Diamond Drought

On a moonlit night, the snow across the mountainsides glitters in the manner of diamonds. On the last full moon, we had just received a fresh dusting, which caused the landscape to glow in supernatural ways. Had the wind not started to pick up and it had not already been down in the single digits, a moonlight walkabout may have very well been in order, although something like that may still happen this season.

"Where's all the snow?" Has been a popular inquiry amongst travelers, and it's not to be flippant. There's not a lot of it about.

I've been on one snowshoe this year, and could've gotten away with just my boots. My daughter and I had to go off-trail to justify the wearing of our snowshoes and pants. On walkabouts up the Bull's Head, Butler's Gulch and the 730, I've worn my gators almost as more of an aside than out of necessity.

Depending upon the ski resort, the powder level is not quite two feet to just shy of three. In deep winter. From what I've observed, those totals are more the norm early on, not midway through the season. I do not ski or ride, finding no thrill in going down a mountain very fast with a board, or boards, strapped to my feet, but I do know the winter tourists have been a little more than disappointed. My sister, an armchair snowbum when she's not mothering my nephew, has certainly grumbled over the decided lack of white gold. I'm willing to bet the powers that be at the resorts are willing to sacrifice a virgin for more snow, though it would require finding one.

Down below, which normally depends upon the snowfall in the mountains to fill its reservoirs and water its farmland has received more snow this year by virtue of upslopes, which have been too weak to reach the Roof of the World or beyond. It's been amusing to visit the greater metroplex and see bigger drifts there than around my own house. I've taken to saying around our little Sahel that it's more like March, sans the mud, which comes with the first thaw.

When the trained meteorologists call for snow I find myself becoming increasingly cynical. Well, for one, those city oracles get a little too melodramatic about a dusting, which keeps any tourists from traveling through and visiting, and when you live in communities that rely heavily on such traffic, such an over-embellishment just will not do. Even when the snow does fall, it snarls up the Road for a few hours, or a day, at the most, and then everything goes back to being khaki and crusty.

I fear drought and tinderbox and river rafting companies starving come summer. Even if skiing and riding holds no appeal for me, I am concerned for the resorts. The cats there have their own bills to pay and families to feed, after all.

On a recent walkabout, gazing up into the turquoises blue sky, I caught myself wondering if there would be a truly righteous blizzard this season. One of those storms that closes roadways for a day or more and leaves us digging out for just as long. The type of snow, which is the stuff of great works of literature and crappy 1970's era pop songs. As much of a pain in the ass as it would be to dig out from a storm of that magnitude, I can certainly see where that much snow might be appreciated to say the very least.

Of course, it is only deep winter. The two snowiest months for the state of Colorado are still a few months off. Trying to predict the weather in this part of the world, even and especially in the mountains, is as much of an art of of fortune telling as it is chaos math. It could be before it's all said and done and summer's here that the snow will glitter in great mounds of white gold abating any potential drought before it starts.   

100 Words; Wake Up Call

They were together again; same house and life. False smiles and civilities. The relationship couldn't have been more about convenience if there was a soda fountain and jerky rack in the bedroom.

I jarred her awake to say farewell. Obligations. She threw her arms around me, almost terrified to let me go.

"Thank you. You woke me up."

We'll have known each other ten years come high summer and have been more to each other a little more than half of that come spring. This isn't the first time she's thanked me for waking her. That bit of gratitude's mulilayered.

Maelstrom Noir

I found a friend of mine in the midst of a maelstrom. Twisted up, tangled, tired, frightened, angry, confused. He was looking for shelter. For answers. For the eye, so he might just catch his breath.

Please, just one breath...

I was there, noting the time of transition. The obvious observation that he would survive it. How, the end result, what would come, I had no answer for. Even the wise cannot foresee all outcomes. Besides, prophets don't know everything, and oracles can be wrong.

Perhaps the words I offered were those of lobotomized sangha. Maybe I told my friend everything. It could be I told him nothing. Yet, are those not one and the same?

