This is an ongoing project. Also read part 1 - Dawn, part 2 - Vultures, part 3 - The Wormhole,  part 4 - Shade, and part 5 - Flight.

Sensation returned as a result of actively seeking out pain––of finding the places where thought latched onto the full reality of what had occurred. Kyle willed himself to connect with the dull ache of broken bones, the jagged flare where rock incised chest and forearm. Having been given a chance to embrace the light, reach a state of nonexistence, he’d turned away. Earthly suffering his only reward. Samsara. 

As he took stock through a fury of nerves, Kyle focused on the exact place where the pain stopped. Despite its intensity, it not seem centered in his neck or head. Through protective instinct or sheer luck, he had hit the bottom in a defensive pose, his extremities buffering the skull. Kyle channeled his remaining energy and willed movement. The pain was everywhere as neural pathways reconnected with actual muscles and sinews, damaged nerve impulses, and mapped the true extent of his injuries. It was an act of utter bravado, this connecting with his physical self in the face of deeply embedded pain. The tortuous process of achieving phantom movement, when even full movement would not save him. 

The vultures took unblinking perches in his peripheral vision. They waited him out as they did rabbits, coyotes, the injured and infirm. Standing sentinel, edging closer, no longer so patient––arched necks and beaks poised for the exact moment they could.… Kyle blinked and raised his head in protest, hand shooting out in a shaky simulacrum of defense. His feeble movement, a display of diminished capacities, had exactly the opposite intended effect. The largest vulture stepped to the foreground, flanked by two others, giving an appraising look. The talons tentatively prodded his wrist, the beak tugging gently at first at Kyle’s forearm and then inward with surprising force. There was a ripping inside him, a sensation of scissors digging into the skin and scraping through veins and tendons to reach bone. That light through the tunnel, the easy way out… he knew in that instant he should have taken it.

The bald head lurched between preened feathers as swallow was completed, throat cleared, beak poised for a second bite. A turn and a shriek, as the vultures dispersed in the air. A condor, spread full wing, was beating, beating the earth. The vultures and  condor took to the sky like arial fighters, a startling upwelling of commotion in this place of finality. The lightening-fast melee left the largest vulture sprawled on the ground, nursing a gimp ankle. The other vultures settled on the ground and turned sideways, falling back.

Kyle’s gaze lifted to a sun that gave intimations of eternity, of the end of life and its intricate seasons of suffering, reprieve. The thought occurring that there was one remnant of hope, a reason for being. However brief, the melee in the air could just have caught the attention of  the person who set out that thin trickle of smoke last night. It was just possible that….

The much larger condor now took its rightful place over Kyle’s body. Nudging the wrist with its beak, it examined the chest––returning to the wrist and tearing off a small piece, tasting. A thin trail of skin hanging off its beak, the condor came eye to eye with Kyle, the beak prodding, ascertaining whether he posed any threat. Determining that he did not, the condor took a step back and pointed with his beak at the throat, at the place where Kyle would bleed out quickest. As if to say this is what I will do for you, so that you no longer suffer. The condor was clearly a god of mercy and Kyle gave himself to the void.

At the very moment when life should have run out on a desolate landscape, the birds scattered and Kyle sensed a vibration behind him, from a direction he could not see. The one-two pattern was unmistakable, the sound of human feet. They thudded to ear level and stopped, his chest turned over, his head falling back on cradling fingers. Through eyes that could not quite focus, he made out a pair of jeans that extended to the breadth of a woman’s hips.

This is an ongoing project. Also read part 1 - Dawn, part 2 - Vultures, part 3 - The Wormhole, and part 4 - Shade.


Waking an indeterminate amount of time later, Kyle craned his head and there were millions of stars, space-time artifacts of past realities. He picked his way down the rocky slope, lost in a thicket of dehydration, following his own movements as if through a long tunnel. The life force weak and diminishing, the chances of finding replenishment almost nil. And yet…  

An unexpected groove, ancient water channel––Kyle welcomed the slide down smooth rock at first, then grasped out at side rocks as he experienced dizzying acceleration. The channel took a steep drop and there was a sensation of flying without gravity, of being lifted by spirits. Nothing to fixate on but stars, there was nothing––pure numbness, a jolt of eternity wrapped in a shroud…. 

Waves of meaning not tied to a specific sense emanated from a very deep bottom. Kyle didn’t know how long he had been there. He laid back and his eyes were the only thing moving––for brief moments he caught sight of stars and then there was warm, thick blackness… eternities later, another tug of the now. Second reemergence into consciousness. A remembrance of his body crushed against something harder than hard. His arms and legs streaking with an infinite pain… it was coming back and then it was too much and his body shut down again. Only this time he did not stop seeing––his existence had metamorphosed into pure vision. This must be what they meant by seeing God––no movement, no awareness of the body. His reality as stark and laid out as the gradations of rock and sky. He lay aching on the rock, nestled against sun-flecked stone, his skin a part of this new reality––preparing to become a part of that which in essence was only matter.

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… 

Having decided on a crease in the rocks to aim for did not change anything fundamental--after five minutes the energy of purpose dissipated and the ridge that dominated Kyle’s view still stood achingly far--his feet scraping the surface as they planted themselves clumsily one in front of the other. He was a clutter of bones, only that, moving achingly forward along an ultra-hard pitch. His body, like that of so many other wrong-turn victims, would soon be a limp crumple to satiate some leather-skinned predator’s hunger. The bones picked clean and carried by coyotes, desert rats to turn into den lining for mothers to bear children in--protection against rock and sky, rock and sky.

Flashes of insanity, followed by all-to-sober awareness, shuddered through Kyle in asynchronous rhythm. Beyond the survival-rush of last night’s maneuvering lay the edges at which acceptance lurked, the idea that death was not the worst fate possible. To die on his own, given time to make peace with whatever lay beyond. Not operating on anyone else’s schedule. That was freedom of sorts and he felt it most when he looked into the sun - there was nothing really to avoid. No chance of survival on this parchment bake… through the dizzying haze we fall. Moments of coherence, purpose. The jumble of rocks somehow drawing nearer, that hint of--if not water--shade at least, merciful cover from the sun.

As he stumbled, half crawled toward the jumble of rocks that presaged elevation, Kyle heard, then saw as a tiny streak and a high-pitched, reverberating rumble, sign of human life in its most inhuman form, a photon burst of shrieking titanium and advanced composites. He waved, a little kid hoping against hope - surely these sleek military planes could identify him, though buzzing at accelerated pace, with technologies designed to identify Bin Laden on a similarly desolate moonscape––the UFO technologies that had created Isis and the thousand-headed hydra of humans not wanting to be controlled from above––adhering to the fundamental belief that camel routes through the desert pointed the best pathway to survival. It was all incoherence now, reality a cosmic shrug. And yet as life ebbed, the pulse in his heart had never been more insistent. Carry on, carry on. Drumroll of inertia, calibrated signals like a remote beacon, the body’s will to live insistent when coherence is lost. Lizard brain awareness in those last moments. The wormhole….

(from Cowachunga)