Earthquake at Dawn

I was dreaming. I was riding home on a bus from the province's capitol and reading what I was doing on the computer. I was living EV Nova and getting ready to fight off Commander Krane, the supreme bad guy in the game, all in this bus. My sort-of-uncle Joel (a real-life person) was talking to my sort-of-aunt and I don't know why they were coming with us. Thatched roofs that looked decidedly Irish were along the road, and there were some cows.

Irritated, I pushed off the blanket. Blanket? I didn't have a blanket on the bus! I was so hot, except I was shaking...wait a moment.

The whole bed was shaking. I felt a moment of supreme annoyance. My sister was rolling around again on the top bunk. It always jiggles the bed. When we first moved here, it scared me half to death. Now, however...this was extreme.

I put my hand on the floor, wondering if I should get out of bed until she stopped rolling around. Then, I became more fully awake. What was going on?

A sudden flashback. I am standing in the old house and standing by the stereo system. Turkey soup smells floating through the house from the kitchen. Worrying about Mom, in the hospital for an operation on her broken leg. Wondering how to keep my bangs from getting ashy that night without having to wear a headband. It is Ash Wednesday. Suddenly, the whole house begins to shake. A couple CDs fall down from the top shelf, but only the case breaks. The CDs are fine. My sister Rivka looks at me in surprise. Grandma stomps out of the kitchen, spoon in hand, demanding, "What's going on here?" All I can do is whisper "Earthquake!" and stand in one of the most dangerous places in the house.

But I'm not in that old house, now. I'm lying in a bunk bed far away from that place. I'm hot and tired, but it's the same. An earthquake. I am frozen. My hand goes back from the floor. I glance at the doorway. Should I go brace myself? But what about Rivka? Should I wake her up?

So I lay on the bed, frozen, unable to do what I thought of doing. I just lay there, petrified, worried about what would happen next. When would it be over, I wondered. The bed sways so, I had no way of knowing. Eventually, it seemed all the tremors were over, so I rolled over and closed my eyes.

I was back on the bus, riding home, almost home, and Commander Krane was safely stowed on top of the bus with the rest of the luggage. I hope she gets windburn, I thought, and so slept on for the rest of the night.

When I woke up, I was wondering if it was all part of a dream. I asked my mother, and she said that there was one. A few minutes ago, I was sitting at the computer doing things, when the apartment building began shaking again. I gasped and turned to Rivka, sitting peacefully on the couch. "Is it my imagination, or...?"

"No, it's really shaking."

"Earthquake. Did you feel the one last night?"

"No." Rivka was still buried in The Witch of Blackbird Pond, so she mumbled, and I had to ask her to repeat the word twice. But eventually she got her meaning across, and we lapsed into silence.

I looked up the earthquake on Google, but all I found was the one last month and one back in 2004 that killed many. But apparently this one hasn't been noted yet, or it wasn't very serious. Ah, well. This is the third (or second, if it was simply an aftershock) one in two months. In the two years I've lived here, it's only the fourth (or third) one...