The Second Intelligent Species: The Cyclical Earth Read Free Page A

something caught my eye.
    Something distracted me from drinking in Beth’s splendor. I didn’t know what it was Iwitnessed at the time. I thought I saw a flash of bright light towards the west. It didn’t last long, and I wondered if I might have imagined it at first. Beth was still hanging up clothes. She didn’t see it. I didn’t mention it to her. I went back to watching her struggle with the laundry. She was too short on one end, and spent most of her time on her tiptoes—fun to watch. “The Orionids are visible tonight, how about we sleep outside and watch them?” Just as she said that, she dropped a clothespin.
    “Naked?” The Orionids were some falling stars left by some comet or something like that. I didn’t want to waste time watching the empty sky when I could be watching the ballgame.
    “On second thought, I don’t think so. There are too many mosquitoes. I’ll get all bit up.”
    “I’ll rub some salve on your bites.” I walked up behind her and gave her the sign that the steak was no longer a problem.
    I had been so infatuated with her, I forgot about what I thought I’d seen. My flirtations continued until a distant rumbling put an end to my psychological foreplay: a deep guttural reverberation from the bowels of the earth. It sounded like it was coming closer. I could sense it in my bones, and my heart. I just knew this wasn’t going to be good.

Chapter 3
    The Earthquake

    Beth looked up at me and I down to her. The sound increased to a deafening thunder below our feet.
    “Earthquake.” Beth grabbed me by the arm.
    I could see over the hedges into the next lot, where she couldn’t. I saw the first ripple move the land. Then we felt it hit. The earth convulsed in a way I didn’t think was possible. I would guess about a seven or eight magnitude earthquake hit our small town. I had no way of telling for sure its actual size.
    Dust was emanating from the field adjacent to our property. The trees along the property line were shaking and losing their leaves. It was like Fall came and went all at once. The walls of our house flexed as the earth under it moved side to side. With each convulsion I expected the hundred-year-old two-story home to collapse.
    I had lived there twenty-five years. We’d had an earthquake of about four point five on the Richter scale, eighteen or nineteen years ago. It rattled the windows and spilled my coffee. Thewater in the fish tank splashed around, and that was the extent of it. This one knocked Beth and me right off our feet. The earth was moving so violently that we slid along the ground enough to get grass stains on our clothes. We crawled up to the road to see down towards town. Power poles were snapping off. Sparks from the downed wires were dancing as the wires whipped. You could smell the electricity in the air. We could hear every window in town breaking, every car alarm was going off. Our attention was drawn to a loud cracking sound resonating from the back of our house. It was the sound of the back half breaking away from the main portion. Because the structure was built on a hill, when the smaller half broke away, it rolled down to the very spot Beth had been only moments ago. Thankfully, she had moved. The last time I saw the clothesline, it was being surrounded by a cloud of dust and what remained of the roof.
    The tremors seemed endless. Besides the rumbling, car alarms, glass breaking, and dogs barking, the fire siren could be heard blowing a half-mile away. This rural town was the last to have one. They kept it for tradition only.
    Breathing became difficult due to all the dust that had drifted from the collapse of our back addition. Insulation and dust drifted with the wind like the smoke of a campfire, always in the direction where you are standing.
    After what seemed like a set of about three or four smaller earthquakes, all larger than the one I had experienced before when I was younger, everything just rumbled. I can’t be sure how long we