Ring of Fire

"What are we supposed to be looking for?" said Theo.

"Just wait," said her dad.

They stood on a bluff overlooking a dusty little seaside city. They were probably in South America somewhere -- perhaps Chile or Peru -- since the billboards were in Spanish and the land above the beach was mostly mountainous. This wasn't a place for tourists, just a grimy working town supported by the fishing fleet moored in the harbor.

The town occupied a low, flat plain at the mouth of a river. The streets of cinder-block buildings sloped down to the sea. It wasn't a pretty place, but compared to the slums of India, it looked quite prosperous. The busy streets were clogged with commerce: cars, trucks, fruit stands, advertizing. On the side of a three-story building was a giant ad for Coca-Cola.

Theo and her dad stood on one of the high bluffs that enclosed the town on three sides. From their vantage point, they could see the whole town and hear many of its noises. It was late afternoon or early evening. Hot and humid. It looked like the businesses were starting to shut down for the night.

"It's coming," said Dad.

And then it did! The land on which they stood began to shake side to side, accompanied by a low rumble.

Earthquake!

At their location, the shaking wasn't destructive. It was like riding in a moving subway car. You could still stand up, but you had to fight to keep your balance. There was nothing to fall on them and no cliffs to fall off of, so the two of them were safe.

The same couldn't be said of the town below. Shortly after the shaking began, new sounds began to emanate from it: car alarms, sirens, crashes, screams.

The brittle buildings weren't designed for this. A couple of them collapsed almost immediately. As the motion changed from side-to-side to up-and-down, the building with the Coke sign slowly folded into a pile of rubble and dust.

As the shaking stopped, clouds of dust and smoke rose from the town. From the looks of it, maybe 10% of the buildings were destroyed, and who knew what damage was inside those still standing? Although no death was obvious from their vantage point, anyone inside the collapsed buildings was probably killed or seriously injured.

Along with the dust, human wails rose up from the town -- people crying for help. The town was obviously ill-prepared for such a disaster, so it would probably take a while before any help could be mobilized. No doubt, many of those people now crying were going to die.

"Wow!" said Theo. "I asked for big trauma, and that's what I got. This is pretty horrible."

"That's not big trauma," said Dad.

"Huh? What could be worse than this?"

Her father looked out toward the ocean and nodded.

The sea was receeding!

The water was flowing away from the land! Vast mud flats were suddenly visible in the bay. The fishing fleet, sitting comfortably in the harbor a few minutes before, was suddenly beached. Boats now lay in the mud, keeled over on their sides.

And then, off in the distance, the horizon rose up in a big gray hump. It was a wall of water, coming this way!

The approach was surreal because it seemed to happen so slowly. The wave looked like any swell you might see offshore until you realized its huge scale. And this wave didn't break or diminish when it got near shore; it simply got bigger and barrelled ahead.

The boats in the harbor didn't rise -- they were instantly swallowed! As the rolling hump of water reached the shore, it didn't stop or slow down. It was clear now that it was higher than anything in the town: three stories at least. Water didn't simply flow through the streets; it swept over the roofs. Now the wave broke and thundered and churned, like a surfer's wave hitting the shore but a thousand times bigger. The wave smashed its way across the plain, gathering a steamroller of debris in front of it. Nothing and no one in the town was spared. Anyone not drowned by the water was surely crushed by timber and stone.

Theo held her hands to her face in horror. "Oh my God!"

The water didn't stop until it got to the base of the bluff where they were standing. It rose about halfway up the hill, held there for a few seconds, then started to recede again.

As the water drained away, back to the sea, it was clear there was nothing left of the town. There were no streets, no buildings, just rubble. Cars and trucks were strewn like child's toys across the plain. Very few residents could have survived this.

"Now, that's big trauma!" said Dad.

Theo looked over at her father. He was relaxed and didn't seem disturbed in the slightest. He looked more -- enthralled! He was almost smiling! He looked like a boy watching a marvelous fireworks show.

"You could have warned them," she said.

"I could have tried," he replied. "But what could I have done in such a short time? Who would have believed a crazy homeless gringo?"

"But it wouldn't have hurt you any to try. You're bulletproof. You could have gone down there just after the earthquake, told people to run, then jumped out at the last minute."

"I could have. Years ago, I might have tried, but now I know it isn't my place."

"There could still be some survivors down there. Shouldn't we go down and try to dig them out?"

"No," he said. "It's not our problem?"

"Then what is our problem? If we're not supposed to save anyone, then what's the point? Why are we using our powers at all?"

"It's complicated," he said. "It will take time before you understand."

"What if I don't want to understand."

He shrugged. "You have to choose your own path."

To Theo, his indifference was stunning.

"You sure love death, don't you?" she said.

"I don't love death. I coexist with it. It's part of my arsenal. Whether I want it or not, it's my constant companion."

As Theo looked at her father, calm and unflappable, an idea occurred to her -- something horrid and unthinkable. In truth, the idea had been in her brain for a while, but she had pushed it underground. Now, it was back at the surface, out in the open, and could no longer be denied.

"Follow me," she said to her father.

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