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Friday, April 18 at 5:38 a.m.:

I'm wondering if any of my Illinois, Kentucky or fellow Ohio residents here on Gaia felt something early this morning? Well, what am I saying- Illinois did for sure. Let me tell you, things like this come to be a rude awakening when we're fitfully trying to get a few more hours of sleep before lugging yourself wearily out of bed, getting your work uniform on, bolting down a breakfast and going to commit your duty for the day.

So I woke up around 5:38 this morning. That's not TOO unusual- I joke that I can never sleep in, thanks to what I call me "internal clock" set to were I can never sleep in on my day offs (getting up at 7 instead of 6 those days), or waking up 30 minutes before I really have to on the days I DO work. I was a bit irked that I woke up then, but I was alert- let me tel you- once I saw what was happening around me.

Next to my bed I have, on an entertainment system stand, a television. It's small, but good for games and such. On top of that is my dog like gargoyle statue, whom I jokingly dub "my guardian/beast familiar that watches me at night". I named him Zanamato because he had to be used during an art project (a boy was drawing him) and he needed a name for the piece, and the only thing that popped in my mind was the name of Yojimbo's overdrive in FFX ("Well, if you need a name for the piece, uses Zanamato." "How the HECK do you spell THAT?! And what IS that anyway? Greek??" wink .

At 5:38 a.m, nothing much makes sense, so, plainly, it wasn't clicking with me as to why my gargoyle was moving, shivering, shaking on his own. His stone body was rattling against the plastic casing of the television. I just watched him for a few seconds, and I admit, the thought of, "Oh DAMN, what, spirits at this time?!", came fluttering in my mind. I kept thinking that until I noticed something else.

My stag, raccoon and chipmunk skulls on my shelves were also rattling. Not only that, but my countless wolf statues, my Spooky skeleton doll, and my other numerous nicknacks where also shaking.

"s**t!" I bolted out of bed, stumbling over my own scattered remains of folders and binders (I was finalizing my book late last night, stopping at midnight; I was putting various profiles of characters and a few other pieces in their respective holdings), and managed to make it to my parents' room. I opened the door (without knocking; thank god for emergencies! I can get away with not being formal), and said in a cracked, extremely strained voice, "MOM! DAD! Wake up! Something is going on!"

I noticed their walls were shaking just as hard as mine were. They, thank god, didn't have objects as loosely sitting around as mine, so they weren't falling off the shelves like no tomorrow. Course, then again, now that I think back on it, I'm happy I didn't remain in my room; it would have very well been a reenactment of the "random heavy objects fall on me" day.

My mom and dad groggily, in their throes of sleep, mumbled to me that, "its a tremor- nothing to worry about. It'll pass, go back to bed".

Of course, I'm thinking, A TREMOR?! What! Are you freaking serious? What the hell! Don't tremors come along with earthquakes?! Does that very well mean we're having one, right now?!

Well, by then, the tremors had stopped. My kitten, Sutkei, was scared stiff, so she ended up sleeping the rest of the forty minutes on my bed, huddled next to my chest, paws curled and resting just below her chin. She really hates it when Mother Nature acts up on us all, and gets ticked when anything like this happens.

But yeah, I woke up this morning, and stumbled into the kitchen. Hair a mess, I resembled, much to the effect, a more humanoid version of "Cousin It". As I pulled down a bowl and poured myself some cereal, debating whether to have some tea with honey in it, mom, who was sitting at the kitchen table, looked over at me. The news was on, as always.

"It was an earthquake in Illinois."

I nearly wanted to drop my bowl of sugary marshmallow lumps and tasteless chunks of grain. I knew something like that would have happened, but it's still a shock just how close. It hit in southern Illinois, epicenter a ways away from us but, at the same time, still close.

"That close," I muttered, half asleep. I was briefly wondering what became of the store as it rested, closed, overnight? I bet I had a lot to clean up- stuff that had taken the plunge to the floor below it's resting spot on the shelves. Great. Cleaning. Just what I wanted to do for my entire shift up there.

"It was a 5.4 on the scale."

5.4 is pretty strong, I admit. I'm just wondering what happened? Mother Earth is really getting pissed with us these days. We're destroying her with each belching puff of noxious gas, and I'm sure that, seeing all her children (the animals of the world) suffering by being over killed, poached, mangled, poisoned... well, she's going to start fighting back. I'm surmising that we won't know the wide gamut of the damage until later, when statistics are flashed up across Ohio new screens in every bundled household.

God, I want to go back to sleep. At least there's Teen Night, tonight, right? Right. That's something to look forward to.

heart Peace out, ya'll! heart