Cuando Pase El Temblor

On September 19th, I woke up earlier than usual. I had a nightmare and I couldn't fell asleep again. I felt somewhat nervous and anxious. I had a bad feeling and I started to read the news on my cellphone, to get rid off that bad feeling. 

Against my need to alleviate myself from the nightmare, almost all of the news were related to the 32nd anniversary of the devastating earthquake that destroyed a lot of buildings and lives in Mexico City in 1985. 

Back then I was just a child, but the news gave me the chills and I started to remember how I experienced that earthquake. 

It was such a surprise to realize that I avoid to think about it. 

  

I guess it was so awful that I never think of it. It's not a conscious act. 
I guess I repress all those memories related to that event. 
Then, in a few months, I was about to celebrate my fifth birthday, but I had a few weeks on the first grade of elementary school. 

Then, as I prepared myself to take a shower, I remembered. 

My dad was not present at that time. He had left home earlier and he was at Insurgentes Sur Avenue, waiting for a Van of the company he worked for. On the previous months, he had been sick. He almost had a nervous breakdown and the physician suggested him to not drive his car. He had a silver Volkswagen.  

We lived in the 5th floor, in a small apartment. 

When the earthquake started, I was having breakfast, just about to go to school. 
Suddenly everything started to move and I thought that I was ill because of the breakfast.
My mom hugged me and told me not to worry. 
It was a nightmare. Some things hanging on the walls of the apartment fall apart and broke.
It looked like the earthquake was never going to finish. 
The building moved like a small boat drifting on the gigantic sea.
The movement was fierce and unpredictable. 
It lasted just about two minutes, but nearly 20, 000 people died. 

A lot of people lost everything, in just about two minutes. 
Mom took me to the school and dad called her later.
None of the buildings around our apartment, looked damaged. 

We were fine -dad and mom and my brother and myself-, but scared.  

I had to stop reading the news, 'cause I was already worried and sad.

Late that day, at the University -and in the entire city- we had a simulation of an earthquake evacuation. Everything happened as it was supposed to happened. 

I was alone -my colleagues were occupied at another buildings of the University- and it made feel strange and abandoned.  

When the simulation finished, I still felt somewhat anxious and nervous -as early in the morning-, but I went back to work. 

My office is located on the 3rd floor of the heaviest building of the University. 

I was about to send documents for a CONACyT announcement. We needed money for research.   

At some point, I took a break. 

I was reading a paper of Neurobiology of Learning & Memory. 
It was an interesting study. Authors wanted to evaluate how sleep restriction affected both short- and long- term memories in Aplysia. Besides, they showed how a sleep opportunity of just a few hours, reverted the negative effect of sleep restriction. 

Simultaneously, my colleagues were talking about René Drucker -he just died a night before- and I was curious about what they think of him as a scientist. I have a published paper with him, and he also was advisor of my advisor.

People, usually not related to neurosciences, saw Drucker as an important scientist.
They don't even know that his most recognized papers are those related to his studies on sleep mechanisms in the cat, rather than his studies on Parkinson.

My colleagues said that he was once invited to a Parkinson conference and that he was not really welcome by the specialists. They even kinda hated him and thought he was so arrogant. 

I saw him once at a conference in an annual meeting of the Sociedad Mexicana para la Investigación y Medicina del Sueño, and he was really rude. 

He spoke of an old study -never published- about the relationship between depression and nicotine. It was supposed to be an awesome experiment with depressed women, but I thought it was weird that Drucker -or his student- decided to left it unpublished. 

Another possibility was that the paper, in fact, would have been rejected from an indexed journal. 

He treated my advisor so badly, like if my advisor were his slave. 

Nonetheless, when I had to do something with Drucker, he wasn't rude at all -he was present in my candidacy examination and I had to look for him several times-, but I refuse to accept that people are not dumb and that they don't read but have an opinion for everything.  

People are convinced by appearances.  

Suddenly, it started.

It seemed a light earthquake at the beginning, but it became violent soon. 
It felt like if an enormous worm crawled rapidly, moving everything at its. 

We left the office and just stopped in a security area, with other researchers and students. 
As the movement increased in intensity, a wall fall to the ground and then a window broke.
Women screamed and they put me nervous. I thought the building was about to collapse. 

I thought of my wife and cats.
They were also inside a building, but in the 5th floor. 

When it finished, I left the University.
My cellphone didn't work, so I couldn't communicate to my wife. 
The street was chaotic. People walked across the avenues. 
Traffic was at its highest. No public transport, no taxis were available. 

I had to walk for miles. 
As I walked I felt worst. I didn't know how my family was. 
All I knew came from the radio. News said that several buildings had collapsed. 

Nearly three hours after the earthquake, I got home. 
The building was OK, so my wife and cats. 

Today, I went back to the University.   
One of my colleagues, asked me to accompany him.
I've been so scared -I developed a nervous cough- and I haven't slept well. 

The building of the University in which I have worked for the last three years, it's so damaged that authorities have declared it is uninhabitable. 
Today a couple of colleagues and myself, fed the animals. 
I was so scared. I couldn't stop thinking what if another earthquake started precisely when we were inside the building. It was so extreme. 
The building is so damaged, that most of the researchers who worked in there just decided to sacrifice their animals. 
I was so nervous and scared, but I remained inside the building for almost two hours. 
Everything changed for us in a couple of minutes. 
I don't know when I'm going back to normal. 

Cuando Pase El Temblor