The Earthquake
It sounded like an express train coming.
I had seen plenty of trains when I saw my sister off to her boarding school in the highlands. Huge metal beasts belching smoke and steam, impossible to talk over, just hold sticky hands until the moment the steam whistle shrieked and she had to climb the ladder on board.
That awful, empty feeling of being left and alone, forgetting the constant fights and spite of our normal sisterly relationship. I would not see her again for six weeks and my other sister was only a baby so I wouldn't be able to fight with her for many years.
The wheels would start to turn with much grinding of metal on metal, slowly picking up speed and shaking the ground with the massive effort to start moving. Breaking free the noise would develop a regular beat and I would watch the small, white oval of her face being pulled into the distance.
This noise in the night sounded similar but like a hundred express trains coming straight for my bed. It seemed to be approaching in waves and as each wave broke all the dogs started howling.
Closer and closer it came. Dogs howling in terror in the night.
The rushing and roaring hit the room and the walls and floor turned liquid. The noise filled my ears and the room wobbled around me. The floor looked like the sea with rolling waves running across it and the walls danced to this new sound .
I clung to the safe island of my bed but my mother crawled down the corridor to my bedroom and dragged me down to the floor.
'If we die we'll all go together' she roared above the noise.
Realising that she would pick me up in her mouth like a kitten if I didn't follow her to her bedroom and my sister I scurried after her on my hands and knees. The floor writhed under my hands but mother dragged me implacably forward. The floor felt as if it was a tide forcing me back but eventually we tumbled up on to the bed where the baby giggled happily to see us.
We curled up together and slowly the noise abated and the room settled to its usual rigidity. The aftershocks came all night. Not as severe as the first tremors but as before preceded by the waves of howling dogs and the grinding of the huge train rushing towards us.
