This is something I wrote a couple months ago but didn’t post then. Now I am posting it because it gives a lot more context and insight to what might have otherwise appeared to be a token nod to the quake yesterday. I spent 12:51 yesterday alone, the same way I was when the quake hit. Yesterday was a day of reflection. Today however, I’d like to share my experiences over the last year.
***
It’s been almost ten months since Christchurch was crushed by the 6.8 quake that took over a hundred lives. I haven’t spoken much about it in recent months, but I thought I’d make a post because, well, it’s not over yet.
Since the original 7.1 quake in September 2010, there have been over 14,000 aftershocks. These days many of those go un-noticed, but between September 2010 and July of this year, several of them were strong enough to make walking impossible. That’s how you know a quake is bad, by the way. A decent shake will make moving difficult. A quake like the one that struck in February leaves no time for anything, no time to run, no time to hide. I know a lot of people who live in quake prone cities assume that they’ll have time to get out of the way if a big one hits – unfortunately that’s not the case. The way I think most people will be able to understand the feeling is if they imagine very rough turbulence in a plane, the sort of turbulence that the air hostess sits down and straps herself in for. It’s much like that, except your house is the plane and there’s no pilot, and there’s no seatbelt signs.
When the main shake hit, I remember being completely overcome by the power of it. Living in New Zealand, you’re drilled from a small child to deal with quakes. But no drill prepares you for the real thing. No drill prepares you for feeling just a fraction of the forces of nature unleashed close at hand. Nothing prepares you for the sudden realization that the earth is alive, alive in a very real, very dangerous sense. Nothing throws you out of intellectual ideas about life and the universe and thrusts you into the knowledge that you are, at your core, nothing more than an animal struggling for survival against a planet that is entirely indifferent to your existence.
After the main shake I leashed the animals and took them outside. Our puppy was barely four months old and not at all pleased at being tied to a fence, but there were people to attend to. The ground was still rolling as if we were at sea and when the aftershocks, of which there were many, struck, I stood in the middle of the drive, feeling the earth wave beneath my feet. I saw large slabs of concrete become free floating and move about with a ponderous swaying motion that was fascinating, even amidst the fear.
I couldn’t get my phone to work, because it was a new smartphone and every time I tried to get it to do something, it would turn off. Phone lines were only working intermittently, but I was lucky and I did manage to get a call from my boyfriend saying that he was okay and on his way home. He worked near the center of town and reported clouds of billowing dust rolling out of the city. That was the last day the city was open, to this day it remains closed for business.
Our neighbours were stunned, crying, panicking. Their dogs had ran into the house and they couldn’t find them. Nobody wanted to be inside then. Nobody knew if a bigger one was coming. Nobody knew if their houses would stand another shock. Water and sand were pouring out from the earth in a phenomenon we would soon come to be very familiar with – liquefaction. We thought the mains had burst, such was the power of the jets that turned neatly manicured yards into gluggy pits of sand two feet deep.
I braved the shocks to run back inside and grab a few things that would be useful, a jacket, some water. I also took the time to pull electrical items out of their sockets. I had a 280 liter fish tank at the time. The glass top had fallen in, but the tank was safe because it had been moved onto the floor after the September quake. I unplugged all the heaters and other equipment and glanced into the kitchen, which was an unholy mess. The contents of the cabinets were on the floor, pasta sauce crushed with glass to taste.
I went back outside to see what I could do for the neighbours. As it turned out, that was very little. I heard myself saying silly, stupid platitudes. “It’s okay, it’s fine.” It wasn’t fine. It wasn’t okay. Many of them had no idea where their loved ones were, and some people were stuck on the other side of the city. It took some people eight or more hours to make what was usually a 30 minute drive that day.
Standing on the lawn, I was filled with the queer sort of feeling you get when standing in a cemetery or otherwise hallowed ground. People were dying. I could not see them, but a part of me knew that they had to be dying. I didn’t yet know that façades had collapsed on top of people, crushing them where they stood, I didn’t yet know that two buildings had turned into concertinas and fallen to the ground, taking all occupants with them. I didn’t know that the bus I had taken a hundred times before had been caught underneath rubble, killing passengers. But we all knew, perhaps instinctively, perhaps because it was a matter of overwhelming odds, that people were dying. To this day I find it almost impossible to watch footage of the city falling, it brings up awful feelings of helplessness, not because of the quakes themselves, but because so many people needed help and they couldn’t be helped in time. And there we stood, mere miles away, unable to do a damn thing.
