Read part 1 - Dawn, part 2 - Vultures, and part 3 - The Wormhole.
Kyle continued through a shadowless desert that shifted from utter flatness to faint climb. Subtle though the change was, the effect was pure agony on already unstable limbs. Slowly, achingly, he picked his way up a broad wash toward a juncture where crags rose and loosely spaced boulders became a jumble. Small spiky plants dotted the crevasses between boulders that were now substantial enough to provide thin patches of shade. Narrowing himself under a rock face, Kyle managed to fit much of his face and arms in shadow.
Fifteen minutes stretched to thirty before Kyle was able to convince himself that he had to move again. The alliance between brain and sinews seemed irreparably broken, the strain of enacting movement a battle beyond comprehension. But if he stayed put, Kyle was dead. Without water, the inertia-linked barriers to further progress would fast become insurmountable. Only if his body kicked into some kind of recognizable pattern of forward movement could he continue.
Slowly, tortuously, Kyle directed his disjointed limbs from pocket of half-shade to pocket of half-shade, tacking between boulders strewn in the dead river bed, gaining hard-fought elevation. The sun was some hours from its apex and sinking fast. Kyle doggedly traversed lengthening shadows, braving the sun, as more substantial pockets of shade appeared. Finally, as energy reserves neared empty, he scanned for a spot to take him through the evening hours, build up some reservoir of energy––marshall one last attempt for the ridge line. Kyle sought out deep shade under an overhanging rock lodged between two massive boulders. He lay flat in the quasi-dark, his nose inches away from the jutting rock, trying not to breathe more than absolutely necessary. He sensed the first non-predatory life in hours––a lizard’s rapid pushups, flicker of tail. When he woke it was dusk and the air was bearable. He had a sense of renewed purpose, fixing on a point at the edge of the sky where he would be able to look down and survey everything.
Kyle steadied his mind and thus his wavering connection with reality, and started up the steepest part. Putting every ounce of effort into his attempt, half crawling now, Smeagle-like, grasping hard edges, twisting between the rocks, determined to gain possession of a vantage from which to survey the landscape and determine whether there was any chance of survival. Foot, rock, foot, rock, survival––stretching his tendons, muscles that had been carefully toned at the gym, now stripped to the purest elements of willpower, guiding him doggedly up rock face.
And then, after dispiriting realizations that there was further to go, he was there––indisputably at the top, the rocks falling off below. Scanning endless ribbons of ridges, each like the next in its utter desolation - scanning, re-scanning, unwilling to believe that what was in front of him was as uniformly desolate as that which he had traversed. Kyle did not have a clear idea of what he was looking for––a road, a cabin, remnants of a mining claim––even a mirage would be welcome. Some sign that human effort was not all futile repetition. No longer aware of his body, just eyes and mind - stripped down to a base level of willpower. We’re all connected, surely all connected - or else we are completely, unavoidably alone.
