Story - These are your knees; kneel
[Excerpt from "Landlore, V1". Final writings may vary in the book.]
Story - These are your knees; kneel: Zithel once made a life outta hiking around to various Phish concerts, hitting a rave or two along the way. His sister Lolo's still out hiking to this very day. Though under the awning of the house we were squatting at the time, the thick rain came down with so much force that it splashed up a mist that'd already soaked our legs. At the time, it was only Zithel and I, soaking wet and drinking up the pure energy of a rather violent Texas storm. With a gleam in his eyes, Zithel said, "I love storms."
"Love... love! storms!" I affirmed.
Zithel exhaled a long plume of smoke and sighed. That was all the agreement I needed... but I wasn't done. I'd hit upon the very connection that I'd been grasping for. "It's disasters! I love the Earth in turmoil... shaking, splashing, howling... roaring! ...as if to tell us she's still alive, still fighting, and she's calling for us to do the same."
Zithel was laughing. "Ya know, talk like that gets a bum locked up."
"A'ite, diggy... I ever tell you 'bout the time I almost slept thru my first earthquake?"
*blank stare*
I took that as my cue to continue. "OK, so... I'm sleeping in this lavanderia in Seattle. Some shaking jostles me, and so I'm looking' up from my bag. It registers, it clicks, but sleepy-time-me says this is all somehow normal. That's 'cuz sleepy-time-me's a dirty liarhead. Well, I put my head back down, but the shaking's rude enough to go wakin' me up again. Sleepy-time-me just thought, 'Didn't we already do this?' So I put my head back down.
"Round 3. Shaky's got my attention. 'Holy sh!t', I thought. 'Everything's really fu@#ing shaking!'
"As if to accentuate the thought, a foam square falls outta the ceiling and lands with a 'get the fu@# out' kinda noise. My bag and I are all ears, so I break for the door.
"Outside, the world's shakin' itself all to hell. Metal, stone, trees... it's all jolting sharply in every direction. But this... this! ...is all just foreplay.
"What brought me to my knees was the wave. This fu@#ing thing visibly jumps at me, comin' out and thru the building across the parking lot. The wood of the building warped in a ripple like water. When it hit the ground, the wave comes right on ripplin' thru the concrete at me. One second I'm watchin' the wave, the next I was on my knees... 'n fighting to hold myself up.
"I felt the pavement, but it wasn't water. The energy it'd hit me with was fu@#ing great! I wanted more, but everything just got all quiet-like after that... just a bit o' shakin' here 'n there... a bit o' the jitters."
When I didn't say anything else, Zithel prompted me go on. "What'd you do then?"
"Eh, I walked up the hill to help put the library back together. I figured they had something to lose, so they probably didn't enjoy the quake as much as I did. Besides, I felt so blessed by the thing that I wanted to give somthin' back. It felt good, like being reminded of how small I was. Every storm of any size gets me in the same way... it humbles me."
Thunder rumbled in 'n all around us. We smoked in silence after that, enrapt in awe of the world as the sky broke apart above us.
Song of the Day: [Click to Download]
Adele/Portishead/B.O.B./John Legend - Deep & Sour (Robin Skouteris Mash)
"Deep and Sour" by Robin Skouteris
Notes: Don't miss the #TNI Recap for last week, as the topic was "Travel Problem Solving". The answers definitely gave me plenty to think about and to laugh about. As my tweet about this story made the recap, I thought I'd share it here a bit in advance (instead of savin' it exclusively for "Landlore"). Enjoy! We'll get back to the Grand Canyon posts next week. As to the Song of the Week, the free downloads are going fast. Get it while you can!
