Temblor

The book I re-read on the way out to L.A. was Harlan Ellison's Slippage, a 1996 collection of stories (including "Mephisto in Onyx," which was yesterday's "Opening Shots" selection). The first few lines of the introduction:

Where to open the fissure: the earthquake or the heart attack?

The earthquake. It is officially listed as a 6.8-magnitude temblor by the U.S. Geological Survey's geophysicists at the Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colorado.

The Northridge, California "thruster." It hit at precisely, exactly, 4:31 a.m. on Monday the 17th of January 1994.

I read those lines early, early Sunday morning. I'd picked Slippage because a.) I'd just moved my science fiction bookcase down to the soon-to-be office, and it caught my eye, and b.) I had fond memories of reading it while flying to Las Vegas for our honeymoon back in 1997, and c.) I consider Ellison a California writer, and I try to read California writers while in California.

Today, at about 11:42 a.m., I was sitting in an X-Men idea meeting at the Marvel West offices. I heard a noise. Not a rumbling; not rattling. I'm sitting here, racking my brain trying to find a comparison, but I don't think I've ever heard anything like it. It just sounded... wrong.

And then the room started to shake.

Not vibrate... shake. Back and forth, like we were on an amusement ride. And we continued to shake for what felt like three minutes, but turned out to be only 30 seconds or so. And then it died down.

And then it hit me: I'd just felt a geniune California earthquake.

I wonder where Harlan Ellison was this time around...