DI ZHEN -- Earthquake: Our Time is Up
From the prologue of Di Zhen.
Time: 8:43 AM PST. The streets and narrow lanes were full with the usual rush hour traffic. Pedestrians, mostly tourists, walked casually along the sidewalks toward San Francisco’s famed Fisherman’s Wharf. Street performers lured passersby in the hope for some loose change, some singing, some standing in costume, others playing musical instruments. A voice practiced opera, the statue of liberty stood proudly in bright silver costume, a saxophone wailed. A light breeze roused the air from its rest, its cool temperature a welcome contrast to the bright sun.
It started as a rapid, buzzing noise, strangely soft, as if the earth, blissfully supine, decided to wake and hum a tune. People on foot were the first to notice. They stopped, turning and asking each other if they felt something, too. Children laughed nervously and squealed at the funny pinpricks that tickled their feet and ran up their legs, some grabbing onto their parents for protection from the phantom force. The statue of liberty was the first to react.
“Earthquake!” he shouted through his mask.
The rest of the would-be musicians and entertainers, veterans of many a quake, picked up the chant.
“Earthquake! Earthquake!”
As if in response to their refrain, the earth began a peculiar jig, that of a drunken pirate spinning on his peg leg, hips rotating obscenely. The rolling motion tossed nearly everyone to the sidewalk. Pedestrians who resisted flailed their arms, teetering precariously, trying to maintain their balance in vain, ultimately tossed disdainfully to the pavement by the triumphant earth. Motorists stopped their cars, their faces wearing unspoken fears.
The rolling motion reached a constant state, first pitching back and forth, and then bouncing up and down. The streetlights and traffic lights swayed as if moved by a great sea wind, and newspaper stands and trash cans leaped from their upright perches to the asphalt. Swimming pools overflowed with miniature tsunamis, the water slapping onto concrete embankments. Bricks and glass rained down from the buildings and onto the sidewalks and streets below, the glass shards imitating first the high notes of a piano and ending their performance with a shattering harmony. Crackling sounds filled the air, the ground moaning haunting sonatas as long, thin fissures fractured the earth.
The calamity lasted for a full two minutes.
Narcissism in the Workplace
From the introduction to Narcissism in the Workplace: 10 Rules for Dealing with the Narcissist in Your Office.
You may be reading this book to learn what narcissism is all about. You may be reading it because you already know what narcissism is, and you want to learn more about the personality traits associated with someone who has a narcissistic personality disorder.
Maybe you are reading it because you have intellectual curiosity.
Or perhaps you think you work with a narcissist and you don’t know what to do, you don’t know how to cope. If that’s why you picked up this book, then you and I and others who have worked with a narcissist have a special connection. We understand each other and can identify with what each of us has been through — and yet we are disappointed when we cannot convey to our friends and family and professional associates what it means to work with someone who is a narcissist in the truest sense of the word.
I hope that the account in this book changes that. I hope that this brief chronicle tells “our” story.
I am not a psychologist, and I never intended to write a book like this. I would rather write fiction. But working with a narcissist forever changes his unfortunate coworkers, and the experience certainly changed me.
All right. Enough of the small talk. Let’s commiserate.