Kyle closed his eyes, confronting clear evidence that he was cut off from a reality conducive to life. Ready to drift off into nether reaches… Opening his eyes, he scanned the cruelly elegant landscape as the stars appeared one by one. If nothing else he would die surrounded by intense beauty, immersed in a continuum outside of the hospital bed, the twisted metal scrape. Kyle saw it then, coming from a location hidden from sight - a trickle of smoke rising. There was nothing that should be causing smoke in a treeless landscape, nothing…. he could almost smell the charred meat, visualize the well bored into the hard rock that drew water from a hidden aquifer. A desolate ravine harboring some lone mountain man, comfortable in his own skin and centuries from others’ reality…
He could make it he thought, just. It was far but not too far - it would be downhill - it was not quite dark, there was a faint purple glow on the horizon - he had hours and hours in the embrace of stars.…
(From Cowachunga)
Some people have wondered where this sort of polished, yet visceral, prose comes from. Well, I am a bit of a method actor - I recorded the roots of this particular passage while cycling eight miles through the Vegas desert heat on my way to the Rio to cover some WSOP poker. I really was dying of thirst. To wit:
And then he was there somehow still able to walk on two feet somehow, but close to collapsing… up the wash, up the ravine, over and then onto the next- walking now agony.. he took a long break tho he couldnt afford it, under new rocks that were high enough to afford some sort of shade and he tried to do calculations in his completely dead mind - what if I allocate these resources, what equation decides if its better to go all in , keep on —- or to spend how many hours spent in the shade recharging somwhow, not really recharging at all but at least staying in neutral to a point until this parched throat imperative becomes too much to ignore and too weak to move any further. He finally decided over 15 minutes that stretched into 45 an hour, that he had to move or he would be dead much sooner than moving, moving from pocket of shade of shade, boulders in this long dead river bed , gaining elevation, slowly tortuously, each foot stepped higher—- there was no survival in this blankety blank,
there was a crest he was aiming to now, he had an aim.. he saw it at the edge of the sky where at least he would be able to be sit at the top and survey the land for sight of what lay ahead, whether it was a road, a cabin, ghost town, remnants of ancient mining that didnt pan out, a mirage - whatever it was, allowed somehow to make that journey a little longer and he headed there, foot, foot, rck, rock, survival, stretching his tendons, those muscles that had been carefully toned at the gym, to boost his ultimate confidence with what - women, men, whatever giving him that glow of not exactly money but up-and-coming, indestructible, and now––stripped down to purst willpower, purest —- that had allowed his ancestors long ago to reach destinations: Australians, outback mines, a clutter of visuals were all connected, surely all connected - all we all are is alone — we’re all lost, we’re all lost here, there is no chance.
And he was there, he was almost there and he saw endless rivers of ribbed ridges, there tops had nothing and no nothing either - scanning, scanning, not wanting to believe that what was in front of him was as desolate as that behind, which he did look at - he thought he saw a trickle of smoke, it was not too far - it would be downhill - it was still several hours until any semblance of respite from the heat would occur… whether he was alive at night probably decided he had the somehow to make it, he was going to have to try.
He picked his way down, carefully, gingerly, not wanting to twist an ankle, anything that would prevent his from making it, torturously slow and then he hit a groove like some ancient channel, and suddenly he was walking on smooth rock, and it was faster, and he thought “I could just make it and he realized that smoke was in a channel and that it was one ridge removed - curling straight up, it didnt seem by chance - he was going to have to climb over to the next one. And he thought, I could certainly do that, I feel alone in the night, I could certainly do that, I must - and he found the deepest crevass, overhanging rock.. the ledge over him and his body was entirely in the deep shade, he sensed lizards around but had not the energy - and he lay there still, fighting, fighting to conserve maximum energy, not even breathe, not aware of his thirst, which was encompassing to the point where he dreamt of warm threads of water - watermills, Disneyland spouts of water through tomorrow.. some semblance of sleep..
Waking hours later in teh moonlight he seemed to have gained energy somehow, he craned his head there were a million stars, a million dead planets in the sky… artifacts of things that didnt care anything about him or he planet even, eras of tim - there was no shade, so desperately seek… much sooner if he was to survive and knowing he began his climb, it was not easy, - it was not a high climb, but for him it might as well have been Everest - he was on all fours, just feeling the rocks with his body, just slithering like a snake - picked the proper alignment that he would hit the canyon still trailing in his mind,.. he did not know how long it tool.. oozing in some primordial flow .. he knew it when he reached teh top, he could feel the down-ness, the space below.. and he felt somehow alive and he started down letting gravity do the work inch by inch, turning into a tiny roly polly and shuttling down, a shuttlecock, through roxky hands, not knowing of there would be a sudden drop, but trusting and letting gravity do the work because he had no more energy to stand - there was no energy to fixate on stars , there was nothing - even the sensation of falling was pure numbness, the jolt of eternity, warpped in a shroud mummy like death. he hit what he perceived as the bottom but he didnt know and he laid back and now his eyes were the only thing - he did see the stars, and he now blackness…
