Monday, March 26, 2012

QUAKE IN MY MORNING.

My day started late at around 11am. I was getting ready to take a shower when I a heard a rattling from the closet to my right where I was standing. Not yet able to process what was happening I began making excuses for the noise, Mmm, maybe Neto (my room mate) is home?
All of a sudden the small rattle from the closet escalates rapidly into a violent thrust that buckles my knees and shakes me to the ground. I fall beside my bed and grip on to it with all my fear. I keep imagining the walls are going to fall around me and I'm going to slide off the building like the dustpan in Honey I Shrunk the Kids.
I keep thinking in my head, MOVE! GET UP! DO SOMETHING! - I'm equally as dramatic as the earth shaking beneath me. I try to walk to the door but the building feels like a small boat fighting small rapid waves.
Not knowing how to handle myself in an earthquake and that the best place to stand is under a door way, i turned around immediately and assume my terrifying position beside my mattress. Finally the tremors stop. My heart was beating out of my chest and the fear of an aftershock was still looming over my head . I hear Esme upstairs call my name, "Franco! Are you ok?" Poor thing was in the shower with shower things falling all around. The whole time she heard the unnatural sound of two buildings crashing against each other, a sound that still hovers in her mind. As I walk around the apartment I notice all the TV's thrown about, and the refrigerator is lavishly taking up space in the middle of the kitchen. At this moment my eye catches my roommates enormous bottle of DELICIOUS tequila that I've been helping myself to. It's about to tiptoe off the edge of the counter so I run towards it as if it's alive and about to commit suicide. It's saved.

I leave the apartment and go for a long walk absorbing my near death experience and begin to value all the things in my life - how cliche'. Thank you earthquake for the reminder, but NO MAS!

This is a video of a man singing 5 minutes after the earthquake.