Clooney’s Knock

A strange heavy hot still night. I woke at 2:30 and it was eerily quiet. Not a dog barking across the valley, not an owl, the tree crickets mute. I struggled to find a rhythm to my breathing, to return to slumber. But I must have eventually, counting single breaths on my fingers.

Then struggling up to awakeness at 5:10 thinking, ‘What the hell is the boss up to?’ as if stirring wooden balls in an echoing wooden box. And then suddenly awake and acutely alone: an earthquake. The giant wardrobe from the town on Lake Como near one of Clooney’s villa bombalating in distress. The boss urging me out of the house even though the noise and shaking had stopped. A toad calmly going about its business or acting as some kind of portent.

A 4.8 magnitude quake at 8km depth in the mountain town of Marradi about 60km away. People were out in the streets across eastern Tuscany, Florence included. Seems no casualties and a little damage near the epicentre but a big quake for Tuscany in the area where in 1919 an earthquake killed over 100 people.

Lots of aftershocks through the morning. We both individually managed to break glass objects as if the quake were somehow inside us. ‘Rattled’ would be the word.