I do know I truly got his attention when I quoted the sutra of a celluloid monk;

"'Are you going to freak out? Or are you going to eat an orange?'"

My friend was sent home. To a warm place. Encouraged to eat a sandwich and get some sleep. Whether any of the words were heard, or even remembered, hardly matters in the here and now. It could very well be years and lifetimes before the intricacies of all those lessons coalesce. Be that as it may, I know my friend will be alright.

And consider eating an orange. You can see, smell, taste, feel, hear, and understand the whole of creation if you pay attention. It might be the worse day of your life, but that might be the best orange you ever ate.

Dissections

Watching a young couple at the bar, I could tell they were on a date. She was relaxed, and vaguely open, yet at the same time, tentative. She dug her companion, but she's played these games before, and doesn't want her heart, or any other piece of anatomy for that matter, to be used as an appetizer.

He was slowly inching his way in. False smiles and pretty lies. All the things the girlies like to hear. He's in it to get his dick wet, and if she won't play, than he'll find some other split-tail who will.

Voyeuristic visual dissection and speculation on a scene of softness. A bottle of beer and mood music. Just a few of my favorite things. More fun than going to le cinema.

Perhaps, were I inclined to care, I would tell my monkey watching victims not to be offended at my half-starved ally-cat's gaze from dark corners. It's completely benign. Sure, I might whittle off a piece or two psyche of what I see for my stories; the ones I write out, and the ones I tell myself in my skull, but in some dysfunctional way, am I not making some anonymous simian immortal?

A Mourning Ramble

We stood in my grandmother's old house. It was said she was either crazy or masochistic for staying there after my grandfather died. The house became a museum to her mourning, sometimes terribly cold, and you could get yelled at for touching things that had been left just as they were the day he left.

I was telling my mother how my father had to leave that house out in the Rub 'al Khali of the badlands of eastern Colorado. Without her there, the isolation and loneliness was all consuming. Had he stayed, he woud've acted out one of my worst fears; that, with her gone, he'd have crawled into a bottle and never come back out.

My mother nodded, understanding my father's need for dynamic over my grandmother's need of stasis. There was a look of sadness in her eyes, though; leaving all that land and the all the other creatures they shared that farmstead with. The quiet and the immense scope of the sky when you get out somewhere that flat. I felt for her, but it was all over now.

The sound of movement pulled me away. Two of the cats were running and playing through the house. Milarepa was making sounds indicating she wanted to join in the fun. Sabina made some half-awake sound, which warned me of grumpiness should she awaken right then. I was back in the mountains. My mother was gone. It was time to face the day.

I got up and threw some clothes on. Took care of the hounds and ushered the offending felines outside to continue their mayhem elsewhere. I put on Miles Davis' Sketches of Spain, because it's the album I listen to on this day at one point or another, and thus it has been for the last couple of years. I listen to Bunny Bergman's version of I Can't get Started on the anniversary of my grandmother's death. So it goes.

There was tea. Jasmine. Once upon a time, it was said hot jasmine tea cold fix anything, even that, which was not broken. The Bruja showed me what a bunch of who shot john that was. Back when she was going, I was all but mainlining tea, and I still had to help my city friends bury her. When my grandmother was walking on, I drank a fair amount whiskey. With Jibril getting sick I was quite fond of cheap beer. With my mother it was water and the occasional glass of wine. One thing this has taught me is the drinking of anything does not help, but it does very little to hinder as well.

Over the last two years my sense of belief has been in a state of flux. It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke; how do you get a heretical Tibetan Buddhist to question his dubious faith? Being glib, I could say the heretical adjective is a good start, and dubious helps explain a bit too. The more serious answer has to do with this recent double-whammy of mortality I've dealt with, because there is no statue of limitation on grief, and anyone who'd tell you different is daft or try to sell something. 

I believe there is magic, but it's nothing like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. There is divinity, but it's certainly not some anthropomorphic entity that keeps tally of the monkey-made concepts of naughty and nice like fucking Santa Clause. Realizing that in the face of universe filled with harsh and unforgiving beauty and tossed along by the winds of chaos often keeps me screaming. 

