My skin singed, then smoked, and eventually changed colors in expanding circles as the wall of heat enveloped my body. I was being immersed in a vertical bowl of invisible, boiling soup, at what seemed to me as a rate of one inch per minute. Because I had been sleeping, the thin layer of water over my eyes allowed me to still watch as the second wave of destruction came from a distance, slowly advanced in my direction, and expanded over Sao Paulo. Soon that protection desintegrated, and my eyes were no more. All I could do now was feel in darkness as the air rushed from behind, towards the vacuum created by the blast, and sucked me right out of my window. And for a millisecond, I was flying, oblivious. Then my body was desintegrated onto the side of the white building. Which, amazingly, wasn't turned into a pile of dust, as one would expect.