The headache was starting. Mark had known it would, so he’d taken three aspirin. It would only hurt for a little bit though, then sputter out. He’d gotten pretty good with the drill. Ought to have, the way things had been going, especially the last six months.
He was a sap, pure and simple. His best friend, Jake, had gotten himself engaged to a pretty high-maintenance chick. Marlie was blonde, good height, nice build, and quick with a quip. Jake said she was the best sex he’d ever had, but that hadn’t kept him from sleeping around.
One night Jake had gone back home to see Sara at her place, supposedly to talk about walking the straight-and-narrow instead of playing the bedroom tag they had enjoyed ever since high school. Regardless of whether they had done any talking or not, they sure had been drinking, and after Jake left around midnight, he managed to wrap himself around the twisted oak tree at Dead Man’s Curve.
What a damn waste! Jake and he had been friends since 6th grade. They’d studied together, played football together, chased after girls together. They’d headed off to college together, but Jake hadn’t been able to stay with it and had dropped out to work for his dad at the hardware store. When Mark had moved to Wichita after graduation, Jake had left their home town of Bentley to room with Mark. They pretty much picked up where they’d left off, although Mark’s salary was a bit more than Jake’s.
Then Jake had met Marlie and things changed overnight. He was serious about her and pretty quickly moved into her place. They got engaged somewhere along the way and a Christmas wedding had been planned.
Several things changed with Jake’s death. Marlie cried the week before the funeral, during the funeral, and for a month after the funeral. When she told Mark that Jake’s child was on-the-way, Mark decided to do the honorable thing and told her he thought they should get married, that he’d be a good father to Jake’s kid.
Marlie had appeared to be surprised by the offer but didn’t think twice about accepting it, and they were married two weeks later. Everything was okay at first, Marlie had stopped crying and seemed happy to be having a family. The sex was okay, but certainly not the best Mark had ever had. Then about four months into the marriage, things seemed to start a downward slide that simply never quit.
Marlie was cranky a lot -- she didn’t feel like straightening up the house, she didn’t feel like cooking, and she didn’t want to be touched. Mark figured it was the pregnancy and tried to do things which would help her, thinking this was just a stage.
But tiny Carla was born with big problems. There was something wrong with her brain and her spine, and she had to have help breathing. She was a beautiful little girl, but her problems were severe and the doctors said she would probably die within the first month.
As it turned out, the poor little thing died after two weeks -- she’d never even left the hospital. Had never gone outside into the beautiful autumn air. Never was held by her father. Because of all the tubes and apparatus, the only thing Mark was allowed to do was to hold her hand, and he tried to get to the hospital every day to do just that.
He decided against a funeral and thought it best to have her cremated. One pretty autumn day with sunny skies and crunchy leaves, he scattered Carla’s ashes on Jake’s grave. It seemed the right thing to do and, as he took a moment to tell Jake about his daughter, he felt a peaceful closure with his friend. Carla’s short existence had touched a deep place in Mark and opened him up to emotions and feelings he’d never known existed.
As for Marlie ... what a selfish, spoiled, impossible bitch. She had refused to visit or even acknowledge the baby and within two days of Carla’s birth had packed up all her things and moved out of the house. On her way out she yelled that she wanted a divorce and he could send the papers to her folks’ place.
Mark had no problem with that. She didn’t begin to be the kind of person he’d want to live with the rest of his life, and he’d gotten divorce proceedings started the very next day. In another couple of weeks she’d be out of his life and good riddance.
And so what a year it had been, at least on a personal level. But he liked his job and seemed to be valued by his boss. He also had inherited a good team from the previous manager, and their efforts were bringing all of them to the attention of the home office. The latest office buzz was that a new project was on the drawing boards and he and his team might be heading it up. That would be great for everyone and would go a long way toward getting his life back on track.
But today had been one of those days in which everything that could go wrong, did. Anna had called in sick for the second day, Bob had eaten something on break that had kept him in the bathroom for 45 minutes so he missed an important conference call, and Verna had accidentally stapled her finger. That in itself wasn’t so bad, but on her way to the closet which had the first-aid kit, she overheard Lucy telling Todd that she had enjoyed his kisses the night before. Oops ... Todd was Verna’s steady.
Verna totally forgot about the first-aid kit, went right over to Lucy’s desk, picked up the Cherry Coke that was sitting there and poured it all over Lucy’s head. Lucy jumped up, shoved Verna back against a file cabinet, then made a huge red mark on Verna’s face with a magic marker as she screamed, “You bitch!” Todd chickened out and ran for his desk, and the women would still be fighting except that Edith, the old secretary who couldn’t be any taller than 4’8”, had marched up and roared a big “STOP IT!” which had left both girls cowering, probably in fear of having their knuckles rapped.
Personally he thought it was funny, and thanked his lucky stars that none of those three were on his team. Although, come to think of it, it would probably be better to have Edith on his team than on the opposite one. He’d have to give that some thought.
When his lunch order came back with the wrong sandwich, and FedEx didn’t show up in time to get his high-priority overnight letter to the airport, that’s when the headache finally kicked in. On days like this he should just give up and go home. Added to that, the weather was supposed to start going straight down the drain.
Thankfully he had a few phone calls which took his mind off his troubles and before he knew it, it was time to close up shop. He grabbed his raincoat, his wide-brimmed felt fedora which he’d taken to wearing in iffy weather, and idly wondered if he still had a Clif Bar in his pocket. He planned to walk home rather than take the bus, even though it was about 30-some blocks, and he might get hungry. He knew the exertion would help ease his stress and the dregs of his headache; maybe the exercise would keep hunger away.
Donning his coat then stepping out of the building, he was surprised to notice the temperature seemed to be in the low 40s. It hadn’t started snowing, but it was in the forecast. And, according to the often-wrong weatherman, it was supposed to be raining right now, which it wasn’t. Thank God it was Friday. He’d sleep in tomorrow without a care as to what was happening outside.
The crowds seemed to thin out as the clouds moved lower, and finally he noticed he could hardly see ahead at all. It had become foggy, like his brain he thought, and he walked on feeling comforted by the closeness. It actually was a little amusing to only be able to see his feet and the sidewalk just about a foot ahead. Walk ... walk ... walk ... curb ... step down ... walk across street ... curb ... step up ... walk ... walk ... walk ... Feeling relaxed, he let his mind just wander. Remembered back to when he was a kid and had been out playing in fog just like this. He had climbed up into his tree house and imagined a great adventure. Later he woke up to hear his dad calling out as he searched in the dark with the old lantern.
Mark’s thoughts wandered on and he didn’t notice that the last time he stepped down off the curb there hadn’t been another step up to a curb. He also didn’t notice when the pavement changed to grass. Lush, thick grass which muffled his footsteps. The fog stayed the same density and, strangely, so did the level of the light, like it was almost dusk, with street lights on.
Finally he realized something was different and he stopped, listened intently, then turned slowly all the way around. “What ... in ... the ... hell?” he said slowly and softly. It was obvious he was no longer on the road to home -- there were no office buildings, no houses, no streets. “This is bizarre,” he whispered.
All of a sudden he heard someone running. He flinched, not sure which way he should go to side-step a foggy crash. Then the running stopped to be replaced by harsh breathing. Instinct told him to remain motionless. He quieted his breathing and imagined himself as still as a rock. A few foot steps ... silence ... a muttered “Damn!” then rapid foot steps again but diminishing in sound.
He remained quiet for a number of minutes before deciding maybe he better get moving. He closed his eyes, mentally felt outward, somehow felt better about a point off to his left, and softly started walking in that direction. His trail occasionally passed a patch of rocks here, a small bush there, uphill here, sloping away there. Then he walked between several large boulders and, on the spur of the moment, stepped aside to curve behind one, finding a low overhang which he could comfortably crouch beneath. It seemed necessary.
Suddenly there were voices -- harsh whisperings, muffled shouts. He couldn’t pick out what they were saying and almost crept out from his sheltered spot when two people walked quickly past. “Hurry up. He’s been here.”
What in the hell could possibly be going on he thought as he listened intently for any information he could gather. But, just as suddenly as they’d turned up, everyone went away. Once again he remained quiet a bit before deciding he should get a move on. But where? It seemed there was no place he could go, especially since he couldn’t see more than two feet in front of his face, without something weird happening.
Drawing on the words of his grandfather, “If you find yourself between a rock and a hard place, take a deep breath, calm yourself, and trust in the Universe,” he relaxed himself totally, took a calming breath, stood, then stepped down the slope in a new direction without looking back.
He had loved spending the summers at his grandfather’s place -- lots of hills and woods, creeks and cliffs, trees and rocks just the right size for a kid to climb over. It had probably encompassed the best series of moments in his whole life. In fact, maybe he should give serious thought to going back there. Maybe even moving back there. His family still owned the place, but he didn’t think anyone was living there now.
