war of the worlds meets dune

i remember first picking up that thick first volume of the Dune series when it was still a trilogy with trepidation. All these weird terms, all those worms and spice traders.. those scary blue eyes and the Fremen... i remember being slowly drawn into those foreign sandy worlds and in my mind, i had imagined myself as an omnipresent being partaking in the adventures outlined in black and white. i had hidden behind various pillars and shadows as consipiracies were plotted. i had looked up at the vast orange desert sky and pulled my robes tighter around me as night settled in. i loved the set *gush*

many years later, i can't decide if someone had merged our world with that of the books or whether it was just plain the end of the world with the fire and brimstone as predicted. i'm half expecting showers of flaming rocks to fall or another helping of hail. same thing really.

i first picked up the unmistable scent of something burning but had thought it was some idiot at the bbqs who forgot they were cooking a meal. then i heard the wind pick up and started to silently will the skies to stay continent.. to hold back the hailstones. the wind didn't subside nor did the smokey air clear so i drew back my curtains and was greeted with this.



it's not everyday you see an orange landscape! i had forgotten about my dinner that wasn't chocolate (for once!) and had started to splutter and cough by then, wondering if this was how i was gonna die and if someone was gonna declare the cause of death as smoke inhalation. and then my mind started to wander and of all the things, backdraft sprung into mind. not scenes of the firefighters battling the blazes in the blue mountains....

my poor little hepa air filter was working overtime and it still couldn't get rid of the choking smell. i called up A for some moral support as one does when one is convinced one's gonna suffocate to death you know... and what a brilliant idea she had! i couldn't stop grinning myself silly as i recalled how i much i scoffed and protested at being sent a stack of N95 masks by my gramps a few years ago during the SARS scare. hehehe, thank you gramps! i'll eat my words, lol. those masks do work and tho i felt like an idiot walking around the room in it, it kept me from coughing and spluttering like an antique car.

in the meantime, i tried to flip on the tv for some news flash regarding the situation here but all that was on was the bold and the beautiful. you can see 'em in the tv behind me *sigh* so i sat around snapping pictures instead, trying to catch the awesome fork lighting that was zapping some poor unfortunate piece of grass faraway. after a while, things turned really odd... the wind died down and everything suddenly cleared. the sky turned really bright...

and then i saw it. i thought it was the sun. a glowing ball of red. red i tell you. i kid you not. admittedly, we're on summer time and it's still plausable that the sun doesn't set til 6 or 7pm but this was like brightness you'd expect at 2pm, not 6.30pm. the red sphere was creepily mesmerizing and had it been a shade of purple, it would've been slightly dejavu-ish ofthat scene when the purple people eater came to earth. i tried to capture it but couldn't figure out the settings to do it properly. the photo turned out grainy if i captured the red sun that A correctly pointed out to be the moon. you'll have to use your imaginations on this one and convert the white glowing ball of light into a disco red sphere ya?

all's back to normal and it literally is the calm before the storm. means back to trying to study for next week's exams i guess. argh. there's still the eerie orange glow left over as a reminder of the thunderstorm warning issued for our area tonight. *crosses fingers there won't be hailstones for my chooq's sake*