Today is International Panic Day, started by Thomas. A Roy to acknowledge our stresses and anxieties.
And we have plenty. Some are more poignant than others.
The loudest warnings are often the quietest.
📱⚠️😳
3:30 a.m.
Every mobile in the city emitted the same ringtone.
The same piercing alert seared the silence.
A cryptic message blazed across screens.
DO NOT PANIC.
The message, which came without explanation, nettled.
Everyone did just the opposite.
The city rose in unison. And not to a rousing welcome.
📱⚠️😳
The wildfire of rumours was impossible to contain.
People responded to Don’t Panic with restless lines at supermarkets.
Schools shut down. Roads reached blocks fast.
Too fast.
Fear spawned faster than bacteria. It spread quickly.
Overcoming. Gripping.
Media channels offered speculation. Failed broadband providers. Conspiracy theories.
One channel even offered alien activity as an explanation.
Mrs Lim merely watched everything unfold from her park bench.
Casting frequent glances at her pocket watch.
She was waiting. For what, no one knew. Could, or would, stop to know.
📱⚠️😳
Evening fell, together with an official announcement.
The siren alert? An accidental result of a systems test.
The neighbourhood giggled nervously. Relief washed over the entire block.
Normalcy returned as quickly as it had left.
Mrs Lim remained seated on the park bench.
Waiting.
Till midnight.
No one cared to know why.
📱⚠️😳
But Mrs Lim did.
Her son had pursued a degree in information technology at Leeds University in London.
And hadn’t yet returned.
So she waited. Without fail. The same day, year after year.
The siren had told her he was coming. A warning sign she had made a part of her reconciliation fantasy.
The city had feared a disaster. Mrs Lim had created hope.
Hope with Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
The disaster wasn’t real. But neither was the promise.
📱⚠️😳
As the night wore on, the park emptied of strollers, poodles, and couples hand-in-hand.
Mrs Lim remained on the bench.
The alert had long disappeared from everyone’s screens.
The weight on her shoulders lingered, and refused to leave.
Still, she roused from the bench and walked the few metres to her home.
It sank in, heavier and heavier.
The city slept in peace. Mrs Lim tried to.
The sirens in the heart were the loudest.
Original story by Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin. AI tags are coincidental.
Mirrors of the Mind by Michelle Liew is a collection of psychological and supernatural short stories that explore the quiet unease beneath ordinary moments. These are not tales of spectacle, but of subtle fracture — where memory distorts, silence speaks, and the self is not always singular. In these stories, what is unseen often carries the greatest weight, and what lingers is not what is shown, but what is felt.
