across the town there are signs. aluminum sheets, old peeling letters on concrete, white handwriting on splintering blue panels, arrow stickers on the sidewalk. escape route this way. keep barricade closed. in case of tsunami warning, leave coast immediately. in between the humble little homes squatting carelessly about the seaside, there are huge tower-like structures, four enormous steel beams that hold a single platform at the top with the words ‘tsunami evacuation site’ stamped across in intimidating blocky characters big enough to see from a mile away. death is close, death is only a few steps away, the signs say. right there in the sparkling crystal water. inside of that aquamarine gem that you so adore now. it can come get us anytime and there’s nothing we can do about it. this is the price you pay to be here now. remember that you will die, sometime, anytime, under the shadow of a tsunami, or the shadow of time. we cannot escape the massive crush of nature’s gravity, the signs say.
we drive past them, and look at the sea. how beautiful, we sigh.
Earthquake, waking up at midnight in Baguio, after the old man told us about the 1995 earthquake when there were no cellphones and his parents walked the 8 hour bus ride, checking all the bodies lined up on the road, looking for his face. And I only knew to hide in the basement during Michigan tornados.
across the town there are signs. aluminum sheets, old peeling letters on concrete, white handwriting on splintering blue panels, arrow stickers on the sidewalk. escape route this way. keep barricade closed. in case of tsunami warning, leave coast immediately. in between the humble little homes squatting carelessly about the seaside, there are huge tower-like structures, four enormous steel beams that hold a single platform at the top with the words ‘tsunami evacuation site’ stamped across in intimidating blocky characters big enough to see from a mile away. death is close, death is only a few steps away, the signs say. right there in the sparkling crystal water. inside of that aquamarine gem that you so adore now. it can come get us anytime and there’s nothing we can do about it. this is the price you pay to be here now. remember that you will die, sometime, anytime, under the shadow of a tsunami, or the shadow of time. we cannot escape the massive crush of nature’s gravity, the signs say.
we drive past them, and look at the sea. how beautiful, we sigh.
Earthquake, waking up at midnight in Baguio, after the old man told us about the 1995 earthquake when there were no cellphones and his parents walked the 8 hour bus ride, checking all the bodies lined up on the road, looking for his face. And I only knew to hide in the basement during Michigan tornados.