بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
I was with my grandfather. we were eating breakfast together; bread and milk. We joked and I said the word milk backwards as I poured him some – from the bread! I squeezed the bread like a lemon and milk came from it.
My grandfather was small, not as tall as before. He wore white linen clothes and his hair was white. But otherwise, it was him.
We were sitting on the top floor in a glass building by the sea. It was a fancy place; the whole interior was white, floor was granite gray wall to wall carpet. Designer glasses and cutlery. Many people from high up in society were dining there. They looked down at me; because I wore a hijab, I was not welcome there but they could not kick me out since I had paid for the food.
We sat and ate, looking out at the sea. It was Öresund. Calm and navy blue gray. Then as I turned my head back toward looking through the glass part of the building that faced inland, I saw Lomma. And from there, a huge dark storm was forming in the sky. I felt the fear gripping me by my guts. I lost my speech. Grandfather was talking calmly and kindly. The storm came from the area where the old grocery store is.
I couldn’t hear my grandfather. The storm lowered itself to the level of the rooftops and a tornado started forming in its middle. First it was a small thread-like tornado, but it grew into a wide big one. And that’s when I gained my speech back:
“Morfar there is a big storm. Look. We have to go.” I said, almost monotonously. I was preparing for a big struggle. Then there was a huge moaning noise, like from steel bending, and I saw from the glass windows facing the sea, that the storm was embracing the building.
My grandfather didn’t seem scared at all. He just replied: “Jaha.” (“Ok then”, in Swedish) and got down from the chair by the table. He was going to go into the sea, via the windows.
People were panicking and running around in the restaurant. Most people were staring at the storm through the windows. I knew that the windows will burst soon, as soon as the tornado comes. I took my grandfather in my arms and lifted him and walked quickly to the stairs.
The stairs were made of stone, compact marble-like stone. Their color was the same as redwood trees. They formed a pillar. I took us there, and set my grandfather down. The storm was inaudible here.
“We stay here. This will not break.” I said, as I heard the glass windows breaking in the restaurant and people screaming from fear since they were being sucked into the storm. I held my grandfather’s hand, he was as tall as a child.
We went into the center of the pillar and I knealed and covered my grandfather in my coat and abaya and told him to be safe. I closed my eyes since I was worried I would get glass into them. I held onto my grandfather.
The tornado was approaching, I could hear its noise as if it was a sinking ship. People screaming, panicking, desperate. I was not so unwelcome anymore. They saw what I did and that I was in a safe place but only me and my grandfather were there. They didn’t come with us into the pillar. It puzzled me why; their safety was obvious if they only went to the pillar of marble stairs, where we were. It was as if they didn’t see that these stairs were both safety and survival. It hurt my heart to realize that nobody followed us.
The tornado and storm made roaring sounds.
Then I woke up.
Salaam alaykum,
Oum Isra’a
PS: my grandfather passed away Spring 2003, a few months before I reverted to Islam.
