…And the Walls Came Tumbling Down…

I look out of the window again, but the panes are coated and streaked with the chalky white dust of Jerusalem. My heart is still hammering from the shock of the explosion and tearing crash that stunned me half an hour ago. I stand up but I’m still shaky. What the hell was that? That’s what the explosion of the atomic bomb over Nagasaki must have sounded like. Is that what it was? A nuclear explosion? Here in the Holy City? I hang onto the walls and claw my way to the living room to switch on the TV. The news anchor looks like I feel. Stunned. “We are waiting for further news, but rumor here in the studio is that the Great Rift Valley ripped open and the land to the west is now floating in the Mediterranean Sea.”

The Great Rift Valley runs from the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon, across the Sea of Galilee, along the Jordan River to the Red Sea and down into Africa. For years seismologists, earthquake specialists and geographers have waited for this calamity. ‘One twitch of the tectonic plates and no one will recognize the Middle East,’ said those who knew.

“We will report further news as we receive it. We recommend that you remain in safe areas, there may be aftershocks.”  I take three strides to the liquor cabinet and pour half a glass of the single malt whisky I’ve been saving for a special occasion.

An hour later I venture out into the street. I live in an apartment on the third walk-up floor on the Street of the Prophets in downtown Jerusalem. The stairs, the sidewalks and the street are all covered in dust and debris. The few people who were outside when the bomb exploded, so to speak, are ghostly pale figures tottering and staggering as they make their way to unknown destinations or are simply going around in circles. Glass that been in windows a few hours ago is strewn over the sidewalk and crunches under the pair of old army boots that I fished out from a cupboard, ‘just to be on the safe side’.

Jaffa Road, the main street, is a shambles. I stand and look at the mess and try and figure out what happened. If the blast was caused by the tectonic plates ripping apart, the forces would have been horizontal; that would account for the large stones lying all over the road. They had been parapet walls around the roofs of the buildings on both sides of the street. Open windows would have slammed shut, smashing the glass panes. Anything on the flat roofs would have come flying off and landed in the street.

Inside apartments and offices anything on open shelves and worktops is now on floors, smashed to pieces. I see remainders of laptops, cell-phones, shards of crockery, books and papers everywhere. Hysteria reigns. I remember the shouts of people in the streets after 9/11. The numbness. The disbelieving. I shudder as I think that this is infinitely worse. The death toll will be huge, both from direct and indirect causes.

Back in front of the TV I hear the announcer saying, “… and there are strong reports, as yet unconfirmed, that the parting of the plates was caused by an explosion.” I shout to no-one, ‘repeat that please!’ It means that someone dropped a bomb somewhere along the rift valley, setting off movement in the plates and causing them to move an inch or a foot and then a yard and then who knows, a mile? It sounds impossible. Outrageous. But infinitely possible. A novel way to start a war.

I wonder how wide the resulting chasm is. It could be anything from 20 feet to 50 yards. How deep is it? 10 feet, 100, 1,000 feet? How many people fell in and are dead? How many are alive deep down in the crevice and have no way of getting out? How many are dead on the surface killed by flying furniture, animals and trees? Have the waters of the Mediterranean Sea rushed into the rift? Can one cross to the other side? So many questions…

The wailing and screeching of emergency vehicles pours through the window, loudspeaker voices shout at people and cars to let them through. Through the shattered windows I see flames gushing out of shattered windows, broken gas lines I think. And men lighting cigarettes. Huge jets of water climb into the sky. Those who complain about our poor water pressure should see this! All in all, it’s not a scene to admire out there. And it’s getting worse. I see a crack in the stone facing of the building across the street and as I stare at it, the crack grows wider. Then a square yard of stonework peels away from the concrete backing and crashes down into the street below. It hits the sidewalk but at that instant, there are no pedestrians and no injuries. The famous deep-blue sky of Jerusalem has been replaced by a brownish-grey layer of dust.

The Great Rift Valley has been known for centuries.  It has performed before, perhaps many times, to varying degrees. In the 8^th century, an ancient caliph by the name of Hisham built a grand palace surrounded by magnificent gardens that covered 150 acres near Jericho. The Great Rift Valley shook and quivered and the entire compound collapsed just before the king and his entourage moved in. No survivors. The ruins are now a tourist attraction and reveal secrets of life in those ancient times.  

That night’s sleep is an uneasy and unrestful one with both ears wide open for the slightest strange sound. I wonder if the abyss that had formed could be opening wider and wider until it reaches my bedroom and swallows me and my bed together.

The morning’s news brings few new facts on the calamity, but confirms that there is now a huge chasm, that thousands of people are missing. Whole villages and parts of many towns have disappeared along with their inhabitants.

I pour another drink and see that the bottle is close to empty. There must be a doorless or windowless liquor store somewhere close by. I wonder what’s happening on the other side of the battered country, the Mediterranean coast. There surely must be a shock-wave, a tsunami making its destructive way westwards across the sea. What of Cyprus? Is it still there or is it lying on the ocean floor? Greece and Italy? Is Spain OK? Can the wave get out by way of the Straits of Gibraltar? Did the wave hit the Black Sea? What of Turkey and the Crimea? Did this underground catastrophe cause other shocks to other plates underground?

Is this the beginning of the end of planet Earth?