Quaking In Our Boots

Hello. Welcome to the Weekend Gene Pool, where we ask you for personal stories under the solemn promise we will entertain you. On the day of the chat, New York City was hit with a moderate-sized earthquake, which led me to remember that I had also lived through a moderate-sized earthquake in D.C. in 2014, which I had written about, although The Wapo has killed the chat it was in, because The Post routinely kills old things, things like me.

Still, I managed to find much of it, archived somehow. Here is what remains. I am adding to it, slightly, from memory:

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I was in a restaurant on the top floor of Union Station. The floor shook, followed by two or three loud explosions, then the whole building swayed. I was being interviewed by a Danish journalist, Jonas Langvad Nilsson; we both instantly assumed terrorism. We both instantly moved to situate ourselves beneath architectural arches, which seemed to provide some meager protection, in crisis, the way the prow of the ship seemed to provide some meager protection at the sinking of the Titanic, according to shitty film history.

In Union Station, people did not panic, but everyone scrambled downstairs toward the exit. Outside, a man asked me: “Did they evacuate the building?” I said, “WE evacuated the building.”

Someone else said it was apparently citywide; I scanned the horizon -- no smoke, which seemed like a good sign.

Some people said they had sseen chunks of the ceiling detach and fall to the ground; that may have been the sound of explosions.

I noted that we left the restaurant without paying for our pizza. Jonas said: “Damn, we should have had a more expensive meal.”

When I got home, the dogs didn't seem too frightened, but I think that, being dogs, they'd just forgotten. I say that because three antique clocks in my house -- mechanical clocks with pendulums -- had all stopped at 1:51. It must have taken a hell of a jolt to stop those pendulums. The dogs were unruffled. They slept soundly.

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At the moment that the earthquake hit, I had been talking to Jonas about one of the greatest feature stories I’d ever edited, by the super-great Madeleine Blais, which seemed to be about the relationship between a poet and her mentally challenged daughter, but was actually about the meaning of life and the universal impendence of death, as all great stories are. I mentioned my favorite quote from literature, from Franz Kafka, which is “the meaning of life is that it ends.”

At that moment, for just the moment, it seemed to end.

Anyhoo, that’s the story. And here’s the weekend challenge: Tell us about a moment where life seemed to end. Could involve a natural disaster, or not. Funny is good.

Send it here:

And here is today’s Gene Pool Gene Poll:

See you all on Tuesday.

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