He noticed the fog had lifted somewhat -- he could see about ten feet around him. And, wherever he was, it reminded him an awful lot of his grandfather’s place -- lots of trees and underbrush. And it seemed a bit warmer, too. He took off his fedora and stuffed it into his pocket. Gotta love those crushable hats. He’d just about decided to take off his coat and just leave it somewhere when he felt a tingling sensation down his neck, followed by an extreme sense of urgency.
Spying a branch hanging over the path just at the edge of the fog, he started his approach, sprang into the air and caught the smooth-barked branch, swiftly rocked himself back and forth then overhead into a perfect handstand. His feet were together and pointed, his back arched, his chin up. He held the pose, remembering gymnastic competitions from college. Six years he’d been away from it, but it all came back. It was perfect, perf--- ... oh no! His raincoat was slowly slipping down his body, heeding the call of gravity. Shit! But then, somehow, the hem of the coat draped itself gracefully across the branch and pooled to a stop, somehow managing to keep from hanging down. What luck.
That luck was just in time seeing as how three thugs hurried by right then directly beneath the branch. They’d have seen him if they hadn’t been searching the ground. He stilled himself even more, remembering the crowds cheering his pose, his perfect pose of grace and form. The longer he held the pose, utterly without moving, the more they cheered. He could almost hear them.
Until a pervasive sense of evil invaded his consciousness. He almost bobbled his handstand, but forced his mind back to the crowd. On the edge of his awareness the evil drifted by, stopped briefly, then continued on. The crowds roared. His breathing calmed. The evil grew distant. And then was gone.
He held the handstand awhile longer, assessing his surroundings and his intuition, but finding nothing threatening. Flipping himself into a perfect dismount, he held the pose, giving himself points for keeping it all together. It was definitely all tens.
He continued in the direction he’d been going before his gymnastic workout, opposite from where the evil had last been felt, and marveled at how much his surroundings matched his memories of his grandfather’s place.
The fog had lifted even more and he could see lots of hills and trees in all directions. He was headed up a gentle slope when he heard a whine and short bark, coming from just beyond a circle of rocks. He angled that direction since it sounded like a young creature rather than a full-grown threatening one, and soon spied the problem. A puppy had gone exploring and managed to fall into a shallow depression surrounded by rocks. There was no way his short little legs could get him out and between whining and wagging his tail like he wanted it to come off, he appealed to Mark with every quivering bit of his body.
“Hey, little guy. Where’d you come from, huh?” He reached down and managed to grasp the wiggly little body. “How long have you been out here? You’re probably hungry, aren’t you?” A happy and excited tongue licked all over his face before he found the Clif Bar. He broke off a piece and offered it to the pup who wolfed it down without even sniffing. “Okay, okay, let’s take it slow.” He sat down on a broad rock and fed little bites to the dog, wishing he had some water for himself as well as the pup.
“We’re just going to have to find some water, which probably shouldn’t be too hard in this crazy mixed-up place wherever we are. Come on.” He held the puppy in his arms and started off. He knew there wasn’t a creek the way he’d come so maybe he could see something from the top of the hill. By the time he got to the ridge, the fog was completely gone, the sun was shining like it was noon, and he felt better than he’d felt in years.
He looked all around and there, at the bottom of the slope, the trees widened out into a lovely valley complete with meandering creek. “That’s it fella, let’s go.” He started downhill and had gotten about a third of the way when the puppy started wiggling like crazy. “Hey, gotta go, huh?” Mark set him down on the ground and the puppy went right over to a short bush, did his business, and walked back with what Mark would have sworn was a self-satisfied grin. Then he tossed his ears and bounded ahead, tripping over his big paws and planting a facer before picking himself up and bustling off to repeat the performance about every five feet. It was hilarious and heart-warming, and all the problems Mark had ever had just disappeared.
They continued down the slope when all of a sudden he noticed something down by the creek. Stopping and squinting to get a better look, he decided it was a woman. He watched as she twirled around and around, finally tripping herself to lie in the grass. Just like the puppy he thought as he started walking again. And just where did he go was Mark’s last thought before he tangled his foot on a root and tripped headlong down the hill, coshing his head against a rock as he knocked himself into blackness.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Saturday, February 23, 2008
i have you now!
it really is interesting how fashion changes on a regular basis. if i remember right, in my clothing class in college, one of the textbooks said fashion circles back around every 100 years. That stat doesn't seem quite right sometimes. regardless, the whole arena is interesting.
i enjoyed wearing jeans which showed my navel back in the 70's. and 501s were de rigueur. baby doll tops were fun, and bell bottoms were quite the thing. i didn't care for some of the funky colors and patterns, though, and still don't. some of the stuff being brought back is really jarring.
and i particularly do not like all the slim clothes. waaaaaaaay too many overweight women wear tops and bottoms which are waaaaaaaay too tight. it makes me just shake my head. slim or tight clothes are not comfortable, especially if you were around when shoulder pads were in fashion. talk about comfortable. they made me look great. i have sloping shoulders and a waist almost as big as my hips (like barbara bush), so the shoulder pads gave me definition.
big-armed shapes like bat-wing blouses or raglan sleeves were comfortable beyond compare. granny dresses, hot pants, peasant dresses, i've still got patterns to make some of those great shapes. but the sleeves which are out there now are too tight and too short, and are definitely for teenagers. the problem is it's hard to find any other kind. disgusting.
the one thing i do like these days, and can get, is long skirts and coats. i have a new raincoat (www.llbean.com) which has snug arms (yuck) but this looooong drape and if i don't have it all buttoned up, it swoops out to the sides as i walk along. i have a new robe which does the same thing, so i purposely wear it over clothes so i can keep it unsnapped. having it, and my coat, flare out and sway against step makes me feel very darth vader! what a kick!
i enjoyed wearing jeans which showed my navel back in the 70's. and 501s were de rigueur. baby doll tops were fun, and bell bottoms were quite the thing. i didn't care for some of the funky colors and patterns, though, and still don't. some of the stuff being brought back is really jarring.
and i particularly do not like all the slim clothes. waaaaaaaay too many overweight women wear tops and bottoms which are waaaaaaaay too tight. it makes me just shake my head. slim or tight clothes are not comfortable, especially if you were around when shoulder pads were in fashion. talk about comfortable. they made me look great. i have sloping shoulders and a waist almost as big as my hips (like barbara bush), so the shoulder pads gave me definition.
big-armed shapes like bat-wing blouses or raglan sleeves were comfortable beyond compare. granny dresses, hot pants, peasant dresses, i've still got patterns to make some of those great shapes. but the sleeves which are out there now are too tight and too short, and are definitely for teenagers. the problem is it's hard to find any other kind. disgusting.
the one thing i do like these days, and can get, is long skirts and coats. i have a new raincoat (www.llbean.com) which has snug arms (yuck) but this looooong drape and if i don't have it all buttoned up, it swoops out to the sides as i walk along. i have a new robe which does the same thing, so i purposely wear it over clothes so i can keep it unsnapped. having it, and my coat, flare out and sway against step makes me feel very darth vader! what a kick!
i have absolutely been enjoying my reading glasses from www.peeperspecs.com -- they're inexpensive (and may not hold up well, but at that low cost 'oh well') so you can afford to have enough to match a lot of outfits. after all, at my age i'm making an awful lot of things 'fun' rather than 'correct' or 'current fashion'.
i have a plaid pair to go with red or green outfits, a blue and black pair to go with each color, a red pair, a black pair, and a yellow-brown tortoise pair to go with anything, a terra cotta and turquoise pair to go with happy colors, a purple pair to go with purple things, and a copper pair to go with whatever.
i got hubby three pair for valentine's day -- pale silver-blue side-pieces with frameless lenses (very cool!), a pair of tortoise frames, and a pair of reading sunglasses, aviator style. they're all neat.
i sent back several pair which weren't the right color or didn't fit right, but i will undoubtedly be ordering from them again.
yay fun!!!
i have a plaid pair to go with red or green outfits, a blue and black pair to go with each color, a red pair, a black pair, and a yellow-brown tortoise pair to go with anything, a terra cotta and turquoise pair to go with happy colors, a purple pair to go with purple things, and a copper pair to go with whatever.
i got hubby three pair for valentine's day -- pale silver-blue side-pieces with frameless lenses (very cool!), a pair of tortoise frames, and a pair of reading sunglasses, aviator style. they're all neat.
i sent back several pair which weren't the right color or didn't fit right, but i will undoubtedly be ordering from them again.
yay fun!!!
Monday, February 18, 2008
vignette ~ Art Student
Someone wanted her dead. Katie Watkins didn’t know why, and she really didn’t know who, but this time they’d gone too far. She was an art student, for chri’sake. An art student! What the hell could be dangerous about an art student?! And this being on alert all the time was driving her crazy. Just as soon as she’d think she was ahead of the game, she found she was behind again. Dammit!
