The second of the great tsunamis of the early twenty-first century hit just after two in the morning that night. The epicentre of the earthquake that produced the tidal wave was located along the same fault line that had produced the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake in 2004, and it shared many characteristics with it's earlier cousin. It was only marginally less powerful, coming in at a magnitude of 9.0, one or two points less intense than its 2004 counterpart. That one point of magnitude did little to limit the damage, and despite some years of preparation, proclamations, pledges of early warning systems and policies and multimillion dollar budgets administered by the UN, by national governments, and universities. Despite all this, an estimated 275,000 people were killed in the original shock and the weeks afterwards, making this the third most deadly (to humans) natural disaster in recorded history, after the Shaanxi earthquake of 1556 (some 800,000 dead), and the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004 (283,000), and just edging out the Tanshan earthquake of 1976, which extinguished a mere 242,000 Chinese souls.

The geophysics of the earthquake that gave birth to this new tsunami, as explained on television and radio by Julian's former thesis advisor, were as dramatic as its 2004 predecessor: the same 1,500 km stretch of fault line was affected, and the India Plate slipped another 15-odd metres along the Burma portion of the Eurasian plate. Six meters of the earth's crust disappeared at the subduction zone. This rupture was just as big, almost 400 km long and 100 km wide, and the event lifted the seabed several meters, displacing many tens of square kilomteres of water in shocks lasting some ten minutes. And again, the global sea level rose by a milimetre, the earth's rotation was knocked out of whack by a centimetre, with that modification shaving a couple of microseconds off the length of the day.

The media had difficulty finding the right words, and even on cable news channels they were shrewd enough to avoid words such as unprecedented, unparalleled, unimaginable. Because the levels of chaos and death were in fact precedented, paralleled and easily imaginable; we had seen them all just years before. We'd seen the photos, the satellite shots, the footage of the waves and the faces of the devastated, and their ravaged homes and villages. The outpouring of sympathy and grief was intense, but not as intense as it had been a few years before -- one can only be moved to tears by geophysics so many times before a certain natural disaster fatigue, a certain jaded cynicism sets in about houses washed out to sea and children lost to the waves. Yet there was still talk of a new era of global cooperation; that this tragedy had brought the world closer; that the charitable urges felt by people all over the world would continue on, this time, and result in fraternity, equity, liberty for all.

And in holy buildings all around the world, including the New Hope Church of Christ, in Tigris, California, priests and imams and rabbis and ministers talked of the demonstration of God's charity that was evident heroic efforts of Ranil Rajapakse, who saved his wife, four children, and three of his neighbour's kids, by getting them to the roof of his house where he urged them all to pray, while hanging on to the eight of them and tying himself to the roof with his belt. God's grace was evident, said these leaders of flocks, in the prayers of the survivors, buried under rubble, but fished out alive days later, thankful and converted to piety. God's love was proved in the bursting hearts of congregations all over the world that opened their hearts and wallets and checkbooks, and filled the bursting collection baskets and sent care packages of t-shirts and flashlights and tins of soup half-way around the world to people they did not know in places whose names they had difficulty pronouncing.

Pastor John Dawes, who had presided over the introduction of Evan Hand to his saviour, Jesus Christ, cried real, painful tears, as he spoke of the Lord's deep love for every soul, every human who had the courage to open his heart to be saved. He asked his congregation to pray, harder than they'd ever prayed. He told them to pray for the young men and women, and Reverend Burnside of the Youth Mission in West Timor, who had not been touched directly, praise be to God, by the tsunami, but who were en route to Aceh province to aid the Army, NGOs and other missionary groups in their relief efforts, to help save people and their souls. Reverend Dawes sobbed, shaking at the pulpit, face swollen and red: I am crying, he said, because of how much God loves us, how each and every act of goodness and charity is more proof of how much God loves us, how you and I can reach into our hearts, and pray, and find the love of God, and give the love of God, and each time you and me, each time we give the love of our God to others God makes more and more love, because God's love is infinite, but he only gives it out wisely, because his wisdom is infinite, and he gives His love when you give your love, when our brothers and sisters need it most.

