Long Way Home

Twilight, dawn, dusk, noon. During the darkest days of an Uppsala winter, such words that tracked the movements of the sun lost their distinctness, their meanings blurred around the edges. This is no different to that, Jennifer Teo told herself firmly. No different to when the sun only deigned to make a brief watery appearance in the height of December. Just put one foot in front of another. You’re almost there. Almost there. Jennifer took in a deep breath to try and calm her jittery nerves. Strangely, the air did not have the cold lifeless bite she had come to expect from her first winter here. In fact, it smelt almost like, what was it, yes, like home. The temptation of a taste of home made her remove the white kitchen towel from her face to swallow a bigger mouthful of air. She could detect a metallic tang in the air, weighed down by a heavy humidity. She closed her eyes and let the taste in her mouth transport her to a different city, one she knew well. Kuala Lumpur. Or Kay-El, as the locals called it. Car engines purred and motorcycles revved as drivers and riders hurried to outrun the gathering grey clouds that held the promise of an impending downpour. Meanwhile, a lorry loaded with crudely sawn logs belched out plumes of black smoke as it climbed a slight incline. A shopping mall loomed by the side of the highway, housing shops that sold everything from Japanese fashion and Korean cosmetics to Chinese electronic gadgets, restaurants and cafes, and a cinema that screened the latest Hollywood, Hong Kong and Bollywood films. Jennifer knew that the smaller and older double-storeyed shophouses, those that had survived the opening of the shopping mall, stood behind the mall. A couple of kilometres beyond that was the residential area where she lived with her parents, or rather, where her parents lived while she, she wasn’t there.

How did I end up here? Jennifer wondered. And more importantly, how do I get home?

"Boom! Boom-boom-boom! The next few explosions followed one another in quick succession. Another boom shook the building and sent Jennifer tumbling onto the floor on top of Leo."

Jennifer was attending a party earlier that evening at Flogsta, the infamous student neighbourhood in Uppsala, when the first explosion occurred. No one paid much attention to it. It sounded quite far away, and anyway, most of the party-goers were already deep in their cups by that time in the evening. There was only one sofa in the common area of the corridor where the party was held, and Jennifer was squeezed into one end of it. She was reluctant to vacate her seat for fear of losing it. She realised after a while that the sofa had taken on certain characteristics of a vortex, where parallel and not necessarily connected conversations swirled around it and frequently disappeared without trace.
“China is a great example of how an authoritarian government can actually make things work,” an earnest-looking woman that Jennifer recognised from her political science class said. “They’ve drafted in armies of scientists and researchers to tackle their pollution problem. Armies, literally.”
“Greta took the trains to London, and now a boat – all the way to New York! Isn’t that spectacular?” A woman with a head of curly hair let out a deep chuckle.
“It’s too late. We’re all going the way of the dinosaurs. Skol!” This was a contribution from a corridor resident’s friend who was visiting from Ireland. He raised his beer bottle and grinned placidly at nobody in particular.
The second explosion sounded much closer and made Jennifer spill some of her beer onto the floor. She went into the kitchen to find a towel to wipe up the spillage and saw Leo, her fellow master’s student from Syria.
“Hey sweetie.” Leo hooked his right wrist around Jennifer’s neck and attempted to dance with her, a bottle of wine clutched under his left armpit.
“Leo, did you hear that?” Jennifer gently unhooked his wrist from her neck. “Put down your wine for a sec. No one’s gonna take it.”
Leo put his bottle of wine on the kitchen table and stared deeply into Jennifer’s eyes. “Look, do you think that guy over there is checking me out?” Leo gestured clumsily with a twist of his neck towards a slim dark-haired man standing by the kitchen door.
“What? I don’t-I don’t know. Just focus for a sec. Did you hear that? Just now? Sounded like an explosion, or something.”
Boom! Boom-boom-boom! The next few explosions followed one another in quick succession. Another boom shook the building and sent Jennifer tumbling onto the floor on top of Leo.
People screamed. Someone started crying. Questions and theories flew about.
“Fuck me! What was that?”
“Bombs?”
“Could it be Russia?”
“But the Cold War’s long past!”
Jennifer sat up and tugged her phone from her jeans pocket. She was dismayed to see that her phone battery had died.
“Leo, check your phone.” Jennifer nudged Leo, who was struggling to sober up. “What does the news say?”
“Ok, hang on.” Leo scanned the news websites on his phone. “Ok, some explosions reported in Sweden. Hmm hmm… also Iceland, other parts of Europe. Experts not sure what’s happening, authorities asking people to stay calm.”
“Is it a bomb? Is it man-made or what? Can they not tell?”
 “Hang on, hang on. Ok, latest opinions. Experts think not a bomb. Simultaneous eruptions. Across the globe. Scientists think something to do with the core of the Earth. Whatever that might mean.” Leo looked up at Jennifer. “Also, explosions in Asia.”
“Where in Asia?” Jennifer managed to croak out as a cold hand of fear gripped her throat.
“Indonesia on the equator, Malaysia as well.”
“Are you sure? Are you-I need to call my parents, I need to-can I borrow your phone?”
“Sure, sure. Here you go.”
“Wait, it’s not working, nothing’s working. What’s happening?”
“Lemme see. Hmm … the internet’s down. I can’t get a phone signal either.”
“Shit, shit, shit! What do we do? Where do we go?”