Pacific Embolism

              I dreamed that the earth quake woke almost six million people from San Diego to Los Angeles. But that wasn't the worst part. I was somehow aware of a great shifting, a bubbling, like when a pot of water is slowly raised above boiling, and something is dropped into the over hot water. I woke N and insisted that she get her car keys ready. We could only grab some of the cats. N kept asking “Why?” and I found that I couldn't really explain.
              I drove us out of town, and up the highest mountain I could find nearby. As I drove I asked N to call all of our friends and warn them. She was grumbling about it, but she did so, in between wresting cats into the back seat.
              I pulled into a turnout on Palomar Mountain where we could see the ocean. I set up the telescope and trained it out to sea. Soon I heard N gasp.
              She pointed, I spun the telescope over and saw a giant wave, that wasn't really a wave. Water frothed and seethed and was tossed high into the air. It foamed like a giant carbonated soda. Then the embolism of Carbon Dioxide and Carbon Monoxide, invisible, save for the birds falling out of the sky in front of it, rolled across the ocean toward the coast and all of its inlets and bays. The water rolled back into itself filling the foaming void, and a tsunami formed, racing towards the shore, pushing the deadly gasses in front of it. I had sealed up the house as best as I could, I hoped the cats would have enough oxygen to survive. S called from Rabbit Rock, I hoped he was high enough off the ground. A and C were driving up the mountain to join us. We didn't hear from mom and dad, but I was hopeful that they were far enough inland and high enough at the top of their hill to avoid the disaster.
              I wound up the radio and we started trying to find news stations that would tell us what was going on.