Secondhand stories

I had another enjoyable day chatting in traffic with the driver. Today it was not the banalities of life, but rather the turning upside down of a regular day.

I heard stories about the earthquake.

I do not mean this post to be sentimental. Or sad. Or exploitative. Just simple. I mean to tell these stories as he told them.

* * *

"Everyone knows someone, near or far, who died in the earthquake."

* * *

Sometimes the ground vibrates. This time it did not vibrate, it rolled and rolled. My house rocked back and forth, back and forth. He showed me with his hands, tilting his vertical palm to and fro. A friend of mine was sitting in her car in traffic when the quake happened. She said that the earth looked like the giant snake in the movie Anaconda when it was under the soil.

* * *

This driver is often the driver of the big boss. He told me of the man who used to wash his windows everyday. He worked hard washing, quickly rubbing, clearing the glass for the boss and VIPs who visited. He fed his family this way. He eventually bought a motorbike. He kept on washing windows. The day of the quake, he went out to buy some food on his motorbike and never came back.

* * *

There was a man and a woman who had moved to the states from Haiti. They had 3 children there and made a good life. When it came to retirement age and their children were grown, they decided to return and enjoy their retirement here. They returned, all their children with them to help with the move. The day of the quake they were having a big party. All the neighbors and cousins and aunts enjoying and celebrating the retirement and the return of the family. They ran out of ice and so the father went out to get some. He returned to find them all dead. The old man walks the streets talking to his family who are all dead. It made him loose his mind.