Love Struck Asunder

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