Daily Prompt: Standstill, stay alive

For a moment today, time stands still — but you can tweak one thing while it’s stopped. What do you do? Photographers, artists, poets: show us STILLNESS.

via Daily Prompt: Standstill.

A little tremor
felt by some people
who live in multi level building,
delicate suspended objects swing.

More tremors
felt indoors by many people,
outdoors by some people on the road.
Dishes, windows, doors disturbed; walls make cracking sound.

More than tremors now
sensation like heavy truck striking building,
standing motor cars rock noticeably,
dishes and windows rattle alarmingly.

Vigorous tremors continue,
felt outside by most.
Dishes and windows break and large bells ringing.
Vibrations like large train passing close to house.

The ground is moving,
felt by all; many frightened and run outdoors,
walk unsteadily.  Windows, dishes, glassware broken;
books fall off shelves; some heavy furniture moved or overturned.

Ground and building cracked,
difficult to stand; furniture broken;
walls cracked, doors and windows smashing, chimneys fell,
buildings partially collapse.

Ruinous and chaotic,
general panic; buildings shifted off foundations.
Rails bent, bridges destroyed
people rushing out buildings or crawling under beds and tables.

Catastrophic and total damage,
almost everything is destroyed.
Lines of sight and level distorted.
Objects thrown into the air.

The ground moved in waves or ripples.
Large amounts of rock move position.
Buildings and structures collapsed.
A real disaster of a catastrophic EARTHQUAKE.

Silence, time stood still
Not a word, not a sound.
Underneath the table, still breathing weakly
plucked all energy, fight to stay alive
looking to escape.

Sitting in an awkward position,
one arm caught by the collapsed wall
pinned against the broken table, only a free left hand
fingers tweaked fumbling on the ground in search for my iphone.

Image courtesy of Otago Daily Times

Related article

Symptoms of an earthquake on mercalli scale by http://wiki.answers.com