Quake It As You Will

One-Hundred and Fifty-Seven miles away from my bed at about 4:37am today, the Earth started to rumble. Approximately seven minutes earlier, I had been awoken by the sound of growling cats crashing about. I thought that they were up to their shenanigans again, moaned at them, and then rolled back over to sleep but never made it back to Z-Land because a few minutes later my bed began to shake, the windows rattled, and strewn jewelry tingled on my dresser.

I immediately shot up in bed wondering if I was dreaming or having a strange side-effect to my latest medications. But wait, there were the cats - they were real and they weren't looking so good. Eventually, the movement stopped and I listened for my neighbor upstairs moving about to confirm that it was not my imagination but there was no noise. After inspecting the apartment and finding no signs of damage, I clicked on the television for any emergency warnings but there were none. Still drugged and drowsy, I returned to sleep with a headache.

When the alarm clock went off a few hours later, I recalled the strange event and switched the tube on to the news and sure enough there had been an earthquake. It was then that I became severely afraid and noticed a knot on my forehead beginning to bruise. I phoned the almost-ex-husband to check on him and the house but there was no answer. For the who-knows-how-many-times-this-week, I realized the vast immensity of my aloneness in this world. An earthquake had occurred and I had no human to give or from whom to receive support. I choked my tears back and focused on getting to work.

Not even an hour into the workday, my cubicle walls started to shake, my monitors jiggled, and it was happening again. People began to panic as the world around us became a vertigo jungle. We pretty much tried to shrug it off with jokes but none of us have lived in California so we hadn't experienced anything like this. We all knew it could be much worse ... perhaps, that's why we were bothered. I think my degree of fear was intensified due to having grown up along the infamous New Madrid Fault. Nevertheless, I received the email a few minutes later from the almost-ex who was wondering if I was okay and my fear diminished significantly.

Not allot of work got done in our office this morning but something happened and it was more odd than the seismic activity. It was just the day before that I was mapping out my plan regarding how I was going to cope with the many trials of divorce and now a spot of damned hope was back again. Quakes come in all forms.