Seismic Shift

This is a shorter work, there are themes to think about.

Something the author probably does not want to read: This story would make a good video game, with all the sights, sounds, and decisions to be made.

The story is told from the POV of Callie, a woman who is divorcing her husband. They're in a legal office, with their respective lawyers, when an earthquake hits. The couple band together to reach their son, who is in daycare, and deal with a lot of moral, emotional, and physical dilemmas along the way, and Callie has a major psychological breakthrough. You know, the usual.

Linda, Callie's lawyer, very early on, when the earthquake is minor, makes a comment about how a quake can put things in perspective and remind people what really matters. I hated this, actually. Way too heavy handed. If people don't get this as the message, they don't want to get it.

Anyhow, good story, went some places I didn't expect, made me care about a whole bunch of people. Contained perspectives on love and marriage (go together like...), grief, suppression, perspective – thaaaaanks, Linda, hope you made it out okay – loss, altruism, and sacrifice.

Early on, Callie makes clear she researched if they were in a major earthquake zone when she found out she was pregnant. This seeming throwaway character trait – she's a planner/worrier – turns out to be a result of guilt, the sense of being responsible in multiple senses of the word. I believe by the end, she has learned to share, or even sometimes, hand off the burden of responsibility.