Sanctuary villas

 The first sign was the silence. On the sheltered leeward side of the island, where the new, stark-white "Sanctuary" villas clung to the hillside, the constant rustle of the sea grape leaves simply stopped. The air, usually scented with frangipani and salt, grew thick and heavy.

Inside one of the glass-walled homes, Monique didn’t check her phone for weather alerts. She didn’t board up the panoramic windows. Instead, she watched the sea, which had turned from a brilliant turquoise to a menacing, oily slate. The storm wasn't a surprise; she had felt it building in the pit of her stomach for days. Not the meteorological event, but the other one inside her. The frantic, wind-whipped anxiety about a failing project, a strained relationship, a future that felt as uncertain as the horizon now looked.

Her neighbours were a flurry of reactive energy. She could see them through the sparse stands of palm trees, battening down hatches, securing patio furniture, their movements sharp with fear. They were fighting the storm, trying to impose order on the coming chaos. Monique simply walked to the center of her open-plan living room and sat on the floor.

The wind arrived not as a gust, but as a roar. It screamed against the glass, a sound so immense it felt physical. Rain came horizontally, smearing the world into a grey watercolour. The power died, plunging the villa into a murky gloom. Outside, a patio chair shattered against a deck railing. The storm was here, in all its terrifying fury. It was the manifestation of every doubt, every fear that had been circling her mind.

And yet, seated in the growing darkness, Monique remembered. She felt the storm within her—the panic, the urge to scramble, to mirror the frantic energy outside. It was real, this internal hurricane of what-ifs and worst-case scenarios. But she did not try to silence it. She acknowledged its presence, its power, its right to be. She let the fear thunder through her, without letting it dictate her actions. Then, she found the eye.

She focused on her breath, a slow and steady rhythm in the cacophony. She felt the solid, cool floor beneath her, an anchor. In the heart of the howling chaos, she located a point of profound stillness. This was not ignorance of the danger; it was a deeper knowing. The glass could break, the roof could lift, but the core of her, the witness watching it all, remained untouched. Your core should always be peace. It wasn't something she had to find; it was something she had to remember was already there.

Hours seemed to pass. The storm peaked, its fury a constant, deafening presence. And then, almost imperceptibly, the pitch of the wind began to lower. The rain softened from a relentless assault to a heavy drumming.

When dawn broke, it was through a bruised and tattered sky. Monique rose and walked to the glass door, sliding it open. The air was clean and washed. Her deck was littered with debris, a palm frond speared through her outdoor sofa. Further down the hill, one villa had a shattered window; another had lost its roof.

Her neighbours emerged, faces drawn with exhaustion and shock, their movements slow as they surveyed the damage. They saw Monique, standing perfectly still on her damaged deck, her face calm. She wasn't smiling; her peace was not happiness. It was resilience.

She looked out at the scarred but still breathtaking vista of the island. The storm had been real. The damage was real. But as she stood there, her feet firmly planted on the wet wood, she knew a deeper truth. The sanctuary had never been the modern home. It had never been the perfect weather. The only sanctuary that could never be shattered was the one she had found in the silent, unshakable stillness at her very center.