Some of the same communities in Sumatra, and Aceh province, in the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand that had been devastated in 2004 were devastated again, within close living memory of the last such destruction; some new villages and coastlines were ravaged as well, in Thailand, Philippines and elsewhere.

Knowlton, Quebec, on the other hand, inland, near another fault line, far from the ocean, and on the other side of the planet and sitting in the shadow of Mount Echo, was spared, as was Montreal, which was protected by the St-Laurence river and half the globe. London, New York, Paris, Berlin, and Tokyo were all spared, along with Akron, Ohio, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, Djibouti, Oostburg, Wisconsin, Besoncon, France, Sao Paulo, Bagdhad, Cape Town, and Algeirs and hundreds of thousands of other towns and villages and suburbs, and billions of other people.

As for those lucky souls who made it through this latest tsunami, the ones in Sumatra, as well as those in New York, Sao Paulo, Oosburg, and Knowlton, they too would die some time in the future; each one of them; some peacefully, some in unbearable agony, some from violence, guns, knives, eathquakes, and hurricanes, bombs; others would live long, productive lives and die peacefully in their sleep, surrounded by loved ones.

But they would all disappear, along with the continents upon which they worked and hated and loved, continents that would get sucked into the centre of the molten earth and melted for source material, or piled on top of other continents, eventually, some millions or hundreds of millions of years later, that would travel to the other side of the planet altogether. The process and causes of this latest of the great tsunamis were the same as they always had been: a build-up of tension in the plate boundaries between two plates of the Earth's crust, culminating in a massive release of energy, accompanied by shock waves, the occasional leak of molten lava, and the odd tsunami. And the released tension would only build up again. And again. It was unstoppable, unstopped this motion, the best we could do was marvel at it.

And yet here, in the night, as fishing villages are ravaged along the coastlines of South East Asia, lies Evan Hand, searching the ceiling of the dark hospital room, as he tries to sleep on the floor, listening to the sounds of the two other patients, beside his wife, in the room snoring and shuffling, and the faint but constant sound of his beloved wife breathing in and out in and out, the sound of human breath, breath he had to decide what to think about, to love or to hate, or both, breath that he didn't want to lose, breath that he wanted to hear in his ear again. He went to and fro, sure, and then unsure, whether he could forgive her - an oscillation made worse by the uncertainty about whether she would live long enough for him to be able to forgive her; and, he had to consider, oscillation about whether she would want his forgiveness. Though the ambulance people, and Julian's wife, had all told him that the only thing she had said was, I'm sorry Evan. Several times. He had not heard her say it, but at the very least he prayed that she would say it sometime, maybe tomorrow, that he could hear her voice say, "I am sorry Evan." And then he would be able to decide.

He looked out the window at the dark, dull sky.

He felt hope inside of him, he felt possibility. He prayed, prayed that somehow, all this would be OK. He would be here in the morning, and the morning after that, as long as it took. He would wait for her, wait for her and let the grace of God guide him. He had a church to build, after all. He had faith. Faith in himself, faith in Annabel. Faith that he would build his church yet, with this woman or without, and do his best to help, knowing the great pain he himself had suffered, to bring comfort to the souls of others.

Elsewhere, a little later in the night, on the cusp of dawn, Julian and Dominique held each other. There were things they thought they should tell each other, but did not, secrets, fears, worries, confessions. And other things they did say, kind things, that they were afraid, and felt small and lonely, that they loved each other. That they had missed each other. That they wanted this to work, for each other, for the baby. They continued whispering, as the light of dawn seeped in through the window, talking about their future and past, about Annabel and Evan, about visiting them tomorrow, and finally, before falling asleep, they talked about names they liked. Boys' names and girls' names.

The sun rose that morning, bathing Mount Echo in light, shining down on Julian's garden, on the little cedar cottage where Julian and Dominique slept, and pouring in through the cracks in the blinds of the window of Annabel Hand's hospital room.