Chill out Time

Sunday

So here I am on a mild summers evening, taking a break from the family, in my studio. Young garlic and freshly picked courgettes sizzle away in a frying pan on the stove and I'm looking forward to relaxing with a choice bottle of wine and a good book. I wander across the small living room to the bedroom and as I do the floor creaks in a way I've never heard before. I do a little experimental jump to see if the joists are flexing a bit and there is a horrendous crack and I'm falling. My brain goes into overdrive and time slows down. The whole corner of the room is going downward and as bookshelves, tables and chairs slide towards me, the wall turns into a blur. The with a loud bang everything stops and I find myself lying on top of a workmate in the downstairs workshop. Moments later my oak desk lands face down next to me. I look around and find the entire living room around me. I am surrounded and partly covered by a great smashed pile of it. Above, the kitchen is still where it should be, as is the bedroom, though its chipboard floor now describes an alarming arc as the joists have come down with the floor carrier. Only the tongue and groove joints are holding it together. In the quiet aftermath I hear the food frying away. I turn my attention to myself. I don't seem to have broken anything and I try to haul myself up, only to find my left foot is trapped under some bookshelves. I push a small table and a beam to one side, but I'm still stuck. Despite the fact that my arms and right leg are free I can get very little leverage on the pile of debris surrounding me. I begin to worry a little now, as if I'm unable to get out and turn the cooker off, the food will eventually catch fire and possibly burn the place down and me with it. I give another wriggle and the mobile phone in my shorts makes a complaining beep. Some hope there then, though with the doors locked, help will have to smash its way in. I push ineffectually at the shelves, then twist and wriggle again. Suddenly, miraculously I'm free. I rush upstairs and turn the cooker off. Then sweaty and trembling, I strip off and examine my dusty battered body. Just bruises, cuts and grazes thank God, though some of them are going to be bloody painful when the adrenalin wears off. With shaking fingers I find the phone and key in J's number for rescue.