the day dawned bright and clear

Sunday the 21st of January, 2007
last night, my apartment shuddered.
I ran outside. There was one light window on the ground floor.
The lady inside asked if I meant the shaking, she didn't feel anything.
I went upstairs, with my heart like a schooner sail in a squall.
I went upstairs with the complete and immediate collapse of large structures in a rotating panorama before my eyes.
I went upstairs knowing that I would sit on the ground rather than walk myself toward perdition.
I went upstairs to the third floor, which, incidently, is where my belongings, those I would take in both hands and those I would be relieved at sudden removal from my possession, are arranged in current ergonomy.
I went upstairs, and knocked on neighbour first and neighbour on the block-end of the building. Villa. We live in a villa.
The end door opened and the waft of industrial volume fishpaste that came out stayed with me all the way back to the eerily undisturbed interior of my apartment.
The machine in her living room groaned in rust grating cycles. It hadn't been in operation for the last couple of weeks.
I slept through the night for the last couple of weeks.
She didn't know about the shaking.
I thought about moving the bed frame with the mattress on it directly under the central light.
It is large and Soviet/1930s functional, frosted glass suctioned onto the papered ceiling.
I didn't.