Lemming Stance Maneuver

A strong earthquake rocked me from slumber land this morning. It shook for about ten seconds which was the longest seismic turbulence yet for me, and it was quite strong that I felt it must have shot up the richter scale, almost like something big was moving right underneath our house. There was a concrete beam right above where I slept and I felt it was going to come down crashing on me, so I got out of the house since it was too early in the morning to die. I was still in my pajamas when I got out of the house and my third brother was out there too with this girl neighbor of ours who’s about his age. They were looking up at my parents room and he was yelling and laughing.

“Look! the earthquake is gonna knock out father’s air conditioner down!”

The air conditioner had its exhaust vent sticking out of the wall and he was very excited about it happening, and he also told our neighbor.

“Oh, that’s my brother over there”

It dawned to me I was the only one standing out there in pajamas with my hair and face in all its morning glory. I went back to the house about a couple of minutes later when I felt our house wouldn't fall apart anyway. I gave my father a buzz on his mobile phone, they were having a vacation in some island in palawan, it was a little past seven and I thought he was still asleep but he answered, they were having a little morning walk around the island. I told him about the earthquake incident, and I told him it almost rocked their air conditioner down to the ground just to freak him out a bit.

These are souvenirs my brother got from the terra cotta excavation museum in China. The figure on the left looks like some high ranking strategist while the one on the right looks like some expendable foot soldier. General Da Niao and Private Ma Zhang (not their real names though, made them up myself) may look like Qin dynasty action figures but these clay warriors have better tricks up their ancient sleeves. Of all the dashboard icons I had in my desk, these two were the only ones who were able to jump off to the ground below at the height of this morning's tremor.

The strategist landed in one piece while the soldier broke both legs again, he already broke them a couple of days ago when he did his first jump. It was like they were doing a lemming stance maneuver during an earthquake, except they were jumping on to solid ground.

And today is july the 15th, that earthquake was a really really bad sign, tomorrow they will be releasing the sixth harry potter book.