The Waiting Room.

5-be still.

The stillness of Grimesmere fed the citizens peace of mind. For a time, the stomaches of their minds knew nothing but fullness and gratitude. As the Gully grew tiresome, it felt a hunger, and began to rumble. It lived through an anger ignored by those residing on the surface, and as is inevitable, it burst. What once was an oasis, now resembles a biological war zone, generously. Through the eyes of Herma Peachy, who had woken due to absence of her lover, one would've seen snow. She worried for the climate, but more-so she empathized with Mother Nature. Herma rested her palms on a balcony rail adjacent to the bed she once dreamt in. She knew Palmira slept curiously, waking her up in a flash, starving for knowledge at all hours of the night, and Herma admired her for this.

Regardless, she despised waking up isolated, so she spoke. "Oh, Mother," she mourned. "You travail tirelessly for us, how may I aid you? My fidelity is endlessly yours." As was common practice, diverse rats brought her offerings of clovers and river glass. She arrided, rewarding the rodents with small kisses atop their skulls. "Mother, I thank you for this life, and the lives of my friends. In such a finite universe, your offerings transcend a tangible realm."

Herma examined her collection, pondering something new to be born. She felt a caress along the indent of her hip, and a chin rest sloppily on her collar. "Tonight, I discovered something," she said, fastening her arms around Herma.

"What's that?" Herma enabled.

"Well, I was dreaming about swimming in the Olympics, and it occurred to me that there's numerous tied races in swimming every year. Wanna know why?" Herma nodded. "It's because it's impossible to create a pool with perfect dimensions, so national swimming law is races are measured to the hundredth of a second, as apposed to most timed sports which are measured in the thousandth, as to allow three centimetres variability in the pool lanes' length." Palmira stroked her lovers ginger follicles as she spoke. Flakes of frozen geometry embellished the pair as they swam in the myriad of stars above.

Suddenly, Palmira shrieked as a stone flung off the roof of her home, landing harshly on her head. She led Herma in retreat through the sliding glass doors, as tremors weaved through every crack in the wood panelling, and monstrous geodes tumbled down the land mass around them, trampling everything in proximity. The historian allowed the door to remain open in length as rats scrambled in. She prayed for one as it travelled across the balcony, only to be relieved from life by a tipped over fire log. She coddled Herma, wanting to preserve her somehow.

The mountain felt refreshed as it began to shed its skin. Ancient layers of terrain slid down over the feeble town. A wind, which was closer to permafrost than wind, fell over Grimesmere, turning Stillgrave to slush and ringing the bells of every door. Herma raced to the other side of Palmira's home and searched out the window. She saw the very ground rumble in starvation, squinting her eyes to locate one particular casualty. More precisely, five. Had she not been able to hear them, she could use the ear that is her mind. Avian screams coming from the mountain as her residence collapsed in the landslide. She sobbed instantly. The earth felt powerful in its relentlessness, so it escalated. Pillars and fixtures became magnetic with the debris and soon enough, collided aggressively and without hesitation with the home of Sau Booker, who resided not a two minute walk down the hillside from Herma. She watched, as she knew the blacksmiths fate. She mourned.

"Herma, please, we need to go downstairs."

As Grimesmere had failed, Herma remained still.

She thought of her life three hundred seconds ago, as she kissed a rat and prayed to Mother Nature. A ruthless earth laid underneath her, as Herma could never understand the morality of an almighty world. She thought of how many atoms there were making up the planet, and how few it took to obliterate Sau with the click of Her boots. And of her son, Quincy, the taxi driver and taxidermist. How where he was, his mother's death would be unknowable until his return. He wouldn't even see the cabinets rattle.

She felt desperate hands tear her from the window, and drowned in the notion of leaving Sau for her own safety.

It would be hours in this state.

Grimesmere feasted of the feeling. It grew just to consume and bathed in triumph. Nothing like guilt, but an aftertaste of justice and flesh. In the unlimited atoms that formed the Gully, not a single one felt remorse as they split open the community's bones and found Sau, who felt nothing. The house began to destabilize just as she rose from a blissful rest. She rubbed her exhausted eyes and perished immediately.

The Gully let out a belch.

Pines glided through the town and jumped recklessly as if the earths crust was tossing them about, not dissimilar from children's games. A fearsome tree had catapulted itself off the mountain side, parachuting directly atop the bridge across Stillgrave River. The bridge flew in all directions, piercing through Linette Tarver's roof, and flooding the dining room. The town vibrated for hours, creating wreckage where trauma hadn't come yet in the farthest parts of the Gully.

And, just as quickly as it destroyed, it yielded. No one left their homes that morning, out of a justified fear, until they did. All at once, everyone knew of Sau, and wept. Herma thought of her love-birds, and sobbed in a way unique from her peers.

Irwin had resided on the roof of his Camry that night, and slept in for the first time in months. When he woke, he resumed tilling the soil, and wondered if the snow he remembered from late in the night was merely a fever dream. He shrugged, and never thought of it again.

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