2021 theme: RUPTURE

FAULT LINES Bonnie Schroeder Los Angeles, California, 4:30 AM, January 17, 1994 Noise yanks Amy from sleep as the bed beneath her sways. The house shudders and creaks, and closet doors bang against each other, lurching in their metal tracks. In another room, glass shatters. The tremor lasts less than twenty seconds, but it is enough for Amy to register Jason’s vacant spot next to her. A Southern California native, Amy is no stranger to the sickening rumbles underfoot when the earth throws temper tantrums, the pressure of two tectonic plates grinding against one another, intensifying until one of them gives.

Amy opens her mouth to call Jason’s name. Then she remembers. He’s gone. Has been gone for a month. She’s alone.

Wait. Not alone. The dog. Where is the dog?

“Luna?” she calls, her voice thick with fear and sleep.

No answer.

“Luna?”

The dog’s usual sleeping spot is a foam bed in the corner by the window.

It’s empty now.

Silence follows that irst tremor, but Amy knows to brace for more. Sure enough, here it comes, almost as strong as the irst. How long does it last?

She can’t tell. It feels like forever. By then, of course, she is full awake, and as soon as the shaking stops, she climbs out of bed and presses the light switch, a useless attempt. Naturally the power is out. But, she remembers, there’s a lashlight in the nightstand drawer, and, miraculously, it works. The beam illuminates the closet’s sliding doors, one of which has collapsed against the other, shaken from its track. She shoves it aside and claws through the pile of tumbled clothing, looking for shoes to protect her feet from broken glass — only to remember she’d stashed a pair of sneakers under the bed for just such an emergency. Such is everyday life in earthquake country.

She wobbles to the kitchen and inds wreckage everywhere: broken glasses and shattered china litter the loor. So many times she’d asked Jason to secure the cabinet doors — but it had been a halfhearted request. The inconvenience of opening and closing doors itted with earthquake latches had seemed to outweigh the possible beneit.

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