My mother has been gone two years to the day, and I am obviously still trying to figure out how to approach the subject. I sip my hot jasmine tea and listen to Miles Davis. Later, Whistler and I will go on walkabout to the Bull's Head. There I will leave a tattered string of Tibetan prayer flags, more out of habit than anything. I have never preyed, unless it's been in the context of the foodchain.

Her ashes are scattered in these mountains, not very far from my house, though up on the tundra. In that, I find a queer sort of comfort. It's as though she's close in more than memory. Perhaps, if I allow for the superstition, as I wander out into the bush to get holy on this somber day, I'll hear her voice on the mountain wind, singing to me.

Deux

Two years ago, I began by telling a story of my concept of Kashmir. It was an old in its context, and it went unnoticed, but I sometimes feel awkward when I am the focus of attention. I have purged words from my skull forever and a day. One of my friends calls this a rare gift I should share. When I've referred to it as a curse, another of my friends tells me not to be so melodramatic.

Some things are started with predefined goals, whilst others it's a case of seeing where one ends up. I tend to think this was the ladder rather than the former. Although, to paraphrase someone I used to know; I think I was looking for a new mythology. See, I'd self-published a book a few years back. A angsty dark thing that was great for my twenties and early thirties living within the borders of the greater metroplex, but I was neither that age or in that location anymore. Unfortunately, there were a few cats I knew who could not or would not accept that I wanted to move on. Somehow, I was betraying them.

But, perhaps it was a matter of context. By the time I started purging words my skull here, I'd lived in the mountains for a few years. Different geography. Different reality. I wanted to tell stories about being out in the in-between places and exploring deeper into the American Maghreb. Sometimes, starting out, I would joke were I crazy, or stupid, enough to try for publication once more, perhaps it would be upon the pages of the Mountain Gazette.


That day I vomited out my first story here, my mother was languishing in a sickhouse. Five days later, my brother and I would be standing over her body, trying to reconcile the very harsh reality that she was lost and gone forever, and ever, amen. I did tell stories about losing her and trying to come to peace with it, but, at first, not here. I didn't want to drag any random strangers from across the spider's web of cyber into my mourning. That lasted for four months, and then all bets were off.

I told stories about my mother. About helping my father move from the Rub 'al Khali of the badlands of Eastern Colorado. Stories about living in the mountains, walkabouts through our little Sahel, and observations of the weather. Tales with my daughter, Sabina, and the other species of quadruped we share our tiny house with. I started telling other tales again, ones spoken in the tongues of fiction as well as fact, because it's all true; even and especially the lies.

Somewhere in there, I think I found the shape of this, even if I've not found the words to articulate that particular concept. At its simplist; this is mine. My little bit of terror and shock and awe I inflict upon the rest of the cosmos. The simple fact anyone else looks is really quite humbling. Once upon a time, I thought it would be cool to be famous for the words I purge from my skull, but then I remember how mortified and uncomfortable I became in my own skin when someone announced, quite loudly, how I'd published a book to a room full of strangers. That's when I learned I'll never be a rock and/or roll star.

I've just finished a story arc and have been queried as to what I might do next. Rest assured, it's just as much of a mystery to me, but that could be half the fun of it. A very long time ago, I once told someone that some stories write and/or tell themselves and the storytellers are just along for the ride. It's a bit of wisdom, cosmic in its significance, perhaps, that I truly believe.

Epilogue; The Last Hot Day in September

Her nightmares began right after she found Bear dead. These were horrible black things, which often involved staring into cold amber eyes before waking, unable to scream. She would lay there in the dark, deafened by the sound of her own heavy breathing. After a few minutes, what felt like far longer than forever, she would realize how utterly alone she was and would cry herself to sleep.

She dreamt of the rocks crashing down and being tied up. This time there was no rescue. Her tormentor came back. The last thing she saw was a triumphant smile and those reptilian eyes just before a rock was brought down upon her skull and it all going into a wet, crunching black.

