Is it me or has this week felt really long? I feel worn out as we finally reach Friday. Maybe it is because it is that it is my first week back on a normal schedule. Or maybe it is that most of my dreams have been action filled. Running, loading catapults, that sort of thing. Last night I ad a dream where i was chasing a dog who got bigger with every circle he made. He started off as a teacup poodle and ended up as a Cane Corso. most bizarre. Anyway shall we round out the week with the Friday Writing prompt? I think we should. Timers at the ready and Go team go!
It took me a while to get into this one. I only sort of decided that something would be coming out of the ground at the last second. i have no clue where i was going with it.
October 14th: It shifted with undulating movements.
It shifted with undulating movements. From the parapet looking down it seemed as if there was a giant snake buried beneath the turf. The ground moved and the wave grew closer to the ancient castle.
‘Earthquake,’ I thought as the ground began to tremble. I always thought that an earth quake would simply shake, like a dog with a rope toy clasped in its mouth. The seemed to shiver the world instead.
I saw my fingers go white as I gripped the stone. I knew there was no way to get off of the parapet in time and the thought of being trapped within should the stones of this ancient fortress fall was more terrifying than the movement of the earth. Surely it would be better to stay on top. Here nothing could be shaken down from a shelf or collapse upon me. Above was only sky. I was pretty sure a fall from this height would kill me but with the way the earth shivered and shook beneath me it felt like the stones would fall from below collapsing under me.
It was a foolish thought but it was gone almost as soon as the quake. The building beneath me remained standing. It swayed with the movement of the earth but no more.
‘Perhaps we were too far from the main part of the earthquake. The word epicenter drifted through my mind but I couldn’t decide if an epicenter was where the quake hit the hardest or the center from which the earths movements undulated. I had never lived in an area where earth quakes occurred and remembered it only dimly as part of a long ago science lesson.
The details were irrelevant and I reminded myself to not use any specific scientific sounding terms until I looked them up. There was no need to parade my ignorance.
I looked out once more upon the wide landscape falling before me. For the most part it looked as though nothing had happened. That the undulations were my imagination. Here and there though there were cracks in the land, fissures opened up in the dirt. In one spot it looked like a dark spot was spreading. The tremors seemed to have opened up access to an underground spring. To my eyes it looked almost as if the land had wet itself in reaction to the quake. I decided to keep that thought to myself as well.
Deciding I had better see if anything was damaged below I turned to the stairwell and began to descend inside. I toured the inside floor by floor but to be honest there wasn’t much of a change to show that anything had happened. The shelves, what few remained of them had nothing on them that could be knocked off. The building had never been wired for electricity or fitted up with plumbing or gas. There was very little that could rupture. Most of the plaster had long since fallen off of the stone walls. There were a few looser bits that fell as the earth shifted but as I would have had to remove that loose plaster anyway it wasn’t all that traumatic to see.
The stones remained intact, standing as they had since they were put in place. There was nothing really to see. However I did my due diligence and looked. I felt rather disappointed in the lack of destruction. I was pleased of course that the building took so little damage and that I remained unscathed. It was my first earthquake though and there was a slight disappointment in having come through it so well. I decided to investigate the water coming out of the ground. That at least was some damage and at a remove from the building so it was destruction without personal trauma.
Ten til Midnight 