six point three

I learnt a new, very important word today: jishin.

I awoke this morning to feel my building swaying; an odd, lilting motion. Normally groggy and bleary for a while when sleep finally releases me from her clutches, I was awake instantly. Petrified, watching the light above my head swinging crazily. Outside everything was deathly still.

I waited, pinned on my back, for the sound of falling, breaking, objects; and marvelled in a fascinated horror at the way my room was rocking from side to side, aware that there were four stories above me. If I got out of the house, would the whole building, or rather, fragments of the building, bury me in rubble, left to wait for emergency crews?; surely if I stayed inside the same fate awaited me?

Time stood still.
I flashed back to that day in the shower in Sydney, the day a huge track rumbled past the back of our house and everything vibrated for miles around. My mother thought I had tapped her on the shoulder and turned around to find no-one there but hear the sound of water from upstairs. That truck was so big it caused half of Newcastle – a city three hours north – to collapse.

This morning there was no doubt. The building was still swaying rhythmically and I mused that it must have been built to the legendary Japanese safety standards. Would it never end? I felt we had been rocking for over a minute. How distorted was time at this moment? Perhaps it had only been three or four seconds? No, it must have been at least thirty. By now I felt vaguely safer; my room was still intact and appeared unfazed by the tremor. Though the whole building was still moving with the earth, it didn’t appear to be about to come crashing down. As it settled back onto its foundations, the light above me kept swaying crazily, now creaking as inertia took over and twisted the cable. It stubbornly prolonged the experience.

I heard the sounds of doors opening above me as neighbours timidly checked outside for signs of carnage, chattered quietly and nervously among themselves and soon satisfied, went, presumably, back to bed.

Reaching over to read my watch it said 6:00. I desperately wanted to talk to someone. I desperately wanted to talk to my mum. Then I realised it was only 5:00. I stared at my surroundings for a long time, savouring my shock, feeling small and helpless; the child in me wanting to hide in my mothers skirts, the adult knowing I would only worry her.

Then came my justification. If she heard about it on the news first and couldn’t contact me, surely she would be more worried . . .

She took a long time to answer, and when she did, I broke into sobs, desperately trying to quell them, as she, groggy as I normally would be at this hour, tried to fathom who was disturbing her sleep.

We talked for a while about non consequential things, and I, like a small child who has had a nightmare, gradually calmed down and felt reality creep back into the world. Searching the internet as we spoke, there was nothing yet. The news was only half an hour old, if indeed it were news. I went back to bed and fell into a long deep slumber.

When I awoke, many hours later, I searched the internet again in vain. Finally I found a thirty second piece on the BBC Radio headline news.
“A strong earthquake has been felt in Southern and Western Japan shaking the city of Hiroshima. The quake, with a magnitude of 6.3, was centred deep below the island of Kooshu [sic]. Several people were injured, but there were no reports of any deaths. Some railway lines were temporarily closed for safety checks.”

Mum told me it was a public holiday today in Australia. I wondered for an instant if it were in honour of the soccer. Was the earthquake an omen? But the holiday was only for the Queen's Birthday.

Nothing special, as the Japanese like to remark.