Epicenter August 22
I thought it odd that the brown pelican did not budge when I passed by. The bird crouched low against a wall, ducking its pendulous bill beneath its wing, as if bracing for something, but I could not imagine what might have distressed it on such a tranquil evening along the waterfront. They say that the animals are the first to know.
A few minutes after my close pelican encounter yesterday, I found myself amid the bustle of Massy’s supermarket shopping for coffee and a carton of milk. Standing with my trolley in the checkout queue, the floor suddenly seized and thumped and shivered—then began rolling like a wave pool. Screams erupted in the wine and juice aisle as glass bottles flew from shelves and exploded into flying shards. I summoned my memories of rough seas and widened my stance on deck for balance.
No one can recall experiencing a larger earthquake than what befell us here yesterday. Shoppers abandoned their errands and sprinted en mass for the doors, a few with arms full of free groceries, and the store emptied quickly. Displaced items were scattered everywhere. The shaking subsided after a minute or so, but measuring time was lost to the moment.
It was sheer shock. I was surprised that I had not moved an inch during the commotion. The arched ceiling seemed sturdy enough, and the metal crossbeams bore no significant load. I felt relatively safe inside—that is, as long as I stayed clear of the large shattered windows.
I was not alone for my moment of inertia. Directly facing me was a portrait of tranquility—a black woman in a flowered dress, smiling at me serenely, and speaking about the will of God and her personal friendship with Jesus. I mentioned that I had a friend named Jesus too, Jesus Mesta, but he was far away in Yucatan.
She placed her hand gently on my shoulder. “He’s not so fa’ away,“ she assured me in a musical cadence.
Then the quake resumed with greater fury, this time lasting for several minutes, or so it seemed. A weeping mother approached us from the evacuated meat section with a toddler in tow, panicked and unsure of what to do or where to go. The enraptured Christian embraced them both, whispered kind words, and welcomed them into arms of salvation. Meanwhile, a racket was raising, glass was crashing to the ground everywhere around us, a metal register strained against its bolts, my shopping cart bounced and jingled like sleigh bells. The earth lifted and fell, again and again; but, still, I was fixated on the scene directly before me—these two women and a scared little girl in shiny dancing shoes singing praises.
Finally, the surreality subsided, and the ground went limp. Uniformed employees, who had been the first to evacuate the premises, rushed back into the disaster area and shouted for us loiterers to exit at once. I left my items in the trolley along an abandoned line.
The parking lot outside was alive with rattled people, making phone calls, checking on loved ones at home. A few power lines were down, burst water manes gushed from curbsides, car alarms blared, and total strangers shared hugs and smiles of relief. For a moment, I thought that the tremors had resumed yet again on the cracked pavement, but it was only my own quivering knees in a reenactment of the end.
I returned home empty-handed in a dazed state and was not surprised to find the power out. A waterfall ten-stories high plunged from the roof of Arawak Tower Apartments, where a large cistern had ruptured. Fearing a possible tsunami from the Gulf, neighbors were piling family members into vehicles to escape into the hills—one kindly driver even invited me to join his caravan. I thanked him and wished him well in the traffic jam certain to come. I grabbed my notebook and climbed the stairwell of Arawak Tower, ten floors up, and waited.
Reports today indicate that the epicenter of the 7.3 earthquake was the Cariaco Peninsula of northeastern Venezuela, some remarkable one-hundred-twenty miles due west of Port of Spain. According to one source, serious injuries were sustained when a building collapsed in the San Fernando township, but otherwise Jesus spared his children in this act of God, which was felt from Tobago to Caracas and even Bogota. Tectonic plates have shifted, a fractured cereal bowl sits in my sink, my son’s painting is cracked in half, along with the foundation of my school, and a laboratory cabinet of erlenmeyer flasks is lost. Electricity and gas are out. Everything is closed for business, as people pick up the pieces and carry on. A 5.5-aftershock after lunch causes my Venezuelan neighbors to scream and run outside. If only I could get a strong cup of coffee with milk, I might reconsider my untenable agnosticism.