Her eyes flew open into the darkness of a warm room. She could hear her breathing and feel a thin glaze of sweat upon her brow. At first, it was like waking up from any other nightmare until she realized there were arms around her. There was someone else breathing next to her, and it sounded like the purring of a big cat. With a sigh, and perhaps a smile, she pulled herself in closer to the slumbering embrace allowing for the waking safety she was yet to achieve in her dreams.

***

Of course he would disappear. He was Lazarus Lankin. The first time it happened, despite every story and every fact she was told about him, Sydney found her feelings were hurt. Her grandfather’s barn cat, back when she was a child, was like that; curling up in a bed with her one night, and then disappearing for a week or two before the sun was even up.

“Lazarus is Lazarus,” Bast said to her one afternoon at Ira Milligan’s café. “If you think he might be someone else, or try to make him into somebody else, he will turn on you.” She leaned closer, predatory gray eyes narrowed. “And I think you’ve seen quite well what happens to those he turns upon.”

“I guess I might have to learn a new way,” Sydney mused. “That seems to be what I’ve needed to do since I came to Marrakech.”

 “I’m optimistic,” Bast said.

“Your brother said that too,” Sydney quipped and Basted smirked in the manner of a sphinx that knew the answer to the riddle from the time of the dinosaurs.

“Did he now?”

The nursery rhyme of Humpty-Dumpty became a strange mantra for Sydney the rest of that summer, as she worked to pull herself back together again after five years of harassment. She found a newfound sense of freedom living in Marrakech and not all but hiding in her little apartment above Ira Milligan’s. The freedom of being somewhere new and finally really starting anew. There was the freedom of not being followed and tormented, though she still fought back the nightmares and the urge to constantly check over her shoulder. The freedom of knowing Darcy was going away for a very long time.

Sydney found freedom in her acquaintance with Lankin. Sometimes she would find herself at the last house on Lovecraft Lane. There were times they would go for a hike or to shoot pool at Magpie Jack’s and part ways with nothing more than a hug and a peck on the cheek. Sydney joked she never thought of herself as a cat person, but for him, she would try to make an exception.

“My sister observed a defiant streak in you,” he told her one night. “Perhaps it is that, which intrigues me.”

“Or maybe you just actually like me,” she teased.

“You’d find that answer boring, Just Sydney.”

“Only from you.”

***

In Levant County, it was said the inhabitants of Marrakech had an innate sense of when the last truly hot day was before the chill of High Country autumn, and ultimately, winter, was going to set in. It was inevitably a day in September, and, most always, a day when the aspen leaves had hit their peak, turning the mountainsides into tiger-stripped veins of green, gold, orange, and red. On that day, the atmosphere at Magpie Jack’s was that of the most festive of parties, and everyone in town, as well as from nearby, stopped by for at least an hour.

Sydney sat out at a patio table with the warm sun on her face. There were loud voices and the sound of a game of horseshoes being played. Something fun was being sang from the speakers. Her vantage point allowed her a spectacular view of Gaia’s Backbone, including the Death’s Head and Hell’s Watchtower; both mountains she had finally been able to summit.

At the table with her was Desdemona, Bast, and Marty. She was enjoying the company, and the fact she could have friends now and not worry about having them poisoned and stolen away from her. This new life she found herself in, despite the lingering nightmares and occasional old fears, was shaping up to be fairly good.

“I must say you look much better than when I first met you back in June,” Bast observed. “You look more vibrant.”

“I’ve been up on the tundra a few times this summer,” Sydney said. “Someone once told me going up there can be quite cathartic.”

“Sounds like someone rather wise,” Bast said with a smirk.

A round of cheers erupted from inside. It was the type of ruckus that was made when an important point was scored during a game. Bast leaned back in her wheelchair and Sydney stood up to peer in the open patio door. By the bar was a familiar angular figure sipping a glass of red wine.

“Well, well, we will need another chair,” Bast chuckled. “Look who’s coming to dinner…”

“Natty Dreadlocks,” Sydney finished with a smile that might be described as either excited or expectant. 

