Rain didn’t dampen the celebrations. Marsha and Elva had been together in a relationship for forty years. They would invite their many friends around for a barbeque. They were a popular couple. Perhaps as many as fifty turned up to celebrate, including many neighbours.
Their back yard was roomy, even though their house was on the small side. The barbeque was lit. The rain began. My goodness! Did it rain!
Everyone crowded into the small house. What a squeeze! The rain would soon pass. Such joviality! People always make the most of a turn of events. There was breathing room only!
And then it happened. It was the biggest earthquake since 1848.
Weave a Web 
Thank goodness the builders constructed the house with flexible pads made of steel, rubber, and lead to withstand the strongest of earthquakes. Phew.
Bruce, I’m not letting you off that easy.
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Ha! There was no need to set it in the República de Colombia!
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It would have been a 1 in 195 chance it was set in Colombia, so I was willing to presume it was somewhere else. 😉
Also the names Marsha and Elva are a ‘DEAD’ give away. LOL
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I guess you’re right about the names!
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“When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions”
– Claudius in Hamlet
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No wonder Gertrude loved him.
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I bow to the avowed vocation of the author, a connoisseur of grim ends. He keeps surpassing his own mastery with a rare felicity.
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Ha ha! Thank you for brightening my day, Uma!
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I see you still haven’t been able to change your ‘invitation to comment.’ Or, do you prefer a happy life, perhaps?
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What the heck? I haven’t changed anything…
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That’s what I meant, BA. No change yet.
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Now I’m all lost so I haven’t got a clue what anyone (including myself) is talking about,
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Okay. you were trying to change the introduction to the comments section. I was no help, and you were going to leave a query with the hypothetical Happiness Engineers of WordPress to find out where to do that. Does that stir any memories??
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They told me that that facility (to change the introduction to the comments section) was no longer available.
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Uh-oh.
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Shake rattle and die…
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I’d say the people were safer in a one-story small house than a high-rise apartment building. But where exactly was this house?
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The house was possibly on the outskirts of Yellowstone Park – just prior to a catastrophic event.
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In that case no one within a 100 mile area would survive!!
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They’ve recently discovered 250 cubic miles of “magna mush” sitting under our largest lake (Lake Taupo)!
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Uh oh!
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Yikes! This was my house last weekend, minus the earthquake thank goodness. I was a little concerned we might get a tornado warning which would have sent everyone into the basement where we shoved all the mess.
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You could’ve asked them to tidy the basement while they were at it. New Zealand houses don’t have basements which is a pity. Everything seems to get put into the garage!
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When we were moving to the Pacific Northwest several years ago, I told our realtor we had to have a basement. He laughed at me and explained that they had earthquakes, not tornadoes, and that we probably wouldn’t find a house with a basement. We didn’t. And it was really strange to me. Also, a tornado touched down not five miles south of us within a couple months of our move. I never did experience an earthquake.
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I think I’d rather have an earthquake than a tornado. I never thought of earthquakes being the reason for no basement but you’re absolutely right!
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Nice
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