First a Scream, Then a Rumble

Earthquakes are a part of life here in the Land of the Rising Sun.  Tremors at least strong enough to cause lamps to sway and bookshelves to rattle happen several times a year, maybe even a couple of times a month.  You do get used to it, but never completely.  When the shaking starts, everything stops.

What's interesting is that, after you've experienced so many small quakes, you begin to recognize the telltale signs just before they occur.  Usually there is a sort of vibration, a strange feeling of thickness in the air, even a hint of a droning sound at the extreme low end of the audible spectrum, just before that first jolt hits.  It's usually enough that everyone looks at each other and says, "Ah, jishin da," [Ah, it's an earthquake] a second or two before it starts.

But last night was weird.

I was sitting at my computer busily Superpoking (i.e. annoying) people when I suddenly started hearing an awful, nerve-wracking wail.  I thought perhaps it was the creak of a rusty truck door being opened out on the nearby street, but it went on for at least a couple of seconds and seemed to be coming from every direction at once.  Then came the familiar vibration and thickness in the air.  When the shaking started, the keening took a sharp turn upward in pitch and then cut off with an eerie snap.  Luckily, it was only a very minor tremor, not enough to move much of anything.

What in the world was that sound?  Was it the aluminum sheeting on the neighbors' shed offering a harmonic complaint in response to the vibration?  Was it the siding on our house doing the same thing?  Was it a standing vibration temporarily induced in the steel reinforcing girders in our roof?  Or was it the living rock crying out in agony as it was bent to the breaking point?  I'll never know.  But it's too bad I didn't get a recording of it.  It had possibilities!