The first thing Hector did was shut off the gas at the side of the house. The second thing he did was call the doctor. Polly bandaged her eyes up while he turned on the TV. Reports of the quake were coming in from all over the city. Hector couldn't get the call to go through. That there was no cell phone reception was no surprise; the electrical grid was down in many parts of the city, and fires were popping up all over.
Polly said "Oh yeah. Mimmy got out."
In all the panic, Hector had forgotten the cat. Rising, he dashed through the home, calling her name.
"I'm telling you. She got out."
"How can you be sure?"
"I see her."
It was then that Polly explained the image that had been seared onto her eyes. It was made up of greenish lines, floating on blackness, and now, with the rumbling having subsided, she had been able to contemplate the image hovering before her.
"I can see read the names of the books in mid air as they fall from the shelves. I can see the expression on your face as you look at me from the safety of the doorway."
"I wanted to run to you, but..."
"And between your legs, I can see Mimmy escaping."
Hector burst from the bungalow and out onto the grounds of Pine Creek Village, the gated community they called home. He ran over the alpine-themed footbridges, along the muddy banks of the chlorinated brooks, overflowing now from broken and spurting water pumps. He ripped through bushes, yelling "Mimmy!" down pathways, growing increasingly desperate. For it was beginning to dawn on him that, if he was unable to find her, she was probably never coming back.
Sometimes in long term relationships it becomes necessary to tell what might be termed "white lies". Mimmy had been one of the small things that Hector and Polly had disagreed upon. Polly believed a cat should be allowed to roam free; Hector did not. It was simple as that. Polly always wanted to throw the windows and doors of the bungalow open, Hector wanted them closed. And so, in order to keep the peace, Hector acquiesced. But secretly, he obtained a bag of something called Silent Roar, which was a powdered lion dung that alot of guys at the gym used to sprinkle into their smoothies, believing it to be a holistic and all natural way to pack on muscle. Hector's idea was that, by sprinkling Silent Roar liberally around the perimeter of the bungalow, he could convince Mimmy through her nostrils that, just outside the door, the apex predator of the savannah prowled. In this way, he was able to simultaneously agree with Polly while protecting his pet.
What he hadn't counted on was the earthquake, which would so terrify the cat that she would race through this "wall of scent" he had erected. Now that she was on the other side of this barrier, his once brilliant-seeming stratagem had, apparently, backfired. Increasingly desperate, filled with dread, he searched until after sunset. Defeated and exhausted, he returned to find Polly on the steps to their apartment. He sat on the steps beside her and, putting his arm around her, pulled her close.
After a while she said, "Did you know that disaster comes from the ancient Greek to mean bad stars?"
"No, I didn't."
“We had earthquakes in Mexico, and right after, my Grandma would make us go out to kneel in the yard and pray. We would be very scared, but then Grandma would point to the sky and show us how the stars were brighter after an earthquake."
Hector looked up. Probably due to the electrical outage, and the lack of light pollution, the night sky did seem brighter than he'd ever seen.
"My Grandma said that it was because God was bending down to listen to our prayers."
"Seems like it would be easier to just not have the earthquake happen in the first place."
Even so, Hector silently mouthed a prayer, to whomever might be listening, that Mimmy would come back.
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