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June 12, 2006

There was an earthquake this morning. I was asleep, although not soundly: I'd only been out for an hour, and in the creeping humidity of the Hiroshima summer, and in the unsettled stomach of a man who'd eaten things he couldn't identify at some horrifically expensive Japanese restaurant the night before, sleep had taken the form of flight, with one of those small, bounce-several-times-until-you-get-some-air-under-you prop planes and a cracked jungle runway as the means of take-off. It wasn't coming easily. I was wracked with guilt as well. Earlier that day, I'd sworn that I'd go find some wild monkeys on Monday (there might be some on an island near Shikoku, reachable within two and a half hours), and it was now clear that I wasn't going to get enough sleep to do it. I was also consumed with thoughs of revenge upon a drunken co-worker who babbled non-stop through what everyone else agreed was an achingly gorgeous (my adjectives, but the point remains) rendition of "No Surprises" at karaoke.

Fuck! Everything shook. Naturally, it took me a while to understand that I wasn't asleep. I tried to remember what I'd been taught to do when everything started shaking. We had fire drills and tornado drills at my grade school, but I couldn't remember if there had been any drills for this sort of thing. I thought about safety drills and how unlikely it seemed that the building could stand much longer, given how much it was shaking, and whether, when it fell, it would fold evenly and without a cloud of dust, like a deck of cards - I had decided that it would, when the earthquake finally stopped. I heard a television go on in the apartment below me, and someone in another apartment swore in English. I stumbled to my computer to confer with the internet. I figured the news wouldn't have anything yet, but it seemed totally irresponsible of the weather not to mention the earthquake. I made it out to the balcony to clear my head; I could hear the television, and a telephone conversation next door. The first few cars after that sounded like furtive escape attempts.

Announcements began on previously-unseen loudspeakers outside. I remember a jingle before the voice began, because there usually is a jingle, and then a firm voice said, "Hiroshima," and a few more sentences after that. I had to marvel at the fact that I couldn't understand a single word, other than "Hiroshima". My Japanese isn't terrible, but I couldn't even pick a preposition out of there. The announcement was repeated three times. I studied the tone of the voice carefully. It was saying that nothing had been broken, I decided. It listed some places that hadn't been damaged, and described several respects in which there wasn't any trouble. I went back to sleep and slept pretty soundly.

When I woke up, I discovered that a bottle of olive oil had fallen from a shelf in my kitchen and broken on the floor. Also, a few dishes that had been drying on the rack above the sink had fallen back into the sink; they'd have to be washed again. I muttered angrily, pulled on a pair of jeans and went for a massage instead of dealing with it.

(news) A strong earthquake rattled southern Japan early Monday followed by a milder temblor in the north, but there was no danger of a tsunami from either, the nation's meteorological agency said.

At least five people were injured from the magnitude-6.2 quake in the south, but no one died, Kyodo News agency reported. No injuries or damage were reported from the second quake, Kyodo said.

The first quake occurred at around 5 a.m. 87 miles underground in Oita Prefecture (state) on the southern island of Kyushu. It struck wide areas of southern and western Japan, Kyodo said.

As it turns out, my neighbor swore because he realized that his fish tank - and his two turtles - were perched directly above his computers (and his video game systems, and his external drives, and his router, et cetera), and the entire thing was shaking pretty hard. He lunged for the fish tank and held it tightly, wondering if he should try to lift it from the shelf and away to safety, or if that was too risky. In the end, the turtles were fine. Nobody saved my goddam olive oil, though. Jesus, I still need to clean that.

(news) A woman in her 60s was hospitalized in stable condition after hitting her head on a pole in the city of Matsuyama on southwestern Shikoku island, the fire department said.

In the city of Hiroshima, a junior high school student was injured by a falling object, a 56-year-old man hurt his arm and a man in his 40s was scratched on his face by his frightened cat, officials said.

In Hatsukaichi city of Hiroshima prefecture, an 82-year-old woman fell and broke her right leg after her dog was surprised by the quake and dragged her on the ground, a fire department official said.

In another case, a man staying at a campsite in southwestern Miyazaki prefecture "hit his elbow hard against a wall when rushing to turn off the heat, but the injury was very mild," a prefectural official said.

The junior high school student was still up from the night before, studying. I'm fairly certain about that. I'd be curious to know how the cat developed an association between that guy's face and earthquakes, though. "I can stop this," the cat thought. "That's the face. It's all on my shoulders now. I've been waiting for this. By God, this is what I was put here to do. And now, I'm going to stop the world from shaking. I'm going after that face."

After the World Cup match that night, we compared notes. A few people had caught different pieces of the announcement. Evidently, it had been quite detailed (and not pre-recorded), with notes on the epicentre, the force of the quake, and the fact that no tsunamis had been created. We talked about what had fallen in our apartments, how disorienting it had been to wake up during an earthquake, and how this never happens back home.

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Comments:

It's unfortunate that your coworker didn't die during the earthquake. Babbling through good karaoke is unforgivable.

Posted by: Your Semidivine Colleague | June 12, 2006 05:53 PM

Well, it's 1 goddam a.m. in the morning, and I'm fairly certain I nearly woke the entire house when I stumbled from my chair, clutching my sides and failing to hold back the UPROARIOUS MANIACAL LAUGHTER which decided that IT SHALL BE UNLEASHED in response to the curious paragraph regarding monsieur Cat.

Incidentally, I'm going out to California for school this next year. The school handbook says, "The region of southern California is known for earthquakes, but they are usually small." A wonderful thing to have in a school handbook. I hope I get to experience some of these Battles of the Fault Lines. I mean, as long as nobody gets hurt, not any more than a badly stubbed elbow into the wall.

Sadly, they may reach a 6.2 magnitude while I'm there, and I'll have no broken olive oil to clean up.

Posted by: zoogies | June 13, 2006 12:07 AM

Ahem. Correction: sadly, they may *never* reach a 6.2 magnitude while I'm out in CA.

Because it would be pretty terrific if it did.

Posted by: zoogies | June 13, 2006 12:11 AM

Given that the Japanese have had horribly traumatic experiences with earthquakes (Kobe 1997) and are generally terrified of them, we try not to be all "Woo! Earthquakes are fun!"

But, really, assuming nobody dies or anything, woo, earthquakes arefun.

Posted by: Marc Heiden | June 13, 2006 10:37 PM

*laughing*
That cat..seizing the moment...I'm sure it was all just an excuse.
And I love how thorough they were with the injury report...if I got on the news every time I scraped something (like my elbow), I'd be a star.
P.S. I'm glad you're doing comments these days. :)

Posted by: becky | June 19, 2006 12:13 PM

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