Colleen Worger, Gr. 11
“Laura. I’m going to get the
newspaper from the driveway.” Phil said as he exited the front door and walked
down the steps. He paced to the end of the driveway, picked up the New Zealand
Herald and looked at the front page. Just another story about wasted tax
dollars. Phil folded the newspaper in half and walked back up the steps and
went inside, closing the door behind him. He walked towards the kitchen passing
the dining room table, where he placed the paper next to his plate.
Phil entered the kitchen and walked
over to Laura, “What’s for lunch?” he asked as he wrapped his arms around her
waist.
Laura turned to face him and
said, “Pasta salad, crackers and cheese, and some iced tea. Is that okay?”
“Yes,
it sounds perfect.” Phil said, leaning in to give Laura a kiss.
“Could you help me bring some of this to the
table?” Laura asked as she handed Phil the bowl of pasta salad and plate of
crackers. Laura picked up the cutlery and glasses of iced tea and walked to the
dining room. After seating themselves and serving the food, Laura and Phil
began to eat.
“I’ve
been thinking...” Laura started. “Maybe we could have the wedding after summer.
Maybe late February or early March...”
“That
sounds like a great idea.” Phil agreed. “Now I guess we just have to choose a
day.”
Laura
smiled, “True, but we still have half a year to decide that.”
“Good
point. What do you think about chocolate cake?”
“Let’s
not get ahead of ourselves here.” Laura joked.
A
small ringing sound started traveling from the kitchen out into the dining
room.
“What’s
that noise?” Laura asked.
“I
don’t know.” Phil replied, frowning slightly. “But it’s getting louder.”
The ringing got louder, becoming more
recognizable as glasses started clinking against each other. A moment later the
dining room table started shaking with the rest of the house.
“What’s
happening?” Laura asked frantically. “Why are the walls cracking?
“I
think it’s an earthquake.” Phil said as he stood up. “We need to leave, the gas
line could blow up!” Phil grabbed Laura’s hand and started heading for the
front door, avoiding falling books and photographs on the way. Small pieces of
the ceiling and walls started to break away and fall to the floor. As Phil went
out the door, the shaking increased, separating the house from the front steps,
lifting up and down. The house moved down with a loud thud Laura lost her
balance and fell with it.
She
started to stand up, but more shaking sent her back to the ground. Phil turned
around to help her up, but falling pieces of wood sent him stumbling down the
steps. Another wave of violent shaking, which lasted for a couple of minutes,
sent a power line crashing onto a tree in their neighbour’s yard, setting it
ablaze. As the shaking continued Phil took in his surroundings.
The
ground across the street started moving up and down giving the illusion of it
moving in waves, sending trees and cars rocking back and forth. Many of his
neighbours were running from their houses trying to escape the disaster,
several cars had crashed into each other sending smoke into the air along with
the smell of gasoline from a broken gas line. Somewhere down the street a
scream rang out as the chaos continued. Almost all of the houses that
surrounded Phil had fallen to the ground; once beautiful buildings turned into
piles of rubble in minutes. The shaking continued, sending more and more pieces
of loose wood and brick to the ground. Phil spun around to look at his house.
Slowly the back half of it began to fall to the ground.
After
the shaking subsided Phil looked at what remained of his house and wondered how
something as simple as released energy and shifting plates could cause so much
damage. As he continued to look at the house he saw Laura trying to pull
herself out from under fallen pieces of wood. He ran up the steps frantically
calling out to her.
“Laura!”
He cried out. “Are you okay?” After repeating the question several times Laura
moaned and turned herself at the waist to look up at Phil. “Oh thank God you’re
okay!” A weak smile spread across Phil’s face, which was slowly replaced by
fear.
“My
leg.” Laura said weakly. “It hurts so much,” Tears started rolling down her
face.
“I’m
going to see if I can get you out of there.” Phil said as he stood up and
started to move the debris away, one piece at a time. After fifteen minutes had
passed, Phil was able to see most of Laura’s legs. They had both been cut up
and bruised equally, but her right leg appeared to be bent at an awkward angle.
“I’m
going to pull you out of here.” Phil slowly, and carefully, pulled Laura out of
the rubble and onto the front porch. “Do you think you can roll over onto your
back?”
“Yes.”
she replied, regaining some of her strength. With Phil’s help Laura managed to
roll onto her back. Phil carefully checked her over for any bad puncture wounds
or breaks from the falling debris. He didn’t find anything obvious, but he
figured that she probably had a broken rib, or two. As he studied Laura’s leg
some pieces of wood at the top on the pile started to move behind them.
“Phil.”
Laura said weakly.
Phil
turned to look at her. She pointed at the pile of rubble behind them. As Phil
turned to see what she was pointing at, a large wooden beam fell from the pile
of rubble. The wooden beam fell and hit Phil on the head, and he was only able
to stay conscious long enough to see a piece of the wooden beam lodge itself
into Laura’s abdomen. Laura reached out for Phil’s hand, but he had already
fallen to the ground.
~•~
Four days later
Beep beep beep
The continuous beep from some
kind of machine ran out through an almost empty white room. The sound of two
people talking behind a partially closed door slowly became more prominent.
“Yes,
it went very well.”
“I’m still shocked that the
surgery worked.”
“I am too, but if the patient
recovers soon enough, we may be able to put them into rehab within a week.
Could you go get the next meal?”
“Yes, sir.”
Beep beep beep
A man in a long white coat
entered the room closing the door behind him. He turned his attention to a
clipboard next to the door, taking it off the wall. He wrote something on it
and then walked to the right side of the bed. “Good afternoon. I’m glad to see
that you are awake. The nurse has just gone to get your lunch and will be back
in a minute. Your surgery went very well and we should be able to get you into
rehab very shortly.”
“Wh-where am I?” The words were
almost unrecognizable.
“You are in Auckland City
Hospital.” The man in the white coat replied.
“What happened?”
“You were in Christchurch when
the earthquake hit. Most buildings were destroyed. Someone found you with a
pretty bad injury. You were brought up here to go into surgery. That was about
four days ago.”
A nurse wearing a blue shirt and
pair of pants walked into the room holding a tray of food. “Doctor Anderson, I
have Miss Scott’s lunch.” The nurse handed the tray to the doctor and left the
room.
The doctor set the tray onto a
table that was right next to the bed. “Your right leg was broken in two places
and the cast should come off in about two months. You also have two broken
ribs, but nothing serious, and you’ve had surgery to remove a large piece of
wood from your abdomen. You have healed from that very nicely, and I’m very
pleased with the progress you’ve made.”
“Phil?” Laura said quietly.
“Now Laura, I don’t know how else to tell you
this, but your fiancé, Phil Moore, he didn’t make it.” The doctor said with a
look of sadness on his face.
Laura carefully sat up in the
hospital bed in complete shock. It took her a minute to realize what had just
been said. “What do you mean ‘he didn’t make it’?” She questioned, still not
quite being able to comprehend the doctor’s words.
“I’m sorry Miss Scott, when he
arrived here there was nothing we could do to save him. Whatever it was that
hit him on the head caused him to suffer from blunt force trauma, and did a
great deal of irreversible damage. He passed away within an hour of his
arrival. I truly am very sorry.” Doctor Anderson turned around and walked out
of the room, closing the door behind him.
The End