She angrily grabbed her backpack, threw in her three best pairs of socks, three pair of black high-cut cotton underpants, three turtlenecks, and two pair of jeans. On top of the clothes went her wool clogs, a hairbrush, a minimum of make-up, and her toothbrush. There was barely room for her pencils before she smashed the top down and tugged it shut. No room left now, not even for a bra which was just as well since she hadn’t been wearing one for months now. She’d just never had much bosom and not wearing a bra was pure bliss. Total freedom. Guys didn’t know how good they had it.
She shucked out of her pajamas, put on her boy-leg panties, her winter gramicci’s, a long-sleeved t-shirt, a fleece vest, her rain jacket, and her boots. Then she stuffed her interior pockets with breakfast bars, slid a bottle of water in each front pocket, slipped her pack on her back, grabbed a fleece throw from the couch and drew it across her shoulders, took the stairs to the basement, and exited into the alley.
Her night vision had always been better than 20/20 and she’d counted her blessings on that score many times in the last 13 months. 13 long months. That was how long ago it was that her nightmare started, right in the middle of the chemistry lab.
Everyone had three assignments to do and used the lab equipment to do them. Lindsey Rockford had gone in on a Saturday and set up her last assignment. It was pretty straightforward -- a little of this and a tincture of that. She’d only stepped away from things for a minute to go to the bathroom, when the room disappeared in a blast of heat and smoke.
She’d been terrified the whole building was going to collapse, like 9/11, and had beat feet to get away from that building and every other one close by. Her backpack had been in that room, which pissed her off because she knew the expense of replacing all that stuff would hurt her pocketbook. But she had pretty well calmed down by the time she got back to her dorm room.
She walked in, answered her ringing phone, and heard, “We missed you this time.” “Wha ... what?” she had stuttered into the dial tone. It took three seconds for things to fall into place, then she had grabbed her roommate’s backpack, hurriedly stuffed her important things into it, headed out, and never looked back.
It would never occur to an ordinary person to try and just disappear, but hey. Both her parents had been CIA and she took spook stuff seriously. They were dead, she was accountable to no one, and turning into mist in the night was no biggee.
The second incident had happened 7 months later. Becky Maye had finally found a pretty good, quite insignificant job slinging hash in a roadside joint down on old Route 66 somewhere west of Oklahoma City. The boss liked her attitude, her cooking, and her looks, and had thrown in, rent-free, the small apartment above the garage of the owner’s house next door. No questions were ever asked, and she put in more than her share of work. And even though the boss was gruff, grizzled, and grumpy, it was an arrangement which worked quite well for everyone.
Then one muggy summer day the air conditioner went on the fritz, and all the heat in the kitchen gave her a raging headache. Donny Joe, the busboy who thought he was a stud muffin, kept razzing her about her tight jeans and she finally had to get away. Telling the boss she was taking a bathroom break, she went over to her apartment, took three aspirin, and a number of deep breaths. The air was stifling even with all the windows open, and voices from the parking lot drifted up to her as she tried to relax her shoulders and neck.
“Howdy Hank, how’s the wife?”
“Carla, if I done told you once, I told you a thousand times, don’t twist your fingers in your brother’s hair!”
“Excuse me, have you seen this woman?”
“And I said to her, ‘Sugar, you can lick my popsicle stick any ole time you want to!’”
“Excuse me, have you seen this woman?”
“Mommy! Billy said he was going to behead my Barbie. Mommmmyyyyyy!”
“Excuse me, have you seen this woman?”
Ohmygod. What she was hearing finally fought its way through her headache, and she grabbed her billfold, stuck two breakfast bars in her back pockets, and hurried down the back way. She tore through the owner’s yard at a run, then flew down the alley. Behind her the datdatdatdatdat of machine gun fire and sounds of screaming and crying caught up with her.
Two blocks farther down, the northern highway went right past the alley. Pulling up at the street she hesitated, breathing hard, took in the traffic at a glance, then deftly swung up into an empty horse trailer as the traffic light on the corner turned green. Both of the town’s police cars went screaming by, sirens blaring and lights blazing, before the trailer started moving. She wished she didn’t know what had happened.
And finally Katie Watkins had thought she was safe. She had a nice roommate, HAD had a nice roommate that is, a good job down by the bus and train stations, and was taking a parks department art class. She loved the art class. She’d never done any drawing. Doodling, yes, who didn’t? But never any serious drawing.
And she had discovered she was good at it! She’d sort of listen to the instructor, then her hands would just start doing their own thing. She was amazed and delighted at this funny little skill which seemed to get better by the day. Anytime she wasn’t working, she was drawing. She drew buildings, plants, people; she drew what she saw around her and what she could dredge up from memory. Hands were supposed to be the hardest to accurately reproduce, so she mentally stored up visual snapshots of people’s hands in all different kinds of poses and motions, to be called up later so she could give them a try.
One day she found herself humming and feeling happy, and that was the unfortunate start of letting down her guard. And now Shelley was dead.
Katie had been restless all day, antsy and grouchy, and didn’t pick up on what might be coming. It had been raining, then sleeting, and finally snow was coming down hard. It didn’t help that the wind had picked up and the wind chill was currently -21*.
Shelley had come home just exhausted and wanted nothing more than a warm bath and hot soup. When she realized there wasn’t any soup, she was determined enough that she borrowed Katie’s dry full-length, black down coat, said she’d be back in a minute, and headed for the corner store.
Katie didn’t hear the silencer, but something grabbed her attention. She shot into the dark living room, hurried to the curtained window, and carefully peeked outside. In the evening shadows she saw a large lump sprawled on the sidewalk. A large black lump being quickly painted white with a thick amorphous pond of dark color under the lump. Katie threw up on the curtains.
After throwing up, her thoughts cleared a little, enough for anger to take over and help her get her stuff and get out of there. They thought they’d gotten their target so maybe she had a little time for once.
She headed down the alley a little ways, then cut through a yard, across the street in the middle of the block, through another yard, and down an alley which turned and twisted a bit before ending at the base of a hill on the edge of town.
It wasn’t easy to get up the hill, especially with the snow getting deeper by the minute, but her boots were good ones, the only investment she’d made for herself in the last two years. Well, except for her pencils. They were an inexpensive investment, but they’d given her more pleasure than anything else had in a long long time.
At the top of the hill she stopped and looked around. It was dark, but all that snow lit everything up pretty good. She’d never explored out here and there were huge pine trees everywhere so she couldn’t see for any distance, but she knew where town was and that was where she wasn’t. And it was going to stay that way.
She headed deeper into the trees, away from the town-lights-glow on the sky. Keeping it to a fast walk to conserve her energy, she marveled at how much the trees impeded the storm. It wasn’t nearly as windy here so not as cold either, and the snow didn’t pile up as much. And as big as the trees were, their graceful branches drooping down to the ground, she figured if she had to she could do the homeless thing and park herself at the base of one of those trunks to wait out the storm. It would be cozy, although on second thought, not very warm.
She tromped on. She knew she was fit. It had been years since she’d had the money or interest in having a car so she walked everywhere. Or took a bus or hitched a ride. But walking was good for a gal, plus she watched what she ate. And now it was paying off.
Two hours later she was wishing for a car. Or a snowmobile. Or a horse. She was sick of trudging through this white stuff and needed to take a break. Her trek had been slowly uphill and she figured she had to be a good five miles out of town. Yeah, yeah that wasn’t very far away from bad guys, but they couldn’t yet know they’d shot the wrong person, and since her footsteps were swallowed up within ten minutes of her passing, they couldn’t track her. Could they? Well, shit. They’d been tracking her somehow, why would a little thing like a blizzard keep them away?
Oh great. Now she was becoming snidely delusional. She had to stop and rest. Taking a good look around she realized there was a large, dark something a little ways off to her right. She looked all around once more, then changed course. It was a house. A large, 1920s woodland hideaway. And it was beautiful! And dark.
There were no lights on, no vehicles sitting around, no ruts or indentations to show someone might have been there. Of course the snow had done a good job of obscuring everything, and it was much harder to push through the stuff out here away from the forest. The snow was almost up to her hips and the only reason she could make any headway at all was that it was fine and powdery.
Once she got to the grand old porch, she made it up the steps, then almost collapsed by the front door. Stand up, stand up, don’t sit down or it’ll be the last thing you do she insisted to herself. Taking a deep breath, she squared her shoulders and knocked on the door. No answer. She opened the screen, knocked on the beautiful, oval-windowed front door, and it drifted open.
Well shit. What did that mean?! Oh screw it. She was too tired of running and too tired of walking to give much of a rip whether she was in more danger or not. She poked her head inside and said, “Hello?”
Tapping her boots against the door jam to knock off the snow, she stepped inside and said again, “Hellooo ... HELLO?!” All was quiet. And dark. And, interestingly enough, non-threatening. She stepped back to the porch, slid her pack off her back and shook the snow off, brushed the snow off her person, then brought herself and her stuff inside and shut the door.
