I
work in a large office building in
the financial center of San
Francisco. Life is pretty much
routine and mundane. We do our daily
chores looking forward with a
certain amount of anticipation to
lunch hours and coffee breaks, and
of course, five o’clock and the end
of the working day.
This was a day like any other day.
Exactly like any other day in that
it was nearing the noon hour and I
was getting a little hungry and
deciding how to spend my lunch hour.
Eating and then some shopping or
maybe just window wishing, as we
white collar girls often did.
I
had just sat down at my desk and the
building shook violently like a huge
dog shaking off its fur after coming
out of the water. I gazed around me,
feeling my eyes become stock-still.
There were a number of people
surrounding me in various positions
of writing, typing, talking and it
seemed as though with a wave of the
wand, they were frozen statues in a
gallery and no longer flesh and
blood. The only real thing was their
eyes, which had the word
"earthquake" branded upon them in
huge, tall, capital letters or
perhaps I was just projecting my own
terror into everyone else’s face.
The inanimate world around me sprung
instantly to life. This gigantic
steel structure where I spent so
many hours each day was twisting and
moaning. The lights above me were
swinging precariously uttering
shrill notes of anxiety. File
cabinets, desks, and typewriters
were all making their own individual
sighs of pain. We, we human being,
were trivial and meaningless as all
around us our world, the constant
world, was no longer devoid of life
but was a victim on the rack and
writhing in agony. And we, the ones
who peopled it, were in our private
torture chambers and I was horribly
aware that none of us could escape.
As
suddenly as it had begun, the
nightmare ended as though the victim
had been mercifully released at last
by death. A penetrating quiet
surrounded me and my ears were
straining for another cry of pain.
Slowly we came out of our lethargy
and life began to take on its usual
shape. I looked around. The office
was just as before; the exterior
world that we knew was the same –
dull and lifeless. The walls were
stalwart and cold; the lights beamed
impersonally down upon us as always.
The interior of the living world was
quite the opposite; the past
turbulence was still very much
within us. We were breathing deeply,
talking too loudly and moving
awkwardly across the room as though
we were testing our ability to be
alive. Out of everything that was
said at the time, the one that
seemed most apt to me was someone
saying "Boy, that was a bad one this
time!"
