Out of Titles

Last night, D hung 3 framed Chinese art on the wall against my bed. And while he was hanging them I was thinking, what if there was an earthquake? I hope those frames aren't gonna fall on my head. And guess what happened? About 3:45 a.m. I woke up and my room was fucking shaking! It was an earthquake! I immediately stood up and grabbed my shorts but then the tremor stopped. Whew! I'm glad those frames didn't fall.

I hate earthquakes! They always fuck with my head. I can still remember the July 16th earthquake in the Philippines. The epicenter was probably 20 miles from my house. Its magnitude was 7.8 resulting to a broken bridge over the Agno River connecting my town to the next one, cracks on the pavements, sinking of reclaimed area in Dagupan City, accidents, a big hotel crashing in Baguio City, landslides and power outages that lasted for months.

I can still remember how there were aftershocks almost every 30-45 minutes. It was pretty scary. It really fucked with my head when I was laying there in the living room trying to forget about the whole disaster that just happened then the ground starts shaking. My family and I would start running outside again. Hundreds of after-shocks followed in the next few months. Probably thousands. Or at least it felt to me that way.

Now, there's a big earthquake fault that runs right through the Bay Area. Two actually: the Hayward Fault that stretches from San Jose to the base of the East Bay Hills in San Pablo Bay. I live about a mile away from this fault. Hell I used to live right above it in the Montclair District! The other is the San Andreas Fault that spans roughly around 800 miles (1267 kilometers).

So there, I do have a reason to get scared. I just hope whatever big earthquakes they're predicting won't happen in my lifetime. One big earthquake is enough for me. I guess that's what you get for being born and choosing to live within the Pacific Rim of Fire.