Oh. My. God. She was safe. From the storm if nothing else, and she had almost passed right by the place! With the ethereal reflection from the snow, she had enough light to take a good look at her surroundings. The curtains were wide open, but there were Holland covers on everything. That was an oxymoron. Like you’re at home and gone at the same time. How quizzical.
Since there was a small rug close to the front door, she dumped her pack on it, took off her boots to line them up next to her pack, and slid off her rain jacket. There was an old-fashioned hall tree standing dignified in the corner by the stairs, but there was nothing to catch the drips so she just laid her coat on top of her boots along with the fleece throw.
Stepping away from the entryway into the living room, she sighed. What a lovely house. The windows were large with cut-glass sections at the top, and a magnificent fireplace graced the far wall. Everything had kind of a Frank Lloyd Wright feel, but not quite. Still, she could imagine living there without any trouble at all. She continued through the living room and elegant dining room, and through the short butler pantry hallway into the kitchen. It was to die for. Ahem, but no, she’d rather not.
The kitchen was huge, running the full width of the ample house, with two sinks, a Viking stove, a huge refrigerator, two islands, and a large table at the far end. She opened the door to the refrigerator, expecting nothing, but it was fully stocked! It just didn’t make any sense. And even though she was starving, she quickly looked through the rest of the house to make sure she wasn’t infringing on someone, and that she didn’t suffer any surprises.
Finding nothing and no one, she headed for the kitchen and that full refrigerator. First she drank a small glass of orange juice, then pulled out everything she could find for a salad. There was a small pot of something that smelled like clam chowder tucked in the back of the frig, so she put it on the stove to heat up.
All the greens were washed, so she made quick work of romaine, radishes, carrots, cheese chunks, a green onion, a tomato, some zucchini chunks, a bit of yellow squash, and topped it off with capers and a glop of what smelled like gorgonzola dressing. It was heaven, just heaven. She daintily wolfed it down, then dished out a small bowl of the warmed-up soup. Another form of heaven. She was in clover!
Finished with the soup, she managed to put everything away, then washed and rinsed her dishes and put them away before she made it back out to the living room, gently dropped to the couch, pulled the cover over herself, and passed out.
She slept like a rock, but woke up several hours later with a feeling of nervous energy pulling at her. She wondered at it a bit, then walked to her back pack, took out her pencils and some paper, then sat down on the couch.
She wanted to draw. No, she needed to draw. Right here, right now, in the middle of danger, in the middle of a storm, in the middle of the night. So she just went with it. Her mind saw a sunny valley, with a stream running through it and lots of wildflowers everywhere. Her hands drew that valley. She saw soaring eagles, a sheer cliff and a mountain goat. Her hands added those things, along with mountains, and lots of trees. She saw a stone structure built into the side of the cliff, not far from the stream but well-protected from the elements. She imagined smoke coming from the structure, a horse in a pen nearby, and chickens scratching the yard alongside. Her hands recorded it all. She saw butterflies, heard honey bees buzzing, smelled sage and mint. Everything was folded into the picture which was emerging on that paper.
Suddenly .... no, NO! They were here, she knew it! How did they find her? How could they possible figure out where she was?! She ran to the window as snow mobiles shot over the ridge in front of the house. Quickly she threw on her coat, thrust her feet into her boots, and grabbed her back pack and throw. She almost ran for the back door before she felt it ... the picture.
She stopped, then turned. The picture she had drawn of her valley was calling for her attention. Curious, she stared at it, knowing that something important was happening. Feeling urgency, she walked back to it, picked it up, and looked at it. Looked deeply, became one with it.
And then she was.
She felt a quick dizziness, a distortion of something, and then she was in her valley, holding a picture of the dark living room she had just been in. Not at all sure of what was happening but quite mesmerized by everything, she watched. And listened.
She heard the pounding of footsteps onto the porch and saw the front door thrust open. Three very large men burst into the entryway and farther, into the living room.
“Search everywhere!” The largest man shouted. “Find her quickly!”
“She’s gone,” said a fourth man, short of stature but radiating power like a small sun as he entered the house. “I can feel it. She’s discovered the secret. We’re too late.”
“But boss, she hasn’t had enough time. We’ll find her. She can’t be far.”
“Call off your dogs, Bender. She’s gone. You messed up, not just once and not just twice. That doesn’t set well with me. Now gather your men and let’s get out of here. You just made my job a thousand times harder.”
Still holding her picture, she watched them leave the house. At least they had the decency to close the front door. She watched them get on their snow mobiles and leave. Watched them as they headed down the road, watched them as they made their way back to town, to the airport, into their jet, and off into the night. It was pretty interesting how she could watch them wherever they went, kind of like being in a balloon that was tied to them. Tied to the short man at any rate. She could watch him and listen to him and hear everything he was doing and trying to do.
Finally she was going to be able to get some answers. It was such a relief. She lifted her face toward the sun, dropped her pack, throw, and coat, then turned, splashed across the stream and headed toward her new home. She was safe here; she felt it. Wherever ‘here’ was.
Could it be that easy? Could she draw some place she’d like to be and just go there? She laughed. And then, startled by the sound, laughed again. It felt so good to laugh and it had been so long. “Wheeeee ... I’m freeee!” She twirled around and around, laughing and feeling lightness such as she hadn’t felt since she was a child.
She stumbled and landed in a heap on the grass. Drawing a deep breath behind a relaxed smile, she watched the clouds move from left to right, heard the bees busily doing their work, and felt a butterfly investigate her forehead.
I’m one with this Universe, she thought peacefully, wondering what else she could do by drawing. There would be so many places she could imagine, could she go to them all? Did she have limits? Was it possible for her to be followed by those men? So many new questions, and now for the first time in what seemed like forever, she had time to relax and enjoy. Time to recover from her recent past. Time to renew her spirits and gather her forces for whatever strange future was coming her way.
Ha! Stranger future was more like it. She’d been living ‘strange future’ for the last 13 months. Regardless, now she had some breathing room and she intended to make the best of it. Right then a puppy bounded up from nowhere and started licking her face. “Wait! Stop,” she sputtered and laughed as she sat up. “You little rascal. Where did you come from?” she asked the pup as she took him in her arms.
She angrily grabbed her backpack, threw in her three best pairs of socks, three pair of black high-cut cotton underpants, three turtlenecks, and two pair of jeans. On top of the clothes went her wool clogs, a hairbrush, a minimum of make-up, and her toothbrush. There was barely room for her pencils before she smashed the top down and tugged it shut. No room left now, not even for a bra which was just as well since she hadn’t been wearing one for months now. She’d just never had much bosom and not wearing a bra was pure bliss. Total freedom. Guys didn’t know how good they had it.
She shucked out of her pajamas, put on her boy-leg panties, her winter gramicci’s, a long-sleeved t-shirt, a fleece vest, her rain jacket, and her boots. Then she stuffed her interior pockets with breakfast bars, slid a bottle of water in each front pocket, slipped her pack on her back, grabbed a fleece throw from the couch and drew it across her shoulders, took the stairs to the basement, and exited into the alley.
Her night vision had always been better than 20/20 and she’d counted her blessings on that score many times in the last 13 months. 13 long months. That was how long ago it was that her nightmare started, right in the middle of the chemistry lab.
Everyone had three assignments to do and used the lab equipment to do them. Lindsey Rockford had gone in on a Saturday and set up her last assignment. It was pretty straightforward -- a little of this and a tincture of that. She’d only stepped away from things for a minute to go to the bathroom, when the room disappeared in a blast of heat and smoke.
She’d been terrified the whole building was going to collapse, like 9/11, and had beat feet to get away from that building and every other one close by. Her backpack had been in that room, which pissed her off because she knew the expense of replacing all that stuff would hurt her pocketbook. But she had pretty well calmed down by the time she got back to her dorm room.
She walked in, answered her ringing phone, and heard, “We missed you this time.” “Wha ... what?” she had stuttered into the dial tone. It took three seconds for things to fall into place, then she had grabbed her roommate’s backpack, hurriedly stuffed her important things into it, headed out, and never looked back.
It would never occur to an ordinary person to try and just disappear, but hey. Both her parents had been CIA and she took spook stuff seriously. They were dead, she was accountable to no one, and turning into mist in the night was no biggee.
The second incident had happened 7 months later. Becky Maye had finally found a pretty good, quite insignificant job slinging hash in a roadside joint down on old Route 66 somewhere west of Oklahoma City. The boss liked her attitude, her cooking, and her looks, and had thrown in, rent-free, the small apartment above the garage of the owner’s house next door. No questions were ever asked, and she put in more than her share of work. And even though the boss was gruff, grizzled, and grumpy, it was an arrangement which worked quite well for everyone.