100 Words; Idle Hands

There was really nothing to do. No victims. The travelers wanted to get where they were going. I got a little punchy. But I insist it wasn't my fault. Idle hands and all.

Images were sent. My sister couldn't stop laughing and my father enjoyed it. My daughter said I was her hero. Sempi said the model never looked better.

For some reason no one believes me when I say the Devil made me do it, even if I might've meant it. Queer. I wonder if it has anything to do with what I once said about the Devil's wife?

A Question of Safety

“I have a cousin who lives out on the plains and a brother down in Texas,” Connelly mused. “Both of them are ranchers. Cowboys. With cowboys, the last thing you ever want to do is mess with their horses.” He then leaned forward to lock eyes with the Darcy, swaying side to side in her handcuffs across from him. “Up here, well, anywhere you got people who enjoy the outdoors, the last thing you want to do is fuck with their dogs.”

“You shouldn’t have killed the dog,” Lankin echoed coldly, his gray eyes narrowed.

Sydney sighed heavily at those statements and leaned her head on Lankin’s shoulder. Darcy, seated between two Levant County sheriff’s deputies, would glare daggers, but, for the first time in five years, it didn’t matter. This was the beginning of the end, although it wasn’t the end Darcy had envisioned. The thought got Sydney to smile. It was as though a weight was lifted. She closed her eyes and relaxed, subconsciously rubbing Lankin’s rope-burned hands.

Word travels fast in rural counties with small communities. It was joked in Levant County that rule was doubly so. Upon entering Magpie Jack’s that night Lankin and Sydney were greeted by a tide of cheers and pats on the backs and shoulders. Someone, as a joke, put on Queen’s We are the Champions. Grizz showed them to dimly lit table just past the pool table. There was a bottle of beer and bottle of wine already waiting for them.

“On me,” Grizz said. “So’s your dinners, in case you were wondering. And, Lazarus, if you don’t start another bottle tonight, I’ll be insulted.”

“Then I’ll endeavor to get half-drunk, Grizz,” he replied with a respectful inclination of his head.

Sydney found that Lankin was not exaggerating when he said Grizz made the best elk steaks. They ate well and shot a few games of pool. Every so often, she would allow herself to get closer to Lankin. Although he maintained his usual feline aloofness, it also seemed he was receptive to her advances.

“You certainly more relaxed, Just Sydney,” he said at one point. “I told you going up on the tundra would work wonders.”

“Cute. Although I’m a little leery now of your definition of ‘cathartic’” she snickered. “It’s strange, though, knowing that Darcy’s being taken care of after so long. I don’t know if I can explain it, but in a way I think I’m safe now.” She took his hands and pulled closer. The look in her dark eyes bordered between fear, relief, and simple desperation. “I am safe, aren’t I?”

Lankin reached up, cupping her face in one hand. She squeezed it and nuzzled his palm, planting a few light kisses along the red marks he’d acquired from the rope earlier. The look on his face was pensive.

“Not completely,” he said, a single finger tapping her temple. “She’s still in there, and she probably will be for a very long time. It’s something I can neither protect nor save you from. You’ll have to face that down and make peace with it on your own.” He then leaned forward and gently placed his lips on her brow. As he pulled back there was a compassionate smile on his face. “I am, however, optimistic.”

Sydney found there was nothing she could say. Instead, she merely nodded, and with a smile, she squeezed his hand once more and planted another kiss along his palm.

Crime and Punishment

Just beyond the rockslide was a drop-off overlooking mounds of scree just above the Abyss. There were several crevasses in which a body could easily be swallowed, never to be seen again. Darcy liked to believe if An Interested Party had not been crushed by the rocks, he had fallen, to either be dashed upon the scree, or devoured by the mountain itself.

Still, she wanted proof. In her encounter with him in Leeds it was obvious he was possessed of some cunning. She found this both intriguing and intimidating. Most of the men she dealt with, even those who looked after her when she was locked away, no matter how intelligent, could be manipulated after some time. It was a matter of figuring them and out and knowing how to play the games necessary to achieve her ends.

