Earthquake Country
Part of the Santa Anas universe. The people here are not people who appear in that piece.
Original, G, fairly short.
The sun is setting on the other side of the sea. Two people jumping from rock to rock along the shore-line pause to watch as the sun slips below the edge, a half-circle, a scrap, a sliver. On the water the light is broken.
The woman watches it, but her brother turns away, takes a few more giant leaps across the sideways rocks. He has long legs.
He stops by one of the rocks - strata upended, diagonal from the horizon, but softened in layers from years of wind and water. This is earthquake country.
The woman wraps her jacket tighter around her and moves to stand beside him. 'It looks like someone's been playing tic-tac-toe on that rock,' she says. It's not entirely true; the lines are cross-hatch and blur, always straight but never at right angles. They are made, she knows, from places where the softer rock has worn away just a little faster than the surroundings. The long ago quake has tilted the rock towards them; a perfect drawing board.
'That's what happens to rocks in a place like this,' the man says absently. He fingers one of the raised scars, crouched and drumming his other hand on his shoe. He stands, wanders on a little.
The woman frowns at the boulder, in puzzlement or thought: 'People, too,' she says.
Original, G, fairly short.
The sun is setting on the other side of the sea. Two people jumping from rock to rock along the shore-line pause to watch as the sun slips below the edge, a half-circle, a scrap, a sliver. On the water the light is broken.
The woman watches it, but her brother turns away, takes a few more giant leaps across the sideways rocks. He has long legs.
He stops by one of the rocks - strata upended, diagonal from the horizon, but softened in layers from years of wind and water. This is earthquake country.
The woman wraps her jacket tighter around her and moves to stand beside him. 'It looks like someone's been playing tic-tac-toe on that rock,' she says. It's not entirely true; the lines are cross-hatch and blur, always straight but never at right angles. They are made, she knows, from places where the softer rock has worn away just a little faster than the surroundings. The long ago quake has tilted the rock towards them; a perfect drawing board.
'That's what happens to rocks in a place like this,' the man says absently. He fingers one of the raised scars, crouched and drumming his other hand on his shoe. He stands, wanders on a little.
The woman frowns at the boulder, in puzzlement or thought: 'People, too,' she says.