Then one muggy summer day the air conditioner went on the fritz, and all the heat in the kitchen gave her a raging headache. Donny Joe, the busboy who thought he was a stud muffin, kept razzing her about her tight jeans and she finally had to get away. Telling the boss she was taking a bathroom break, she went over to her apartment, took three aspirin, and a number of deep breaths. The air was stifling even with all the windows open, and voices from the parking lot drifted up to her as she tried to relax her shoulders and neck.
“Howdy Hank, how’s the wife?”
“Carla, if I done told you once, I told you a thousand times, don’t twist your fingers in your brother’s hair!”
“Excuse me, have you seen this woman?”
“And I said to her, ‘Sugar, you can lick my popsicle stick any ole time you want to!’”
“Excuse me, have you seen this woman?”
“Mommy! Billy said he was going to behead my Barbie. Mommmmyyyyyy!”
“Excuse me, have you seen this woman?”
Ohmygod. What she was hearing finally fought its way through her headache, and she grabbed her billfold, stuck two breakfast bars in her back pockets, and hurried down the back way. She tore through the owner’s yard at a run, then flew down the alley. Behind her the datdatdatdatdat of machine gun fire and sounds of screaming and crying caught up with her.
Two blocks farther down, the northern highway went right past the alley. Pulling up at the street she hesitated, breathing hard, took in the traffic at a glance, then deftly swung up into an empty horse trailer as the traffic light on the corner turned green. Both of the town’s police cars went screaming by, sirens blaring and lights blazing, before the trailer started moving. She wished she didn’t know what had happened.
And finally Katie Watkins had thought she was safe. She had a nice roommate, HAD had a nice roommate that is, a good job down by the bus and train stations, and was taking a parks department art class. She loved the art class. She’d never done any drawing. Doodling, yes, who didn’t? But never any serious drawing.
And she had discovered she was good at it! She’d sort of listen to the instructor, then her hands would just start doing their own thing. She was amazed and delighted at this funny little skill which seemed to get better by the day. Anytime she wasn’t working, she was drawing. She drew buildings, plants, people; she drew what she saw around her and what she could dredge up from memory. Hands were supposed to be the hardest to accurately reproduce, so she mentally stored up visual snapshots of people’s hands in all different kinds of poses and motions, to be called up later so she could give them a try.
One day she found herself humming and feeling happy, and that was the unfortunate start of letting down her guard. And now Shelley was dead.
Katie had been restless all day, antsy and grouchy, and didn’t pick up on what might be coming. It had been raining, then sleeting, and finally snow was coming down hard. It didn’t help that the wind had picked up and the wind chill was currently -21*.
Shelley had come home just exhausted and wanted nothing more than a warm bath and hot soup. When she realized there wasn’t any soup, she was determined enough that she borrowed Katie’s dry full-length, black down coat, said she’d be back in a minute, and headed for the corner store.
Katie didn’t hear the silencer, but something grabbed her attention. She shot into the dark living room, hurried to the curtained window, and carefully peeked outside. In the evening shadows she saw a large lump sprawled on the sidewalk. A large black lump being quickly painted white with a thick amorphous pond of dark color under the lump. Katie threw up on the curtains.
After throwing up, her thoughts cleared a little, enough for anger to take over and help her get her stuff and get out of there. They thought they’d gotten their target so maybe she had a little time for once.
She headed down the alley a little ways, then cut through a yard, across the street in the middle of the block, through another yard, and down an alley which turned and twisted a bit before ending at the base of a hill on the edge of town.
It wasn’t easy to get up the hill, especially with the snow getting deeper by the minute, but her boots were good ones, the only investment she’d made for herself in the last two years. Well, except for her pencils. They were an inexpensive investment, but they’d given her more pleasure than anything else had in a long long time.
At the top of the hill she stopped and looked around. It was dark, but all that snow lit everything up pretty good. She’d never explored out here and there were huge pine trees everywhere so she couldn’t see for any distance, but she knew where town was and that was where she wasn’t. And it was going to stay that way.
She headed deeper into the trees, away from the town-lights-glow on the sky. Keeping it to a fast walk to conserve her energy, she marveled at how much the trees impeded the storm. It wasn’t nearly as windy here so not as cold either, and the snow didn’t pile up as much. And as big as the trees were, their graceful branches drooping down to the ground, she figured if she had to she could do the homeless thing and park herself at the base of one of those trunks to wait out the storm. It would be cozy, although on second thought, not very warm.
She tromped on. She knew she was fit. It had been years since she’d had the money or interest in having a car so she walked everywhere. Or took a bus or hitched a ride. But walking was good for a gal, plus she watched what she ate. And now it was paying off.
Two hours later she was wishing for a car. Or a snowmobile. Or a horse. She was sick of trudging through this white stuff and needed to take a break. Her trek had been slowly uphill and she figured she had to be a good five miles out of town. Yeah, yeah that wasn’t very far away from bad guys, but they couldn’t yet know they’d shot the wrong person, and since her footsteps were swallowed up within ten minutes of her passing, they couldn’t track her. Could they? Well, shit. They’d been tracking her somehow, why would a little thing like a blizzard keep them away?
Oh great. Now she was becoming snidely delusional. She had to stop and rest. Taking a good look around she realized there was a large, dark something a little ways off to her right. She looked all around once more, then changed course. It was a house. A large, 1920s woodland hideaway. And it was beautiful! And dark.
There were no lights on, no vehicles sitting around, no ruts or indentations to show someone might have been there. Of course the snow had done a good job of obscuring everything, and it was much harder to push through the stuff out here away from the forest. The snow was almost up to her hips and the only reason she could make any headway at all was that it was fine and powdery.
Once she got to the grand old porch, she made it up the steps, then almost collapsed by the front door. Stand up, stand up, don’t sit down or it’ll be the last thing you do she insisted to herself. Taking a deep breath, she squared her shoulders and knocked on the door. No answer. She opened the screen, knocked on the beautiful, oval-windowed front door, and it drifted open.
Well shit. What did that mean?! Oh screw it. She was too tired of running and too tired of walking to give much of a rip whether she was in more danger or not. She poked her head inside and said, “Hello?”
Tapping her boots against the door jam to knock off the snow, she stepped inside and said again, “Hellooo ... HELLO?!” All was quiet. And dark. And, interestingly enough, non-threatening. She stepped back to the porch, slid her pack off her back and shook the snow off, brushed the snow off her person, then brought herself and her stuff inside and shut the door.
Oh. My. God. She was safe. From the storm if nothing else, and she had almost passed right by the place! With the ethereal reflection from the snow, she had enough light to take a good look at her surroundings. The curtains were wide open, but there were Holland covers on everything. That was an oxymoron. Like you’re at home and gone at the same time. How quizzical.
Since there was a small rug close to the front door, she dumped her pack on it, took off her boots to line them up next to her pack, and slid off her rain jacket. There was an old-fashioned hall tree standing dignified in the corner by the stairs, but there was nothing to catch the drips so she just laid her coat on top of her boots along with the fleece throw.
Stepping away from the entryway into the living room, she sighed. What a lovely house. The windows were large with cut-glass sections at the top, and a magnificent fireplace graced the far wall. Everything had kind of a Frank Lloyd Wright feel, but not quite. Still, she could imagine living there without any trouble at all. She continued through the living room and elegant dining room, and through the short butler pantry hallway into the kitchen. It was to die for. Ahem, but no, she’d rather not.
The kitchen was huge, running the full width of the ample house, with two sinks, a Viking stove, a huge refrigerator, two islands, and a large table at the far end. She opened the door to the refrigerator, expecting nothing, but it was fully stocked! It just didn’t make any sense. And even though she was starving, she quickly looked through the rest of the house to make sure she wasn’t infringing on someone, and that she didn’t suffer any surprises.
Finding nothing and no one, she headed for the kitchen and that full refrigerator. First she drank a small glass of orange juice, then pulled out everything she could find for a salad. There was a small pot of something that smelled like clam chowder tucked in the back of the frig, so she put it on the stove to heat up.
All the greens were washed, so she made quick work of romaine, radishes, carrots, cheese chunks, a green onion, a tomato, some zucchini chunks, a bit of yellow squash, and topped it off with capers and a glop of what smelled like gorgonzola dressing. It was heaven, just heaven. She daintily wolfed it down, then dished out a small bowl of the warmed-up soup. Another form of heaven. She was in clover!
Finished with the soup, she managed to put everything away, then washed and rinsed her dishes and put them away before she made it back out to the living room, gently dropped to the couch, pulled the cover over herself, and passed out.
She slept like a rock, but woke up several hours later with a feeling of nervous energy pulling at her. She wondered at it a bit, then walked to her back pack, took out her pencils and some paper, then sat down on the couch.