An Interested Party, upon first impression, seemed impervious to such things. In fact, Darcy felt the only reason she came away from their initial encounter was because he allowed it. That he was quite dangerous in his own rite. The very thought of which, no matter how likely, was sickening.

As she scrambled about the crevasses, she thought she heard the distant thwok of a helicopter. At one point she thought she heard the jackrabbit speaking in a raised voice. This got her attention. It occurred to her she wasn’t going to find a body, because there was no body to be found. With a frustrated hiss, she turned herself around to finish what she started five years ago.

She was nearly back to rockslide when movement along the Abyss caught her eye. At first, Darcy could only stare in disbelief at the sight of the jackrabbit heading back down the trail at a brisk pace. She almost screamed in rage as she moved closer to edge for a better look.

At the edge, she felt her balance wane for the briefest of seconds, as if something behind her moved her ever so slightly forward. The lower tiers of mountain seemed to reach up for her momentarily as she struggled to right herself. Then, she felt something, someone, gripping her very tightly about the waist.

“It’s all right. You’re okay,” Lankin whispered into her ear. “I’ve got you. I won’t let you fall.”

Darcy watched her prey disappear down the trail with a scowl. When she tried to struggle, his grip merely tightened. The turned her head to be face to face with Lankin and spat at him. He regarded the action with feline detachment.

“You should let me go!” She snapped, and he merely shrugged, as if unsurprised.

“Perhaps.”

And she was flying, hurtling toward the rock a few hundred feet below her at incredible speed. At first, it didn’t seem real; that he would let her fall. But, there she was; cold air screaming in her ears as the ground rushed up. The scree yawned before her in the manner of broken teeth and jagged talons, ready to embrace her.

Then, suddenly, she stopped. Something jerked tightly about her waist. Darcy looked down to see it was the very climbing rope she had used to bind the jackrabbit. She was suspended just above the scree. First, she started to laugh manically and she found herself crying at the realization of what happened. Her bladder and bowels loosened and she was only partially successful in restraining the urge to vomit.

The thwok sound seemed to be closer. Something about that worried her. She felt the rope pulling on her waist and realized she was being pulled back up.

“I am afraid it’s not going to be that easy for you,” Lankin called down to her.

“I hate you!” Darcy screamed.

“If I was here solely for you to like than we’d both be disappointed.”

“Just let me fall!” Then her voice became plaintive; “Please!”

“No,” he said softly.

“No?!?”

By this time she was dangling just a few feet from the edge once more. Lankin stood firmly, his wiry arms as knotted as the rope around her waist. His gray eyes were narrowed in predatory concentration, but there was a slight look of amusement playing across his lips, like that of a barn cat with an especially fat mouse.

“You’ve been building up to this for years,” Lankin said off-handedly. “Torment, torture, and ultimately murder someone you decided was the source of all your misery, then kill yourself so you could be with the fantasy of someone who left you fifteen years ago.” He pulled her closer to the edge, a smirk forming. “But you’ve been a naughty, naughty girl, and naughty girls need to be punished.”

With that, he gave a mighty tug, sending Darcy hurtling past him, onto the bare rock of the Death’s Head. It took her a moment to realize she was back on solid ground. Even before she could move, Lankin’s booted foot was jammed into the small of her back. He was using the rest of the rope to tie her hands behind her back. His trek pole ran behind her, making her feel as though she was being trussed.

“And your punishment is you get to live!” Lankin growled as he pulled her to her feet forcefully. Then he whispered in ear in a voice that was far removed from anything human; “Now, you see you’re not the only one capable of abject cruelty.”

Darcy felt defeated tears begin to flow as she was made to start walking along the trail. The thwok sound of the helicopter was very close now. Both of them turned to see the vehicle coming down along side them. There were official markings on it and men in uniforms could be seen riding in it.

“Lankin! We’re here!” Connelly’s voice was amplified by a loudspeaker. “We’ll land at the usual place and wait for you.”

“Dammit, Connelly!” He shouted back, although there was a smirk on his face. “We were going to be down by tonight! Did my sister ask about me?”