Rattled

I am woken up as the word "Earthquake!" is shouted out into the dark. I jump out of bed and yell, "Get the kids."


From the dim light of the bathroom down the hall I see that everything is moving. Shaking. There is a low rumbling noise and rattling. I run to B's bedroom and lift him as though he is a feather out of his bed. I hear the words, "It's over." 
I stand B up in the hallway and he asks, "What are you doing Mum?"
"It's fine go back to bed" his father says.


Then I realise my heart is in my throat. A hard lump is beating away inside and its hard to breathe. I feel faint. I've got to sit down. I swallow, but the lump stays lodged in my throat. Sitting on my side of the bed I see with the light on that everything is normal. Everything is as it should be. 
"It's all over now." My husband tells me. I take several deep breathes and the beating lump  melts back down into my chest.


"Was that an earthquake?" He asks me
"Yes what else could it be?" I ask him
He leaves the room for a moment, I think he is going to check the house for damage or something. I go and check Little Miss. She is sound alseep. B has also gone back to bed. Then I hear him yell out from the living room, "Yes, earthquake, Twitter is going nuts with it." He walks back into the bedroom with his phone.


"What are people saying?" I ask
"Was that an earthquake or a hippo on my roof?"
"Knew I shouldn't have had beans for tea"
"Look out for Wednesday Advertiser where they report on the Adelaide earthquake. Cutting edge journos."
"Some people are quick on the uptake. There is already a facebook group called 'I survived the Adelaide earthquake'."
"Can we get out of the bath now?"


Twitter's instantness comes into its own for an experience like this. We laughed at the tweets, they were amazingly reassuring. We learnt that the epicentre was at Mount Barker and measured around 3.8 on the Ritcher scale.


"I feel strange" Said my husband

"Me too" I said, "when you have kids it changes everything, it wouldn't be so scary if you didn't have them to protect."


We struggled to sleep well that night, feeling small and at the mercy of a planet in a spin. My thoughts go out to the all the families in the world who have experienced real devastating earthquakes, ones that do much more than just rattle.


There is nothing like an earthquake to put you in your place.