(From Cowachunga)
Some people have wondered where this sort of polished, yet visceral, prose comes from. Well, I am a bit of a method actor - I recorded the roots of this particular passage while cycling eight miles through the Vegas desert heat on my way to the Rio to cover some WSOP poker. I really was dying of thirst. To wit:
And then he was there somehow still able to walk on two feet somehow, but close to collapsing… up the wash, up the ravine, over and then onto the next- walking now agony.. he took a long break tho he couldnt afford it, under new rocks that were high enough to afford some sort of shade and he tried to do calculations in his completely dead mind - what if I allocate these resources, what equation decides if its better to go all in , keep on —- or to spend how many hours spent in the shade recharging somwhow, not really recharging at all but at least staying in neutral to a point until this parched throat imperative becomes too much to ignore and too weak to move any further. He finally decided over 15 minutes that stretched into 45 an hour, that he had to move or he would be dead much sooner than moving, moving from pocket of shade of shade, boulders in this long dead river bed , gaining elevation, slowly tortuously, each foot stepped higher—- there was no survival in this blankety blank,
there was a crest he was aiming to now, he had an aim.. he saw it at the edge of the sky where at least he would be able to be sit at the top and survey the land for sight of what lay ahead, whether it was a road, a cabin, ghost town, remnants of ancient mining that didnt pan out, a mirage - whatever it was, allowed somehow to make that journey a little longer and he headed there, foot, foot, rck, rock, survival, stretching his tendons, those muscles that had been carefully toned at the gym, to boost his ultimate confidence with what - women, men, whatever giving him that glow of not exactly money but up-and-coming, indestructible, and now––stripped down to purst willpower, purest —- that had allowed his ancestors long ago to reach destinations: Australians, outback mines, a clutter of visuals were all connected, surely all connected - all we all are is alone — we’re all lost, we’re all lost here, there is no chance.
And he was there, he was almost there and he saw endless rivers of ribbed ridges, there tops had nothing and no nothing either - scanning, scanning, not wanting to believe that what was in front of him was as desolate as that behind, which he did look at - he thought he saw a trickle of smoke, it was not too far - it would be downhill - it was still several hours until any semblance of respite from the heat would occur… whether he was alive at night probably decided he had the somehow to make it, he was going to have to try.
He picked his way down, carefully, gingerly, not wanting to twist an ankle, anything that would prevent his from making it, torturously slow and then he hit a groove like some ancient channel, and suddenly he was walking on smooth rock, and it was faster, and he thought “I could just make it and he realized that smoke was in a channel and that it was one ridge removed - curling straight up, it didnt seem by chance - he was going to have to climb over to the next one. And he thought, I could certainly do that, I feel alone in the night, I could certainly do that, I must - and he found the deepest crevass, overhanging rock.. the ledge over him and his body was entirely in the deep shade, he sensed lizards around but had not the energy - and he lay there still, fighting, fighting to conserve maximum energy, not even breathe, not aware of his thirst, which was encompassing to the point where he dreamt of warm threads of water - watermills, Disneyland spouts of water through tomorrow.. some semblance of sleep..
Waking hours later in teh moonlight he seemed to have gained energy somehow, he craned his head there were a million stars, a million dead planets in the sky… artifacts of things that didnt care anything about him or he planet even, eras of tim - there was no shade, so desperately seek… much sooner if he was to survive and knowing he began his climb, it was not easy, - it was not a high climb, but for him it might as well have been Everest - he was on all fours, just feeling the rocks with his body, just slithering like a snake - picked the proper alignment that he would hit the canyon still trailing in his mind,.. he did not know how long it tool.. oozing in some primordial flow .. he knew it when he reached teh top, he could feel the down-ness, the space below.. and he felt somehow alive and he started down letting gravity do the work inch by inch, turning into a tiny roly polly and shuttling down, a shuttlecock, through roxky hands, not knowing of there would be a sudden drop, but trusting and letting gravity do the work because he had no more energy to stand - there was no energy to fixate on stars , there was nothing - even the sensation of falling was pure numbness, the jolt of eternity, warpped in a shroud mummy like death. he hit what he perceived as the bottom but he didnt know and he laid back and now his eyes were the only thing - he did see the stars, and he now blackness…
Kyle continued through a shadowless desert that shifted from utter flatness to faint climb. Subtle though the change was, the effect was pure agony on already unstable limbs. Slowly, achingly, he picked his way up a broad wash toward a juncture where crags rose and loosely spaced boulders became a jumble. Small spiky plants dotted the crevasses between boulders that were now substantial enough to provide thin patches of shade. Narrowing himself under a rock face, Kyle managed to fit much of his face and arms in shadow.