She wanted to draw. No, she needed to draw. Right here, right now, in the middle of danger, in the middle of a storm, in the middle of the night. So she just went with it. Her mind saw a sunny valley, with a stream running through it and lots of wildflowers everywhere. Her hands drew that valley. She saw soaring eagles, a sheer cliff and a mountain goat. Her hands added those things, along with mountains, and lots of trees. She saw a stone structure built into the side of the cliff, not far from the stream but well-protected from the elements. She imagined smoke coming from the structure, a horse in a pen nearby, and chickens scratching the yard alongside. Her hands recorded it all. She saw butterflies, heard honey bees buzzing, smelled sage and mint. Everything was folded into the picture which was emerging on that paper.
Suddenly .... no, NO! They were here, she knew it! How did they find her? How could they possible figure out where she was?! She ran to the window as snow mobiles shot over the ridge in front of the house. Quickly she threw on her coat, thrust her feet into her boots, and grabbed her back pack and throw. She almost ran for the back door before she felt it ... the picture.
She stopped, then turned. The picture she had drawn of her valley was calling for her attention. Curious, she stared at it, knowing that something important was happening. Feeling urgency, she walked back to it, picked it up, and looked at it. Looked deeply, became one with it.
And then she was.
She felt a quick dizziness, a distortion of something, and then she was in her valley, holding a picture of the dark living room she had just been in. Not at all sure of what was happening but quite mesmerized by everything, she watched. And listened.
She heard the pounding of footsteps onto the porch and saw the front door thrust open. Three very large men burst into the entryway and farther, into the living room.
“Search everywhere!” The largest man shouted. “Find her quickly!”
“She’s gone,” said a fourth man, short of stature but radiating power like a small sun as he entered the house. “I can feel it. She’s discovered the secret. We’re too late.”
“But boss, she hasn’t had enough time. We’ll find her. She can’t be far.”
“Call off your dogs, Bender. She’s gone. You messed up, not just once and not just twice. That doesn’t set well with me. Now gather your men and let’s get out of here. You just made my job a thousand times harder.”
Still holding her picture, she watched them leave the house. At least they had the decency to close the front door. She watched them get on their snow mobiles and leave. Watched them as they headed down the road, watched them as they made their way back to town, to the airport, into their jet, and off into the night. It was pretty interesting how she could watch them wherever they went, kind of like being in a balloon that was tied to them. Tied to the short man at any rate. She could watch him and listen to him and hear everything he was doing and trying to do.
Finally she was going to be able to get some answers. It was such a relief. She lifted her face toward the sun, dropped her pack, throw, and coat, then turned, splashed across the stream and headed toward her new home. She was safe here; she felt it. Wherever ‘here’ was.
Could it be that easy? Could she draw some place she’d like to be and just go there? She laughed. And then, startled by the sound, laughed again. It felt so good to laugh and it had been so long. “Wheeeee ... I’m freeee!” She twirled around and around, laughing and feeling lightness such as she hadn’t felt since she was a child.
She stumbled and landed in a heap on the grass. Drawing a deep breath behind a relaxed smile, she watched the clouds move from left to right, heard the bees busily doing their work, and felt a butterfly investigate her forehead.
I’m one with this Universe, she thought peacefully, wondering what else she could do by drawing. There would be so many places she could imagine, could she go to them all? Did she have limits? Was it possible for her to be followed by those men? So many new questions, and now for the first time in what seemed like forever, she had time to relax and enjoy. Time to recover from her recent past. Time to renew her spirits and gather her forces for whatever strange future was coming her way.
Ha! Stranger future was more like it. She’d been living ‘strange future’ for the last 13 months. Regardless, now she had some breathing room and she intended to make the best of it. Right then a puppy bounded up from nowhere and started licking her face. “Wait! Stop,” she sputtered and laughed as she sat up. “You little rascal. Where did you come from?” she asked the pup as she took him in her arms.
accurate as usual
i was in a little bit of a funk last night 'cause i saw where it's supposed to be 50* today. i mean, come on, we haven't even really had winter yet. so i look out the window this a.m. and guess what? it's foggy! whooooo, hoooooo. cool!
way to go, weatherman.
way to go, weatherman.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
vignette ~ Zeke's Place
The war was coming closer. Tommy Whelton had stumbled into town, scratched and bleeding, to tell the council that everyone had to leave. The bad guys had found their way through Anchor’s Pass and now were only six miles away.
Zeke Potter had been at The Post when the word spread around, and he left immediately for his parent’s house. Even though they had been killed two years ago, 17-year old Zeke had done a good job of managing the place -- planting and tilling the small harvest plot, keeping the two goats and Millie the cow happy, and repairing the small house when something went wrong.
Zeke liked living there, at the edge of the forest, but had known this day would probably come. He even had taken the time to prepare a pack in case he needed to leave abruptly. He opened the pen so the goats and Millie could fend for themselves, then grabbed his pack and headed into the woods -- the opposite direction from Anchor’s Pass.
Zeke had been in the woods so many times as he was growing up. He knew how to get to Lookout Point, how to navigate Cooley’s Cavern, and most important, how to find old man Geary’s hide-away.
He figured everyone had forgotten about Geary. The old man had flipped crazy when his wife and baby girl had been killed all those years ago. He had gone off and most people assumed he’d just totally left the area. But Zeke knew different. One day Zeke‘d gone off tracking a deer and had followed it into a box canyon. The entrance to the canyon had been cleverly hidden by nature, and if it hadn’t been for the deer tracks, Zeke would have missed it entirely.
First he noticed the stream and small pond, then he saw the chickens. Then Geary had popped out of nowhere, with a gun in his hands, and had scared Zeke nearly to death. Since Zeke had only been thirteen at the time, and scrawnily unthreatening at that, Geary had listened to his explanation, then under threat of severe torture, had extracted a promise from Zeke to never tell anyone his place was in that canyon.
Zeke never had told anyone about the experience, after all he was a man, or rather a boy, of his word. But when he found out the whole story about Geary, he felt sad for the guy, and kept his mouth shut because he felt Geary deserved his privacy.
But now it was time to go to Geary, let him know what was happening, then head on past the canyon. Zeke hadn’t really explored much past that canyon, but from Lookout Point there was forest in all directions except toward Anchor’s Pass, so Zeke figured he could head out and keep away from people for a pretty long time. He knew how to hunt, how to fish, how to identify healing plants, and even how to swim if it came to that.
It took two hours to get to the hidden entrance to the box canyon, even with Zeke moving quickly. He estimated there was about three hours of sunlight left before the high canyon walls turned everything to shadow. He got through the entrance, then about fifteen minutes beyond, everything thinned out enough to take a breath.
“Geary,” Zeke shouted. “Geary, it’s me ... Zeke.” There was no response and Zeke continued on, knowing Geary would be aware of his every movement. When he approached the pond, he called out again, but there was only silence. Wondering if he was on the verge of death, Zeke continued past the pond, past the tall boulders and scrub brush until he could see Geary’s small shack.
“Hey Geary. It’s me, Zeke. I’ve come with news of invaders.” You’re the only invader I’ve seen Zeke could just hear Geary yell at him. But something about the quiet felt wrong. Zeke listened carefully for any hint of danger; he sorted through the smells he was breathing; he turned slowly in place, eyeing every foot of ground trying to figure out what wasn’t right.
Finally he moved from where he stood, checking out first the left side of the shack, then the right side. And that’s when he found the answer. Geary was dead. He, or his skeleton rather, was sprawled out in the side yard where a cougar or something must have taken him down. His clothes were tattered, torn, and scattered, and looked like they’d gone through several seasons that way so it had been awhile since it happened.
He thought about burying the remains then decided he’d better just leave things the way they were. That way when someone else came along, they would have no inkling Zeke had been there. He bowed his head and said some honest words, then turned back to his task.
Geary had built the shack right up against the back canyon wall. There was actually a wide front porch on the thing, and a solid-fitting door. Zeke went inside and was astonished at how homey everything was. There was a neatly-made bed on the left, with pegs for hanging things on the wall at the headboard, a number of furry fox skins scattered across the stone floor, a small table on the right side with a stone fireplace in the back. Cooking pots and several utensils were lined up on a small shelf next to the fireplace.
This’ll work Zeke thought as he put his pack down. I’m not going to change anything outside, but I’ll make myself at home inside. He spent the rest of the day carefully walking around outside, seeing if there was anything to eat, and trying to discover the secrets of the place.
It wasn’t until the third day that Zeke discovered the biggest secret -- there was a bolt-hole. Down by the pond, Zeke had found three almost-perfectly-round stones which he enjoyed carrying around in his pocket. Every-so-often, from wherever he was standing in the small shack, he would lob each stone onto the bed, trying to hit the same place each time. He figured it was good exercise getting the hand and eye to work together.
On one try, a stone had hit another one and taken a wonky bounce off behind the bed. Zeke tried to move the bed, found it was bolted to the wall, then crawled under it to retrieve the stone. He probably wouldn’t have noticed even then, except when he reached for the stone, which had rolled up against the wall, he felt something. A rush of air where it shouldn’t be. He took a second look and, by damn, there was something deliberately different here. After carefully searching, he finally noticed the small knob, tucked up behind the bed frame and out-of-sight.