Eventually everyone gathered on the lawn. Children overcame their fears and started shrieking with laughter when new aftershocks came. (There is nothing more adaptable than a human child.) Others played with the puppies whilst we built a fire and pondered what to do next. I wandered about with a mug of wine I’d salvaged from the kitchen, which is pretty high on the list of things you’re not supposed to do in traumatic situations, but I can’t say it did me any harm.
One of our neighbours fired up a BBQ, a typically antipodean sort of thing to do and we shared drinks and sausages as we swapped stories. “Where were you?” That was the question everyone asked. Eventually we all retired into our still swaying, powerless homes to try to sleep. My boyfriend and I lay in bed for a long time talking. At about 1.30 am or so, the power came on and we were out of bed in a shot, firing up the internet, learning what had happened to others less fortunate.
And now, ten months on? The earth is still moving. Cracks that had been filled and tar-sealed are breaking open again. Sinkholes are appearing throughout the city with regularity. Many of the main roads still undulate as if they had become liquid for a moment and then set in stone once more – which they effectively did. The central city is still not open for business, and hundreds of buildings have been brought down. The iconic cathedrals are still in ruins. An inquiry into one of the buildings that collapsed, killing more than 80 people shows that many of the people who were there that day had concerns about the safety of the building, but were molified by inspections that claimed the building was safe for occupancy. Moral of the story: trust your instincts first in all things .
The human cost continues too, though life has gone on, stress, anxiety and depression are rife. Many parents still have to coax children to sleep in their own beds and many small ones are still afraid to go to school for fear they will once more be caught in a cataclysmic event. These are fears shared by their adult counterparts, who must do their best to seem as if they are not afraid.
For those who own homes, many insurance companies are yet to pay out. This means that some people have been left without suitable accommodation for almost a year. Then there are the smaller victims of the quake, the pets. Many people, who once owned their own homes, are finding that they can’t get rental accommodation that allows pets, putting them in the sick position of contemplating having their animals euthenized because there’s just nowhere for them to go.
Life has gone on, I still write. Even now I am sitting at the same desk in the same chair I was sitting in when that quake hit. Scientists say that there may be more large events in our future, they don’t know. Every now and then there is a little rumble, not enough to do great damage, though they do not help with the slow subsidence of many parts of the city, but enough to make their presence known.
The reasonable reaction, you might think, would be to leave. But where can one go? There is nowhere on this planet that one is safe from these forces. We walk through most of our days in a haze of security, assuming that we are safe, assuming that the trappings of society protect us. We have built cities that span the globe and we can send data whizzing from one side of the earth to the other in less than a second. We have insulated ourselves from much of the wild nature of earth, but she is always there. Always. And inevitably, she will come for us, whether it be in the form of a quake or a tsunami or disease or age. We feel as if we are separate from the planet, but we are not. We are this planet, we arise from it and we go back to it – and whilst in the midst of that process we fight against it, we rage against the inevitable every day of our lives. It is a battle of creation in the face of certain destruction. Some of us have children, others write, others sing, dance, paint.
That’s the only thing I’ve really been able to take out of this experience. It hasn’t made me any less afraid of the end – which is a good thing I think. We’re not supposed to want the end. We’re supposed to delight in the brief existence we are allowed. You won’t find me in multi-story buildings in this country any time soon, perhaps ever, and you won’t find me in malls either. If I am to be taken, it’s not going to be in the name of value priced goods.
Filed under M/F spanking by Loki on February 21, 2012 at 6:51 am
Two of my spanking romances which were exclusive to Spanking Romance are now available on Blushing Books.
Master of Thieves
Terminally misbehaved apprentice Rayna is the worst thief in the world. That won’t stop her trying to gain access to the notorious Thieves Guild though, even if she has to rob every vault in the city to do it.
If Rafe, the charismatic Master of Thieves, hadn’t noticed her before he certainly notices her once she executes a plan that throws the entire guild into pandemonium. If the attentions of a stern Master weren’t enough for one miscreant to deal with, there’s also Peta, the most powerful woman in the guild, and an authority that Rayna can’t seem to help crossing.
