Names have been changed, but that's about it. Everything else is straight from my science notebook. A homework assignment: write about an earthquake.
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I thought for a while that I was getting sick. Maybe a fever, the flu, I didn't know. But the waving of the ground, the sense of false nausea... they weren't symptoms of illness. No, it was much worse. I was playing volleyball earlier. My arms were red and aching, though I knew they would be more painful the next morning. I hadn't been playing so well that day, and I felt that maybe it was a prelude to a disaster. Now, looking back on it, I felt silly. I was never that much good at sports anyway, and especially not volleyball, so I couldn't really be making assumptions like that. I never played well.
The teams were all there, and Abby (I think it was her; I wasn't really paying attention) was getting ready to serve. Mr. Burns was quite a ways back, sitting at the end of the basketball court, on the mattress. Our P.E. teacher was on the side with Odessa and Damon. That was when the shaking and waving started. I noticed it, a few other people noticed it, and Mr. Burns definitely felt the rumbling and shivering of the building's metal and concrete skeleton. Maybe it was growling, maybe it wasn't.
Fact: It was an earthquake. Fact: The higher up you are, the more you'll feel the shaking and the more likely it is that you'll fall. Fact: We were on the topmost floor.
Mr. Burns had shouted at us to get down, get low, close to the ground. Hesitantly, the class complied. We were sitting on the floor, some people panicking. I think I was hyperventilating for a second, but I calmed eventually. This wasn't that bad. The shaking wasn't dangerous, I thought. Somewhere, back in my subconscious, I knew that it probably was, but there was no time to dwell on that.
For that half a minute, we all sat there. Some people were whispering in a panic, others were talking with each other. I might have heard the question "Are we going to die?" Maybe I did, and I forgot. Or maybe, it was just myself. Was I going to die? Not likely, but I didn't know that.
The entire time, I could envision a giant hole opening up in the floor, the screams of people as they fell, crashed onto the rubble. Their broken bodies, blood and bones and organs and skin and muscle all ragdolly on the remains of what was once the floor. A jagged crack spiderweaving its way across the entire fourth floor, people screaming and crying. And I was joining them. The ones who fell, I mean. But enough of morbid 'what if's. It wouldn't happen. It was just a small shake. But rational thinking and logic often abandons you when faced with the gnashing jaws of fear and panic, they say. I wouldn't be surprised. When up against a foe like that, one must have the strength of heart and courage of a soldier making his valiant last stand to still be able to even think properly. But they say that those who die in war never think about honorable sacrifices or valor or nobility or pride of their country; just their own horrible deaths and the family they left behind, the woman they haven't proposed to yet, the young boy of three that would grow up fatherless, a mother preparing meals for a son that would never return. But those thoughts wouldn’t help me any.
Our P.E. teacher tried to get us to leave, but there was still shaking and the earthquake drill hadn't sounded yet. We had to wait for the sharp bells. And as soon as those shrill cries reached us, people were leaping up, racing to get down the stairs. But we slowed, and melded into the line of other students flowing down the stairs. It was loud, unbearably loud after being subjected to the nerve-wracking silence of uncertainty. But we were alive, the building didn't collapse. Teachers were directing the tide of students, herding them out into the parking lot. The bell was still ringing, short jabs of sound.
Outside, it was hot but I felt cold. The fear, I thought. And the apprehension. Were those nails sticking out before? I didn't think so. This wasn't something that I wanted to go through ever again. Earthquakes were something that I had no intention of ever experiencing again.
Huddled outside, there were people calling parents, parents calling children, shouting, chatter. I almost wanted to fade away into the silence, but there was nothing I could do about that anymore. But the ninth grade students (some of them, at least) were worried. Was there the possibility of an aftershock? And then, even more worry. Parents were likely to still be in the office. If the shaking was that bad on the fourth floor, what about those who worked twenty stories up? Higher? And was the school still safe?
But they deemed it safe, let us get our things and go back home. The traffic was horrendous. But really, that was the least of the things on my mind. My father wasn't answering his phone. I knew Stephen was okay, and my mom was okay, but I didn't know anything about Grant. I heard that SD got out safely, but maybe there was some possibility that he got left behind. There are hundreds of people. But when I saw Grant safe, I think my heart melted a little. And when my father answered my message, everything was okay. He told me he was still in one piece, uninjured, and I slumped back in relief. I suddenly felt tired; maybe the adrenaline finally wore off.
The next day, there was an assembly about the earthquake drill procedure, what we should do if we were on the ground floor, on the second and third floors, how we should wait, what we should have hidden under, everything like that. In the event of a really large earthquake hitting Jakarta, we should get away from the lockers, head under something sturdy, and wait it out, etcetera. But they didn't mention anything about the fourth floor. A little bit of the terror crept back into me, but I forced it back.
First earthquakes, like first fires or first floods or first hurricanes will always leave a lasting impression. A relapse of fear, panic, the feeling or 'pleasedontletmedie' will come back, maybe stronger than before. Personally, I'd wait for eternity to be over before going through that again.
I’d like to say that I didn’t look back. I think I always will. And it frightens me. Why have I become so enraptured with the feelings of imminent death?
