Did you ever find your mainland? I suspect you did.
A few hours earlier, Nicole was still awake, playing her guitar and smoking cigarettes. The music came out brooding and apocalyptic, though only partly by design. She was trying not to worry, and she was very good at not worrying. She often told Rosalind she could be happy so long as she could make music, and she mostly meant it. The world was a lot simpler when you described it with music.
In her head she always imagined saying she only needed two things to be happy. She was saying this while walking home at night, in her imagination. "Just two things. My guitar, and you." She wanted to save that for a perfect moment, but Rosalind didn't like perfect moments. She liked to be alone in dark places, and the thing is you really can't be alone with someone else there. So Nicole settled for their guitars and their studio apartment and she put up with Rosalind and her weird moods, and hoped that one day she'd let a perfect moment happen.
She didn't notice the earthquake until the bookshelf came crashing down. She stopped playing and tried Rosalind's cell phone, which rang from under a pile of clothes near the bed.
Nicole sighed and hung up. "Come home soon, love." And she started playing again, with the world shaking around her, hoping it might make everything all right.
20100722
wormwood, pt. 7
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This part actually reminds me of 9/11. I was in high school then, and my jazz band teacher said something thats always stuck with me (this was not an hour after the towers got hit) which was, "the best we can do in a time like this, is just play." It was pretty corny, but it was off the cuff. Your story is staying believable and relate-able thus far.
This has been an entertaining way to spend my lunch break.
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