If she’s to survive the Thieves Guild, Rayna will have to have more than just a tough hide, she’ll need to find a way to make peace with those in power, a task that will push her feeble powers of obedience to the very limit.
A French governess employed to tame Cyril Hardy’s notoriously wild brood of sons, Francine Trouble (pronounced ‘Trublay’) soon proves to be more problematic than the boys themselves.
“But now, now I have plenty of time to tend to my wayward revolutionary,” he said, his voice thick not with censure, but with desire. He wanted her, Frankie knew that much, it was in his every breath.
“You need me to tend to you, don’t you Francine?” he murmured in her ear as he led her over to the chaise that sat against the wall of his office and drew her over his lap. Frankie went peacefully, only squirming as he rose her skirts up over her back.
“You taught my sons about that bloody revolution simply to tease me, did you not? To see what I might do if you teach the sons of an aristocrat that all aristocrats are tyrannical, hmmm? Shall I show you tyranny, my pretty little citoyenne?”
I’m not saying that new Twitter is evil and wants to hurt you, but new Twitter is definitely evil and it wants to hurt you.
I’m as much a fan of unecessary and impetuos change as the next guy or girl. Feel like changing the road layout whimsically at any time of the day or night? Be my guest! (That happens rather a lot here on account of all the buildings that may or may not fall on your head, depending on whether or not engineers have had a look at them and gone white with fear or not. It is rather amusing watching people drift aimlessly between lanes, cutting off other traffic out of a deep sense of confusion over where they’re supposed to be – but I’m getting off topic.) If you want to repackage your product, I will buy the new box as easily and willingly as the old. If you want to change your name, your hair, your sexual orientation or even how much rent you feel like charging (looking at you landlord) I’m good with all of that. I will call you Moonbeam and smile benevolently whilst you marry your cats, if that’s what you want.
But Twitter. Fucking Twitter, seems to be intent on twisting its users to the very limit of their twistyness with new iterations that take what used to be a very logical and ordered interface and shove it into new and exciting places that may or maky not make sense.
Features of the New Twitter:
You can now ‘open’ tweets. Because the mere displaying of 140 characters was no longer enough.
If @replies were involved at any stage of a conversation, opening tweets displays conversation threads. This is excellent if you were unable to follow the thread of a conversation you were taking part in. It is not excellent if you don’t enjoy experiencing conversational deja-vu every time someone adds to the conversation, as the entire conversation is displayed anew. Even those with the most eroded short term memories find this annoying. I know this because I have the short term recall of a gnat.
Direct messages have been shoved under a decapitated head, where they never see the light of day.
@replies may or may not reach you. This has been a problem ever since Twitter decided it was more important to make things opaque and move the menu from the right side of the page to the left than actually get the basic functions right.
Replacing the ‘Timeline’ ‘@ Replies’ and ‘DM’ tabs that used to be at the top of the page, allowing one to easily follow conversations and engage in private discourse in a timely fashion, you now have a #discover tab at the top of your page, which is full of shit you don’t care about and never will.
The ‘compose tweet’ box has been moved from the top of the page and shoved under your follower / following count. Because nothing makes more sense than taking the primary function of a website and making the user hunt for it.
If you’re idle for more than ten minutes, a badger leaps out of your screen and stabs you. This last one might not be true yet, but will probably be standard on a future iteration.
Long story short, I’m pretty sure if Twitter launched today with the interface it has now, it would die an ugly and lonely death. I can only conclude that the business has been taken over by the forces of evil and that we continue to use the service at our peril. That is all.
Devlin’s seminal work, heh, seminal, is collected in the first Maid for all Seasons book. I downloaded it and read it and these are my impressions, recorded as they came to me :)
A Review of A Maid for All Seasons Volumes 1 and 2, Deluxe Revised Edition
Is there such a thing as wholesome erotica? If so, the first Maid For All Seasons collection, (volumes one and two no less) is it. And by it, I of course mean, wholesomely erotic.
Though each page seemed more filled than the next with the feminine exploration of sex and sensuality, and though rods and paddles and implements of all kinds were brought to bear on deserving rumps, Devlin O’Neill’s trademark tenderness shone through all the encounters, turning potentially sordid scenes into charmingly arousing exploits.
