How does one even go about explaining what it feels like to wake up to a 7.1 earthquake?
How do you describe the sheer volume or force that comes and lasts for both the longest minutes and the briefest seconds? The sound of glass shattering and shelves falling;The sound of bricks and chimneys that have stood for decades crashing down through rooves; The sound of the earth screaming as giant gashes breakout across its surface.
How do you describe the deja vu that floods the system with adrenaline with every aftershock that racks the city? Waking again and again, night after night to find the bed once again shaking in time with the violent heaving and rolling of the earth below. Days filled with not knowing if the movement you feel is real or imagined.
How do you explain that for the first time in 24 years you are afraid of your own company? Balanced on the edge of a knife - not wanting company so as to avoid the inevitable constant discussion of the earthquake that naturally remains in the forefront of everyone minds while at the the same time not wanting to be alone.
Too much time to think. Too much time to realize all the things that we should have done - that we should do. And despite the casualties being blessedly nonexistent, mortality is suddenly all too real. I have never been afraid of death and that remains unchanged. Without the option of death there is no life. But life - now that is scary. We exist thinking that we have all the time in the world to live, but we don't.
No more presuming, no more taking for granted. Those two are achievable at least. It would be nice if there were no more aftershocks but I wont hold my breath.
