Everyone preached preparedness. There was even a day when hundreds of volunteers took half a day off to play dead or injured to test the first responders. But the Big One was being measured in geological time, which, like the sun burning out, isn’t supposed to happen in our lifetime. Until it did.
When it happened, I was on the road, I didn’t really feel much but saw the buildings swaying. I’d read about but hadn’t ever witnessed liquefaction, where the ground is no longer solid. I was stranded 25 miles away from home, a widow maker eucalyptus toppled by the lack of solid ground, missed me by inches, crushed the engine compartment and broke the windshield. The branch that fell across the roof only dented it. I was able to escape the car but lost one of my flipflops in the process.
Surveying the damage, I realized that flipflops wouldn’t do me any good anyway, then I remembered I had cleaned out my car over the weekend, so I could help a friend move house. My change of clothes, my sturdy shoes, camp stove, knife, saw and first aid kit were all on my back porch collecting spiders and dust. If my house was still standing. I might as well have been 250 miles from home with the amount of damage I was seeing – the whole world was broken, sharp or on fire.
Marco had been traveling in the opposite direction. His car was completely hidden under the tree, I had no idea how he could have escaped. He shouldn’t even be alive. We looked each other over for signs of injury, to ensure the other was really real. He noticed my feet, one bare, one with a battered flipflop. He headed back under the branches and leaves re-emerging with a pair of off brand sneakers. A little big. He said his Nina hadn’t survived the tree, but I couldn’t walk the way I was, so I should borrow Nina’s shoes.
I was just numb enough that putting on the shoes of a dead woman, a very recently dead woman, it could have been me that died, didn’t quite send me into the hysterics that boiled in my gut. I had a long way to go, and these shoes could make sure I arrived. I needed to breathe. I needed to start walking. Marco was just sitting there in the dirt and glass. I left him with one of my two bottled waters and a package of crackers I found in the door pocket. He insisted I shouldn’t worry about him.
Every step I take is a prayer for Nina, for Marco, for everyone else walking to broken homes, over broken streets in borrowed shoes.
— Lkai
When it happened, I was on the road, I didn’t really feel much but saw the buildings swaying. I’d read about but hadn’t ever witnessed liquefaction, where the ground is no longer solid. I was stranded 25 miles away from home, a widow maker eucalyptus toppled by the lack of solid ground, missed me by inches, crushed the engine compartment and broke the windshield. The branch that fell across the roof only dented it. I was able to escape the car but lost one of my flipflops in the process.
Surveying the damage, I realized that flipflops wouldn’t do me any good anyway, then I remembered I had cleaned out my car over the weekend, so I could help a friend move house. My change of clothes, my sturdy shoes, camp stove, knife, saw and first aid kit were all on my back porch collecting spiders and dust. If my house was still standing. I might as well have been 250 miles from home with the amount of damage I was seeing – the whole world was broken, sharp or on fire.
Marco had been traveling in the opposite direction. His car was completely hidden under the tree, I had no idea how he could have escaped. He shouldn’t even be alive. We looked each other over for signs of injury, to ensure the other was really real. He noticed my feet, one bare, one with a battered flipflop. He headed back under the branches and leaves re-emerging with a pair of off brand sneakers. A little big. He said his Nina hadn’t survived the tree, but I couldn’t walk the way I was, so I should borrow Nina’s shoes.
I was just numb enough that putting on the shoes of a dead woman, a very recently dead woman, it could have been me that died, didn’t quite send me into the hysterics that boiled in my gut. I had a long way to go, and these shoes could make sure I arrived. I needed to breathe. I needed to start walking. Marco was just sitting there in the dirt and glass. I left him with one of my two bottled waters and a package of crackers I found in the door pocket. He insisted I shouldn’t worry about him.
Every step I take is a prayer for Nina, for Marco, for everyone else walking to broken homes, over broken streets in borrowed shoes.
— Lkai
How absolutely heartbreaking. Very poignant story.
ReplyDeleteI agree, heartbreaking, but we need to imagine these things if we have any chance of avoiding them. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteAwe-inspiring topic. Brave. Beautiful. Yikes! ---Macoff
ReplyDelete