There’s quite a variety of stories in this collection from the historical to the contemporary, so if maids and seasons don’t appeal, there are also rebellious tattooed teenagers to contend with and a whole lot of girl on girl action to boot.
Did I mention that this collection is massive? It’s huge. More words than you can swing a cat at. If you like a lot of bang for your buck, the maid will provide it in abundance.
Get it on the Amazon!
Which is just an observation. You shouldn’t be offended by that, because rats are awesome. One of mine has taken to playing a game where he repetitively tries to dart under the desk to climb the computer cables. This, of course, is not allowed.
When he tries to ascend the live electrical wires, I catch him, turn him around and let him go. He invariably makes a hop of glee and scampers away (rats are the best scamperers in the world), then, without warning, Z turns and speeds back towards the forbidden cables again. Sometimes I catch him, sometimes he gets by and I have to dig him out from under a pile of electrical cords. But the game always repeats itself. Because he knows he’s not supposed to go under there, and the simple fact that he’s not allowed is what makes him want it so much. He doesn’t even resist when I get him out from under the table anymore, because that’s the point of the game. He’s thwarting authority for no reason other than the fact that it is fun. By the same token, getting caught is also part of the fun. If I ignore him, he’ll start poking his nose out to see why the human isn’t coming for him. That’s textbook brat behavior right there.
Clearly there’s a biological basis for brattishness. Probably a brat gene. Further studies are needed of course, fortunately there’s quite a plethora of human subjects who fit the brat criteria, so there will be no need for animal testing.
You might have noticed that I’ve been quiet of late. Perhaps a little too quiet. This is why:
This is somewhat different from my usual fare. So different, in fact, that I put it up with a different pen name for all of five minutes before deciding that my readers were probably robust enough to handle the jandal, as we say here in Nuw Ziland. What makes it different from my usual books is that although it does contain spanking, there’s just the one scene and it’s not precisely what you might call effective. My bottoms have always been reluctant to be contrite or submit and Timothy takes that trend to quite an extreme. There’s also a great deal more violence in this book than usual, though I think the title probably suggests that. It’s not gratuitously graphic, (if you watched or read Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, this book will seem more like a soft episode of My Little Pony) but it is there. Aside from that, this has the merit of being my longest M/M work to date at just under 22,000 words, so that’s nice.
After all that preamble, what’s the book about?
Scared Straight? Hardly.
When bored hotel clerk Tim taunts a new guest, the mysterious and devastatingly handsome Jonathan Hashimoto, his life soon spins out of control. Jonathan inhabits a twilight world where the law of the land comes a distant second to the law of blood. Entirely infatuated with a man who kills as easily as he breathes, Tim tries to follow in Jonathan’s footsteps, only to find that there’s one major obstacle in his way – the man himself.
Jonathan has no intention of letting Tim get caught up in the dealings of the criminal underworld, but how can he stop a young man hell bent on proving himself? Jonathan only knows one way to deal with problems, and that’s to come down on them hard, fast and without any mercy at all.
This is a collection of unpublished and barely published works. The main contenders for top billing are as follows:
Impudence Lost (Prequel to The Taming of Miss Munroe.)
Flora and the Dead Men
Eventide
Impudence Lost is the prequel to The Taming of Miss Munroe. If you enjoyed that Victorianesque disciplinary romance and wanted more, you’ll find it here.
Fans of my vampire series Finn the Devourer might find something titillating in the rather long short story Eventide, a cut down and concentrated version of a series I wrote a while back, in which a naughty lesbian vampire gets herself into some serious trouble with Master and Mistress vampires alike.
As for Flora and the Dead Men, well, that’s a little Western short with zombies and a bit of spanking. I don’t think that needs to be sold any harder than that. Hell, I’ve sold myself just reading that and I wrote it. Like Eventide, Flora will also one day be published in novel format, but in the meantime I see no reason why we shouldn’t enjoy the short version.
In addition to these three main attractions are several erotic shorts scattered about the place.
If you’re new to my works, consider this a sampler. If you’re already familiar with my stories, you’ll find some old friends here, and possibly make some new ones too.