He turned the knob, put his fingernail in the tiny indentation, then gently pulled. A section of the wall fell outward. He noticed there was lots of light as he inched his way into the room. It wasn’t a room, exactly, it was a space about two feet deep and three feet wide snugged right up to the canyon wall. It reminded him of a partially-closed back porch with the fourth wall being rock. But the best thing about it was the six steps which were hacked into the wall at the bottom. At the top of the steps, you could reach yourself over and continue your climb up through a ravine, and be totally hidden from the rest of the canyon. Up and out -- you could make your way to the top of the canyon and be on your way while any interlopers were wandering in circles below. It was brilliant. And the way the shack had been put together, there was no hint of the deception.
It made Zeke feel bad that Geary’s life had taken the turn it had. He’d like to have known this guy -- there were probably an awful lot of tricks and solutions which had died with him. Enough to keep a young boy’s imagination going for a long time.
Zeke climbed on up to the top and checked out the area. Might as well know the layout in case he needed to use it. It looked like he was near the top of a ridge, so he scrambled on up, then stood, taking it all in. It was beautiful, like looking at a sea of green because of all the trees. He sat down and leaned back against one of them, looking toward the sunset and listening to the sough of the wind, to the birds, a chipmunk, a woodpecker. It was all so peaceful, so perfect.
He sat there until the stars came out and a full moon came up. He could see occasional points of light which, of course, meant people. He mentally noted the points so he could identify them during the daylight, then made his way back down to the shack and headed to bed. He didn’t know it then, but he only had another four days before things turned bad.
Zeke Potter had been at The Post when the word spread around, and he left immediately for his parent’s house. Even though they had been killed two years ago, 17-year old Zeke had done a good job of managing the place -- planting and tilling the small harvest plot, keeping the two goats and Millie the cow happy, and repairing the small house when something went wrong.
Zeke liked living there, at the edge of the forest, but had known this day would probably come. He even had taken the time to prepare a pack in case he needed to leave abruptly. He opened the pen so the goats and Millie could fend for themselves, then grabbed his pack and headed into the woods -- the opposite direction from Anchor’s Pass.
Zeke had been in the woods so many times as he was growing up. He knew how to get to Lookout Point, how to navigate Cooley’s Cavern, and most important, how to find old man Geary’s hide-away.
He figured everyone had forgotten about Geary. The old man had flipped crazy when his wife and baby girl had been killed all those years ago. He had gone off and most people assumed he’d just totally left the area. But Zeke knew different. One day Zeke‘d gone off tracking a deer and had followed it into a box canyon. The entrance to the canyon had been cleverly hidden by nature, and if it hadn’t been for the deer tracks, Zeke would have missed it entirely.
First he noticed the stream and small pond, then he saw the chickens. Then Geary had popped out of nowhere, with a gun in his hands, and had scared Zeke nearly to death. Since Zeke had only been thirteen at the time, and scrawnily unthreatening at that, Geary had listened to his explanation, then under threat of severe torture, had extracted a promise from Zeke to never tell anyone his place was in that canyon.
Zeke never had told anyone about the experience, after all he was a man, or rather a boy, of his word. But when he found out the whole story about Geary, he felt sad for the guy, and kept his mouth shut because he felt Geary deserved his privacy.
But now it was time to go to Geary, let him know what was happening, then head on past the canyon. Zeke hadn’t really explored much past that canyon, but from Lookout Point there was forest in all directions except toward Anchor’s Pass, so Zeke figured he could head out and keep away from people for a pretty long time. He knew how to hunt, how to fish, how to identify healing plants, and even how to swim if it came to that.
It took two hours to get to the hidden entrance to the box canyon, even with Zeke moving quickly. He estimated there was about three hours of sunlight left before the high canyon walls turned everything to shadow. He got through the entrance, then about fifteen minutes beyond, everything thinned out enough to take a breath.
“Geary,” Zeke shouted. “Geary, it’s me ... Zeke.” There was no response and Zeke continued on, knowing Geary would be aware of his every movement. When he approached the pond, he called out again, but there was only silence. Wondering if he was on the verge of death, Zeke continued past the pond, past the tall boulders and scrub brush until he could see Geary’s small shack.
“Hey Geary. It’s me, Zeke. I’ve come with news of invaders.” You’re the only invader I’ve seen Zeke could just hear Geary yell at him. But something about the quiet felt wrong. Zeke listened carefully for any hint of danger; he sorted through the smells he was breathing; he turned slowly in place, eyeing every foot of ground trying to figure out what wasn’t right.
Finally he moved from where he stood, checking out first the left side of the shack, then the right side. And that’s when he found the answer. Geary was dead. He, or his skeleton rather, was sprawled out in the side yard where a cougar or something must have taken him down. His clothes were tattered, torn, and scattered, and looked like they’d gone through several seasons that way so it had been awhile since it happened.
He thought about burying the remains then decided he’d better just leave things the way they were. That way when someone else came along, they would have no inkling Zeke had been there. He bowed his head and said some honest words, then turned back to his task.
Geary had built the shack right up against the back canyon wall. There was actually a wide front porch on the thing, and a solid-fitting door. Zeke went inside and was astonished at how homey everything was. There was a neatly-made bed on the left, with pegs for hanging things on the wall at the headboard, a number of furry fox skins scattered across the stone floor, a small table on the right side with a stone fireplace in the back. Cooking pots and several utensils were lined up on a small shelf next to the fireplace.
This’ll work Zeke thought as he put his pack down. I’m not going to change anything outside, but I’ll make myself at home inside. He spent the rest of the day carefully walking around outside, seeing if there was anything to eat, and trying to discover the secrets of the place.
It wasn’t until the third day that Zeke discovered the biggest secret -- there was a bolt-hole. Down by the pond, Zeke had found three almost-perfectly-round stones which he enjoyed carrying around in his pocket. Every-so-often, from wherever he was standing in the small shack, he would lob each stone onto the bed, trying to hit the same place each time. He figured it was good exercise getting the hand and eye to work together.
On one try, a stone had hit another one and taken a wonky bounce off behind the bed. Zeke tried to move the bed, found it was bolted to the wall, then crawled under it to retrieve the stone. He probably wouldn’t have noticed even then, except when he reached for the stone, which had rolled up against the wall, he felt something. A rush of air where it shouldn’t be. He took a second look and, by damn, there was something deliberately different here. After carefully searching, he finally noticed the small knob, tucked up behind the bed frame and out-of-sight.
He turned the knob, put his fingernail in the tiny indentation, then gently pulled. A section of the wall fell outward. He noticed there was lots of light as he inched his way into the room. It wasn’t a room, exactly, it was a space about two feet deep and three feet wide snugged right up to the canyon wall. It reminded him of a partially-closed back porch with the fourth wall being rock. But the best thing about it was the six steps which were hacked into the wall at the bottom. At the top of the steps, you could reach yourself over and continue your climb up through a ravine, and be totally hidden from the rest of the canyon. Up and out -- you could make your way to the top of the canyon and be on your way while any interlopers were wandering in circles below. It was brilliant. And the way the shack had been put together, there was no hint of the deception.
It made Zeke feel bad that Geary’s life had taken the turn it had. He’d like to have known this guy -- there were probably an awful lot of tricks and solutions which had died with him. Enough to keep a young boy’s imagination going for a long time.
Zeke climbed on up to the top and checked out the area. Might as well know the layout in case he needed to use it. It looked like he was near the top of a ridge, so he scrambled on up, then stood, taking it all in. It was beautiful, like looking at a sea of green because of all the trees. He sat down and leaned back against one of them, looking toward the sunset and listening to the sough of the wind, to the birds, a chipmunk, a woodpecker. It was all so peaceful, so perfect.
He sat there until the stars came out and a full moon came up. He could see occasional points of light which, of course, meant people. He mentally noted the points so he could identify them during the daylight, then made his way back down to the shack and headed to bed. He didn’t know it then, but he only had another four days before things turned bad.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Thursday, February 14, 2008
life...
happy valentine's day everyone! i got one great husband, two nice cards from him, and three presents from him. and two of the presents were yummy!! and last night we went to the black forest steak house in everson for an excellent meal! valentine's day was great in 2008!!!
just a note ... at work today, one of the gals came up to me, held up a bracelet, and said, "put this on." so, wondering what she wanted to check out, i put out my wrist. and she cracked up as she said, "no! put it on MY wrist." oh. hahaha. we laughed and laughed as i hooked it on her wrist. i mean, wouldn't you have thought that?
just a note ... at work today, one of the gals came up to me, held up a bracelet, and said, "put this on." so, wondering what she wanted to check out, i put out my wrist. and she cracked up as she said, "no! put it on MY wrist." oh. hahaha. we laughed and laughed as i hooked it on her wrist. i mean, wouldn't you have thought that?
