LJ Idol Week 25: The Waffle House Index
It was the sound of hope, rumbling through the air like the call of a savior.
Okay, no, that’s not entirely true.
It was also the sound of dread, anxiety, fear, anticipation and a foreshadowing that in the next quarter of a second, you were going to need something to hold on to.
Almost as if one, our entire summer school biology class slid out of their seats to land tucked under desks with one hand gripping a desk leg, just as we had been practicing since we were kindergarteners.
And then it came.
The rattling of walls, the rocking of the floor, the sound of pencils and pens and paper sliding across desks above us, the tinkling of lights as they swayed somewhere over our heads.
And then it stopped. As quickly as it had come.
Heads poked out from under desks, people stood up and looked around.
A few pens lay on the ground, but everything else seemed to have survived.
“Turn your books to page thirty-eight,” Mr. Wilson intoned.
We gaped at him.
“But we just had an earthquake!” Mark cried. “Shouldn’t we go outside?”
Mr. Wilson peered at us over the rim of his glasses. “You’re all still in one piece, aren’t you?” he said. “Open your books to page thirty-eight.”
We grumbled, but did what he said.
“Geez,” I muttered to Cindy next to me. “What kind of earthquake does it take to miss class around here?”
•••
It was like the lord of earthquakes, or Mother Nature, or whoever controls those sorts of things had heard our prayers.
The night before, we’d sat in a miserable study group in a mostly empty Denny’s, cramming for our exam.
“Why does anyone need to know what happened in Macedonia in 600 BC?” complained Mark.
“Maybe we’ll have an earthquake tomorrow during class,” Erika said, with a dreamy expression, like she was talking about winning the lottery.
“That would be so great,” Cindy said. “I’m never going to remember this stuff.”
There were murmurs of assent.
Three hours later, we separated, dragging ourselves home and to bed while muttering to ourselves about Greeks and Romans and who fought whom.
In the morning, I was still muttering to myself, desperately going over names and dates and locations, when I heard it. That beautiful sound that reminded me somewhat of a train coming straight for me.
It’s hard to describe the sound of an earthquake coming, but we were Californians. That distinctive noise was ground into our identity since we were small children. You heard it once, you knew exactly what it was the next time.
I turned around, halfway through putting a shirt on, a smile on my face, to see the contents of an entire bookshelf go flying through the air to the other side of my bedroom.
The smile was replaced with fear as I scrambled down the hall, shrieking, to meet my mother and my sister, both also shrieking. We raced down the stairs and threw ourselves under the doorframe to my dad’s office in a bizarre game of musical chairs, desperate to be the one under that particular doorframe, as if the doorframe to the dining room just five steps away was somehow not worthy.
And then came the pounding. And the screaming.
We yanked open the front door once we had determined it wasn’t a murderer coming to get us to let our neighbors in. Aileen and Aaron shoved their way under the doorframe with us, all of us talking at once.
“We should go check the house,” my mom said once the shaking seemed to have subsided for the most part.
We followed behind her closely, like we thought we might fall into a sinkhole in the living room if we weren’t skin to skin.
We found the dog happily slurping up remnants of mustard and ketchup and barbecue sauce from the kitchen floor, the refrigerator door hanging open.
“Sandy! No!” my mom yelled, trying to usher the poor dog out of the kitchen before she licked up the glass from the bottles that had broken.
I pointed to a lump of red and yellow on the floor.
“Rest in peace, spaghetti and meatball leftovers,” I said sadly. “You never got to fulfill your final purpose in life.”
“Okay,” my mother said, when the food was off the floor and the refrigerator was closed tight. “Go get your stuff. I’m taking you to school.”
Looks of horror appeared on faces.
“What?”
“Why?”
Aaron didn’t say a word, just rubbed his ear like maybe he was going deaf.
“You do have school,” my mom said.
“But … earthquake,” I muttered weekly.
“You aren’t missing a test because of a silly earthquake!” my mom shouted. “Now get your stuff and get in the car!”
“So unfair,” we grumbled, but only after we were out of earshot. Sometimes my mom could be scary when she got on her tangents about the importance of education.
•••
I woke up to my bed being possessed. Shaking left and right and up and down.
I screamed and fled downstairs, running into my sister in the darkness.
“I can’t see, I can’t see!” Liz shrieked.
My dad flipped a switch. Nothing happened.
“Power’s out,” he said, his powers of observation on full display.
He headed out into the night, at least to the garage, to find some flashlights and a portable radio. The rest of us kept up our vigil under the doorframe as aftershocks sent dishes and books and who knows what else tumbling down to the ground.
My dad came back. We settled on the floor, waiting as he fiddled with the radio to finally get some news.
Biggest earthquake in years. Buildings collapsed. Cars falling off overpasses. Trees down. Fatalities presumed.
“We lost the fence,” my dad said. “And my favorite tree.”
My mom patted his leg comfortingly.
“Okay,” I said. “Tell me we don’t have to go to school tomorrow.”
Even through the blackness, I could feel my mother’s glare, going straight through me.
“If school is open,” she said. “You are going.”
“Maybe it won’t be open,” Liz said.
It was open. Of course it was. Our mother dropped us off in the morning. It looked just how we had left it - in perfect condition. The houses across the street from it looked like they’d been to a warzone.
“What is this building made of?” Liz groused.
“It’s going to be the end of the world, and we’re still going to have to go to school.” I kicked at a rock in my path.
“So unfair,” Liz said, and I nodded my agreement.
•••
It came in a roar so loud and so thunderous the hair on our arms stood up. Screams filled the air as people dove under desks.
It was too strong for the one-handed hold. I gripped the desk with both hands, knuckles turning white, teeth gritted.
The room seemed to literally be shaking from side to side. Desks, and people, slid back and forth, bumping into each other.
Windows high on the walls blew out, lights above our heads came crashing down.
It went on for hours, or so it seemed, every dip in intensity turning around to be even stronger a half second later.
Finally, though, it came to an end.
“Is everyone alive?” Mr. Needles screamed.
He started counting frantically as heads popped up, people dragging themselves to their feet, some stopping to puke up their lunch before fully committing to being upright again.
Mr. Needles had just determined there were no casualties in Calculus A when the shouting outside our door started.
Jason, the closest to the door, yanked it open. I hurried after my classmates, but didn’t get far, almost crashing into someone who had suddenly stopped moving.
“What are …?”
The words died in my throat. I stared, like everyone else, in front of me. I raised a hand. It was shaking. I managed to point at the horizon, past the ruins that were once streets and houses and cities.
“Is that …. the ocean?” I managed.
“Yup,” said Jason.
“But.” Cindy sounded like she could barely get out another word. “That’s not where the ocean is supposed to be.”
“Huh,” said a girl whose name I didn’t know. “California really has broken off to become an island.”
We continued staring.
“Alright,” Mr. Needles yelled suddenly. “Get back inside! We have a geography test to take!”
“But Mr. Needles,” Jason said. “Geography just changed! We haven’t had time to study it yet!”
“That,” Mr. Needles said. “is your problem,” and he ushered us all back in. “School does not stop for earthquakes.”
Fiction. Mostly. But inspired by real-life events. The first section is actually true. The second section is 75 percent true. It just happened years before the first section. The other sections thankfully are not true.
I did grow up in Southern California, though, and forget the Richter Scale or the Waffle House Index. We measured earthquakes on a scale of 'How long will this get us out of a test?' Unfortunately, we never actually had an earthquake the day of a test. Sad times.
This tale was written for Week 25 of therealljidol. There are only 11 people left now. If you would like to vote for me, or read and vote for any of the other 10, voting is here.