Fifteen minutes stretched to thirty before Kyle was able to convince himself that he had to move again. The alliance between brain and sinews seemed irreparably broken, the strain of enacting movement a battle beyond comprehension. But if he stayed put, Kyle was dead. Without water, the inertia-linked barriers to further progress would fast become insurmountable. Only if his body kicked into some kind of recognizable pattern of forward movement could he continue.
Slowly, tortuously, Kyle directed his disjointed limbs from pocket of half-shade to pocket of half-shade, tacking between boulders strewn in the dead river bed, gaining hard-fought elevation. The sun was some hours from its apex and sinking fast. Kyle doggedly traversed lengthening shadows, braving the sun, as more substantial pockets of shade appeared. Finally, as energy reserves neared empty, he scanned for a spot to take him through the evening hours, build up some reservoir of energy––marshall one last attempt for the ridge line. Kyle sought out deep shade under an overhanging rock lodged between two massive boulders. He lay flat in the quasi-dark, his nose inches away from the jutting rock, trying not to breathe more than absolutely necessary. He sensed the first non-predatory life in hours––a lizard’s rapid pushups, flicker of tail. When he woke it was dusk and the air was bearable. He had a sense of renewed purpose, fixing on a point at the edge of the sky where he would be able to look down and survey everything.
Kyle steadied his mind and thus his wavering connection with reality, and started up the steepest part. Putting every ounce of effort into his attempt, half crawling now, Smeagle-like, grasping hard edges, twisting between the rocks, determined to gain possession of a vantage from which to survey the landscape and determine whether there was any chance of survival. Foot, rock, foot, rock, survival––stretching his tendons, muscles that had been carefully toned at the gym, now stripped to the purest elements of willpower, guiding him doggedly up rock face.
And then, after dispiriting realizations that there was further to go, he was there––indisputably at the top, the rocks falling off below. Scanning endless ribbons of ridges, each like the next in its utter desolation - scanning, re-scanning, unwilling to believe that what was in front of him was as uniformly desolate as that which he had traversed. Kyle did not have a clear idea of what he was looking for––a road, a cabin, remnants of a mining claim––even a mirage would be welcome. Some sign that human effort was not all futile repetition. No longer aware of his body, just eyes and mind - stripped down to a base level of willpower. We’re all connected, surely all connected - or else we are completely, unavoidably alone.
Kyle closed his eyes, confronting clear evidence that he was cut off from a reality conducive to life. Ready to drift off into nether reaches… Opening his eyes, he scanned the cruelly elegant landscape as the stars appeared one by one. If nothing else he would die surrounded by intense beauty, immersed in a continuum outside of the hospital bed, the twisted metal scrape. Kyle saw it then, coming from a location hidden from sight - a trickle of smoke rising. There was nothing that should be causing smoke in a treeless landscape, nothing…. he could almost smell the charred meat, visualize the well bored into the hard rock that drew water from a hidden aquifer. A desolate ravine harboring some lone mountain man, comfortable in his own skin and centuries from others’ reality…
He could make it he thought, just. It was far but not too far - it would be downhill - it was not quite dark, there was a faint purple glow on the horizon - he had hours and hours in the embrace of stars.…
(From Cowachunga)
Some people have wondered where this sort of polished, yet visceral, prose comes from. Well, I am a bit of a method actor - I recorded the roots of this particular passage while cycling eight miles through the Vegas desert heat on my way to the Rio to cover some WSOP poker. I really was dying of thirst. To wit:
And then he was there somehow still able to walk on two feet somehow, but close to collapsing… up the wash, up the ravine, over and then onto the next- walking now agony.. he took a long break tho he couldnt afford it, under new rocks that were high enough to afford some sort of shade and he tried to do calculations in his completely dead mind - what if I allocate these resources, what equation decides if its better to go all in , keep on —- or to spend how many hours spent in the shade recharging somwhow, not really recharging at all but at least staying in neutral to a point until this parched throat imperative becomes too much to ignore and too weak to move any further. He finally decided over 15 minutes that stretched into 45 an hour, that he had to move or he would be dead much sooner than moving, moving from pocket of shade of shade, boulders in this long dead river bed , gaining elevation, slowly tortuously, each foot stepped higher—- there was no survival in this blankety blank,