Saturday, February 09, 2008
other lives
(an old e-mail)
In my next life I want to be a bear. If you're a bear, you get to hibernate. You do nothing but sleep for six months. I could deal with that. Before you hibernate, you're supposed to eat yourself stupid. I could deal with that, too. If you're a bear, you birth your children (who are the size of walnuts) while you're sleeping and wake to partially grown, cute cuddly cubs. I could definitely deal with that. If you're a mama bear, everyone knows you mean business. You swat anyone who bothers your cubs. If your cubs get out of line, you swat them too. I could deal with that. If you're a bear, your mate EXPECTS you to wake up growling. He EXPECTS that you will have hairy legs and excess body fat. He KNOWS not to get between you and the food. Yup..... Gonna be a bear.
In my next life I want to be a bear. If you're a bear, you get to hibernate. You do nothing but sleep for six months. I could deal with that. Before you hibernate, you're supposed to eat yourself stupid. I could deal with that, too. If you're a bear, you birth your children (who are the size of walnuts) while you're sleeping and wake to partially grown, cute cuddly cubs. I could definitely deal with that. If you're a mama bear, everyone knows you mean business. You swat anyone who bothers your cubs. If your cubs get out of line, you swat them too. I could deal with that. If you're a bear, your mate EXPECTS you to wake up growling. He EXPECTS that you will have hairy legs and excess body fat. He KNOWS not to get between you and the food. Yup..... Gonna be a bear.
aussie game
i've never really understood about boomerangs. i think i've never really seen one being worked by an expert hand. but, really, i've never understood their purpose. i think it's to catch wild game. but if that's the case, how does it come back to you? must be that you pick it up after it has clunked your wild game unconscious.
regardless, this article is pretty interesting. and so are some of the new shapes. http://men.msn.com/articlepm.aspx?cp-documentid=5444428>1=10416
regardless, this article is pretty interesting. and so are some of the new shapes. http://men.msn.com/articlepm.aspx?cp-documentid=5444428>1=10416
Friday, February 08, 2008
movie-ette
this is soooo fahrenheit 451 ... http://youtube.com/watch?v=nyiktNfn4AA ... very strange.
and there's this one -- http://youtube.com/watch?v=ND06VRnuelY -- which i haven't really had time to watch yet, but the beginning reminds me of the Red Balloon.
and there's this one -- http://youtube.com/watch?v=ND06VRnuelY -- which i haven't really had time to watch yet, but the beginning reminds me of the Red Balloon.
Thursday, February 07, 2008
the best
you probably know all about the commercials they had during the super bowl. i totally loved the one with the baby. and the bobble-head people. and the squirrel and the stain and the carrier pigeons.
the baby -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vW9gUmooFg
also, you can go to http://www.myspace.com/superbowlads# to watch any and all of them.
e*trade (the baby); diet pepsi max (wake up people); bridgestone (screaming squirrel); tide to go (talking stain); fedex (carrier pigeons)
too much fun!!!
the baby -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vW9gUmooFg
also, you can go to http://www.myspace.com/superbowlads# to watch any and all of them.
e*trade (the baby); diet pepsi max (wake up people); bridgestone (screaming squirrel); tide to go (talking stain); fedex (carrier pigeons)
too much fun!!!
the young family
we drove down and saw the grandaughter last weekend (xlii -- wasn't that an exciting fourth-quarter!!) -- she's growing and changing so fast! she'll be four months old in a few days and is just so adorable! i think she has my chin and double-chin which is unfortunate, but she still looks like she's going to be a knock-out. and clothes! that child is swimming in clothes! and they're all cute! dau-in-law is very much enjoying being at home so that's a good thing. and MOS is changing jobs! the company he has enjoyed working for the last couple of years is having big financial trouble. several of the top guys recently bailed and when MOS got an excellent job offer from another company, he wisely took it. gotta look out for number one, two, and three!! way to handle things, sweetie!
things and stuff
one of the things i've enjoyed most about my new job is having enough money to buy clothes. i don't usually make frivolous purchases and over the years have eschewed dress clothes for practical and at-home clothes. jeans, flannel shirts, and polar fleece are my all-time favorites.
so when i got this new job -- a very visible position where i'm likely to run into all 300+ employees on any given day, i needed to acquire a wardrobe. not just augment my wardrobe, but to get one. i had absolutely no decent work clothes except for one skirt, two vests, and a couple of button-down-the-front shirts.
so i happily ordered (who wants to fight the crowds in the malls) a bunch of stuff from Orvis -- http://orvis.com/ -- and have been delighted with my purchases. so delighted, in fact, that i have continued to buy clothes. i have about 7 basic skirts, 8 dressy vests, 6 pairs of slacks, and a plethora of shirts. i'm able to wear all the basic stuff winter and summer, just changing out the shirts and adding scarves. and with the two new scarves MYS got for me when he was in ireland (they are dreamily gorgeous!), i am totally set. i make earrings to match my outfits and save a ton of money doing that. (to say nothing of not having to fight the crowds again.)
my big boss always remarks on it when she thinks i have something new to wear. i'm never sure whether she's teasing or truly wonders how i seem to have so many clothes. she said something to me one time about having so many clothes and i said, "it's easy -- i never throw anything away."
she brought me a catalogue last week on reading glasses. i had gotten a really cute plaid pair from orvis so she must have decided i needed more glasses. at any rate, i had previously checked out http://eyebobs.com/ and i have to tell you, they have some funky glasses! but they're a little pricey ($60+) so i hadn't ordered any. her catalogue was http://www.icueyewear.com/ -- while those glasses were cute and about half as expensive as eyebobs, i still wasn't satisfied.
i finally found http://www.peeperspecs.com/ and they have exactly what i wanted. so i ordered a number of pair and they arrived today. purple ones, green ones, sedona-colored ones, candy-colored ones ... i am going to try them on the next couple of days to make sure i want them. i already know i'm going to send two pair back. but cute glasses and great prices ($11 - $14). if you're wanting some playful, inexpensive reading glasses, check them out.
enjoy!!
so when i got this new job -- a very visible position where i'm likely to run into all 300+ employees on any given day, i needed to acquire a wardrobe. not just augment my wardrobe, but to get one. i had absolutely no decent work clothes except for one skirt, two vests, and a couple of button-down-the-front shirts.
so i happily ordered (who wants to fight the crowds in the malls) a bunch of stuff from Orvis -- http://orvis.com/ -- and have been delighted with my purchases. so delighted, in fact, that i have continued to buy clothes. i have about 7 basic skirts, 8 dressy vests, 6 pairs of slacks, and a plethora of shirts. i'm able to wear all the basic stuff winter and summer, just changing out the shirts and adding scarves. and with the two new scarves MYS got for me when he was in ireland (they are dreamily gorgeous!), i am totally set. i make earrings to match my outfits and save a ton of money doing that. (to say nothing of not having to fight the crowds again.)
my big boss always remarks on it when she thinks i have something new to wear. i'm never sure whether she's teasing or truly wonders how i seem to have so many clothes. she said something to me one time about having so many clothes and i said, "it's easy -- i never throw anything away."
she brought me a catalogue last week on reading glasses. i had gotten a really cute plaid pair from orvis so she must have decided i needed more glasses. at any rate, i had previously checked out http://eyebobs.com/ and i have to tell you, they have some funky glasses! but they're a little pricey ($60+) so i hadn't ordered any. her catalogue was http://www.icueyewear.com/ -- while those glasses were cute and about half as expensive as eyebobs, i still wasn't satisfied.
i finally found http://www.peeperspecs.com/ and they have exactly what i wanted. so i ordered a number of pair and they arrived today. purple ones, green ones, sedona-colored ones, candy-colored ones ... i am going to try them on the next couple of days to make sure i want them. i already know i'm going to send two pair back. but cute glasses and great prices ($11 - $14). if you're wanting some playful, inexpensive reading glasses, check them out.
enjoy!!
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
slow days
wow -- it's been forever since i've put words to blog. not enough going on, not enough time, something anyhow.
it's been a mild winter here. last summer was mild and now winter. not to my tastes at all. i'd like to see it cold! and a friend just e-mailed and said it's -42 in fairbanks, ak. cool!
and for those of you who can't decide who you should vote for, try this little helper: http://www.vajoe.com/candidate_calculator.html it's pretty interesting to see who comes closest to your way of thinking.
enjoy!
it's been a mild winter here. last summer was mild and now winter. not to my tastes at all. i'd like to see it cold! and a friend just e-mailed and said it's -42 in fairbanks, ak. cool!
and for those of you who can't decide who you should vote for, try this little helper: http://www.vajoe.com/candidate_calculator.html it's pretty interesting to see who comes closest to your way of thinking.
enjoy!
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