Sitting on my bed Sunday afternoon I realized something odd. The floor beneath my bare feet was rising upward. I was facing my window and before I knew what was happening my knees were level with my chest. Looking at the rounded carpet before me, it took several seconds to comprehend what was happening.
Suddenly, my mind snapped back to reality and right before my eyes the wall with the window promptly cracked right down the middle. Looking through the crack, I saw rolling hills where my once flat front lawn used to be.
That’s when I heard the screams. It took a moment to realize they were coming from my own mouth. The terror at what was happening hit me like a wash of cold water. Everything was not as it should be, something was very wrong.
My sister was there instantly beside me and suddenly the ceiling was falling down on top of both of us. I instinctively put my hands up and held the bowing drywall.
“Sal! What do we do?!”
I heard my terrified voice call out to my sister who was crouched beside me in the shelter of my arms. She didn’t answer. I looked out through the crack that was now present in my once yellow wall and saw that the rolling hills had gave way to deep cavernous cracks- black and horrifying. The contrast of the deep green grass and black earth was magnificent. The two very different colours sitting there side by side looked startling.
I saw a neighbour; he must have been a neighbour as he was in our front yard, on his tractor on his own island of green surrounded by deep cracks. A woman was calmly working beside him, clearing debris. That’s when I realized not only how sore my arms were, but that convulsing ground had stopped.
Another chill settled in, if this man was out there already on his tractor, where was my father? That led me to think the worst possible answer to that dreadful question, and another wash of cold fear fell over me.
I heard a voice beside me - my mother.
“Well, that was cool!I went outside and got a good look guys.”
And then I woke up.
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