ORBIS

V

The Earthquake is back this time the whole room is SHAKING!! And shaking wildly, like its being juggled into the air up and down repeatedly... These jerks are messing the whole room up, and the rambling or rattling of all the 'debris' is almost deafening. I hear constant 'THUDS!' and 'FLUNKS!'. The Penjing is vibrating and almost at the edge of the shelf... NOO!! ITS GONNA FALL!! And down goes the whole garden...splattering at the ground with splinters and wooden pieces flying all over the place. It all happened in slow-motion... which felt weird... My whole body is going up and down forcefully and my jaw is constantly hitting my upper teeth. I am dead worried about my tongue, which is quite reflective of myself as I don't give a shit about anything but my TONGUE... The juggling now stops and the whole room and its components go into FREE FALL... all the stuff- The couch, the armchairs, the almost-nonexistent-plants, the three legged table, the paintings, the broken Penjing and its broken pieces, start levitating and moving up slowly and steadily. I cover my face to stop the things hitting my face. At this point I am floating 5 feet above the ground in a Sky-diving pose. The room seems to have been falling for 15 to 20 minutes now. I just pray for my life with tears trying to fall down but immediately getting pushed up to my ears. My heart is pounding with INTENSITY with a strange feeling of a void inside my chest.

I am just anticipating the landing when The Room hits the ground, but I also have this faint belief that it won't- It will not hit the ground, EVER.

I flap my hands and try to swim through the debris to get into a more comfortable position. My eye catches onto a red shiny Ruby, but I realize that it is the apple from the miniature Garden. I pluck it from the air and put it in my pocket.

I hear a sound, deafening in magnitude, like that of a missile about to hit, or the cartoonish sound that indicates a rock falling onto a characters head. And I immediately know that we are about to land.

I go into fetal position, like I'm about to 'Cannon Ball'. My arms around my knees, clutching each other for comfort- but not getting any. My head sinking into my closed and bent thighs. I can already feel the impact, and my mind tells me to scream and screech for my life.