there was a crest he was aiming to now, he had an aim.. he saw it at the edge of the sky where at least he would be able to be sit at the top and survey the land for sight of what lay ahead, whether it was a road, a cabin, ghost town, remnants of ancient mining that didnt pan out, a mirage - whatever it was, allowed somehow to make that journey a little longer and he headed there, foot, foot, rck, rock, survival, stretching his tendons, those muscles that had been carefully toned at the gym, to boost his ultimate confidence with what - women, men, whatever giving him that glow of not exactly money but up-and-coming, indestructible, and now––stripped down to purst willpower, purest —- that had allowed his ancestors long ago to reach destinations: Australians, outback mines, a clutter of visuals were all connected, surely all connected - all we all are is alone — we’re all lost, we’re all lost here, there is no chance.
And he was there, he was almost there and he saw endless rivers of ribbed ridges, there tops had nothing and no nothing either - scanning, scanning, not wanting to believe that what was in front of him was as desolate as that behind, which he did look at - he thought he saw a trickle of smoke, it was not too far - it would be downhill - it was still several hours until any semblance of respite from the heat would occur… whether he was alive at night probably decided he had the somehow to make it, he was going to have to try.
He picked his way down, carefully, gingerly, not wanting to twist an ankle, anything that would prevent his from making it, torturously slow and then he hit a groove like some ancient channel, and suddenly he was walking on smooth rock, and it was faster, and he thought “I could just make it and he realized that smoke was in a channel and that it was one ridge removed - curling straight up, it didnt seem by chance - he was going to have to climb over to the next one. And he thought, I could certainly do that, I feel alone in the night, I could certainly do that, I must - and he found the deepest crevass, overhanging rock.. the ledge over him and his body was entirely in the deep shade, he sensed lizards around but had not the energy - and he lay there still, fighting, fighting to conserve maximum energy, not even breathe, not aware of his thirst, which was encompassing to the point where he dreamt of warm threads of water - watermills, Disneyland spouts of water through tomorrow.. some semblance of sleep..
Waking hours later in teh moonlight he seemed to have gained energy somehow, he craned his head there were a million stars, a million dead planets in the sky… artifacts of things that didnt care anything about him or he planet even, eras of tim - there was no shade, so desperately seek… much sooner if he was to survive and knowing he began his climb, it was not easy, - it was not a high climb, but for him it might as well have been Everest - he was on all fours, just feeling the rocks with his body, just slithering like a snake - picked the proper alignment that he would hit the canyon still trailing in his mind,.. he did not know how long it tool.. oozing in some primordial flow .. he knew it when he reached teh top, he could feel the down-ness, the space below.. and he felt somehow alive and he started down letting gravity do the work inch by inch, turning into a tiny roly polly and shuttling down, a shuttlecock, through roxky hands, not knowing of there would be a sudden drop, but trusting and letting gravity do the work because he had no more energy to stand - there was no energy to fixate on stars , there was nothing - even the sensation of falling was pure numbness, the jolt of eternity, warpped in a shroud mummy like death. he hit what he perceived as the bottom but he didnt know and he laid back and now his eyes were the only thing - he did see the stars, and he now blackness…
(From Cowachunga)
Some people have wondered where this sort of polished, yet visceral, prose comes from. Well, I am a bit of a method actor - I recorded the roots of this particular passage while cycling eight miles through the Vegas desert heat on my way to the Rio to cover some WSOP poker. I really was dying of thirst. To wit:
And then he was there somehow still able to walk on two feet somehow, but close to collapsing… up the wash, up the ravine, over and then onto the next- walking now agony.. he took a long break tho he couldnt afford it, under new rocks that were high enough to afford some sort of shade and he tried to do calculations in his completely dead mind - what if I allocate these resources, what equation decides if its better to go all in , keep on —- or to spend how many hours spent in the shade recharging somwhow, not really recharging at all but at least staying in neutral to a point until this parched throat imperative becomes too much to ignore and too weak to move any further. He finally decided over 15 minutes that stretched into 45 an hour, that he had to move or he would be dead much sooner than moving, moving from pocket of shade of shade, boulders in this long dead river bed , gaining elevation, slowly tortuously, each foot stepped higher—- there was no survival in this blankety blank,
there was a crest he was aiming to now, he had an aim.. he saw it at the edge of the sky where at least he would be able to be sit at the top and survey the land for sight of what lay ahead, whether it was a road, a cabin, ghost town, remnants of ancient mining that didnt pan out, a mirage - whatever it was, allowed somehow to make that journey a little longer and he headed there, foot, foot, rck, rock, survival, stretching his tendons, those muscles that had been carefully toned at the gym, to boost his ultimate confidence with what - women, men, whatever giving him that glow of not exactly money but up-and-coming, indestructible, and now––stripped down to purst willpower, purest —- that had allowed his ancestors long ago to reach destinations: Australians, outback mines, a clutter of visuals were all connected, surely all connected - all we all are is alone — we’re all lost, we’re all lost here, there is no chance.
And he was there, he was almost there and he saw endless rivers of ribbed ridges, there tops had nothing and no nothing either - scanning, scanning, not wanting to believe that what was in front of him was as desolate as that behind, which he did look at - he thought he saw a trickle of smoke, it was not too far - it would be downhill - it was still several hours until any semblance of respite from the heat would occur… whether he was alive at night probably decided he had the somehow to make it, he was going to have to try.
He picked his way down, carefully, gingerly, not wanting to twist an ankle, anything that would prevent his from making it, torturously slow and then he hit a groove like some ancient channel, and suddenly he was walking on smooth rock, and it was faster, and he thought “I could just make it and he realized that smoke was in a channel and that it was one ridge removed - curling straight up, it didnt seem by chance - he was going to have to climb over to the next one. And he thought, I could certainly do that, I feel alone in the night, I could certainly do that, I must - and he found the deepest crevass, overhanging rock.. the ledge over him and his body was entirely in the deep shade, he sensed lizards around but had not the energy - and he lay there still, fighting, fighting to conserve maximum energy, not even breathe, not aware of his thirst, which was encompassing to the point where he dreamt of warm threads of water - watermills, Disneyland spouts of water through tomorrow.. some semblance of sleep..
Waking hours later in teh moonlight he seemed to have gained energy somehow, he craned his head there were a million stars, a million dead planets in the sky… artifacts of things that didnt care anything about him or he planet even, eras of tim - there was no shade, so desperately seek… much sooner if he was to survive and knowing he began his climb, it was not easy, - it was not a high climb, but for him it might as well have been Everest - he was on all fours, just feeling the rocks with his body, just slithering like a snake - picked the proper alignment that he would hit the canyon still trailing in his mind,.. he did not know how long it tool.. oozing in some primordial flow .. he knew it when he reached teh top, he could feel the down-ness, the space below.. and he felt somehow alive and he started down letting gravity do the work inch by inch, turning into a tiny roly polly and shuttling down, a shuttlecock, through roxky hands, not knowing of there would be a sudden drop, but trusting and letting gravity do the work because he had no more energy to stand - there was no energy to fixate on stars , there was nothing - even the sensation of falling was pure numbness, the jolt of eternity, warpped in a shroud mummy like death. he hit what he perceived as the bottom but he didnt know and he laid back and now his eyes were the only thing - he did see the stars, and he now blackness…
RSS Feed