85-Harvest's Gemlog//85-harvest.flounder.online/gemlog85-harvestwalker 1, hangover [february11 2022]2022-02-11T00:00:00Ztag:85-harvest.flounder.online,2022-02-11:/gemlog/2022-02-11[walker1hangover].gmi#walker 1, hangover [february11 2022]
its snowing here. looking out my window into the grey-brown twilight i see flakes falling through the dome of yellow light of the arching street lamps. the rest is invisible in the dim air. its supposed to keep snowing through the night and all day tomorrow but it will all be melted by the next sundown– the ambient temperature has been too high. it’ll dump for 18 hours and we'll have less on the ground than we started with. its been like this for weeks. i feel like the weather is afraid to commit itself to the long winter so instead it leaves the city half- clothed and ugly in wet and melting ice.
my dreams are getting vivid again and its getting harder to hide my anxiety tic when im outside at work. stressful memories flash out of nowhere and my voice says “shut the fuck up” or “hello” or “i love you” and i have no control over it. if im not alone i start coughing or start singing to myself, “barges are there treasures in your hold, do you fight with pirates brave and bold” a camp song my mom used to sing to me and my sister before bed. if anyone on site has noticed they dont say anything. im grateful. the embarrassment of saying im fine after holding up a 3 pin cable and telling it to shut the fuck up. getting asked if im okay, a mask over the real question, “would you fucking knock it off.” “barges i would like to go with you, i would like to sail the ocean blue”.
the stress is anniversary syndrome or something, madigan told me about it a long time ago. something about how on or near the anniversary of trauma the body feels the stress of it again. i brought more than books and clothes with me when i moved back here from the valley. i havent known how to talk about it, that thing. its like telling somebody that i see a second moon at night. “oh damn” they could say “you know its not real right” and then i could say “yeah” and look up at the second moon and say “yeah i know”. Its not a moon though. its the Walker. val knows about it too. i wish she was here.
i was with madigan actually when we first saw it. That morning i woke up shaking from low blood sugar, climbing out of the familiar wreckage of a shallow and sexless sleep after a night of hard drinking with our friends. our place reeked. i bumped and leaned my way through the hallway to the kitchen. i passed the closed bathroom and heard madigan voiding himself. notes of his retching found the resonant frequency of the small bathroom, ringing like a bell: good morning. i bumbled on and found my harbor in the kitchen. my feet peeled off the floor, red wine dried sticky on the concrete. i opened the fridge searching for anything to thicken my blood. in my lizard state i almost grabbed the block of cheese to gnaw but ,y hand found a heavenly gift, a styro clamshell with two supreme tacos from burrito ballena.
i was standing over the stove refrying them in our pockmarked cast iron when madigan careened out of the bathroom and collapsed onto the couch. “did anybody stay over” i asked while i stared into the cheese shreds bubbling at the edge of the tortillas. madigan muttered a sweaty “fuck” and i heard him stumble off the couch and back to his room. the tacos were ready to flip. i gripped a little table fork and slid it between the taco and the hot pan. i readied myself for the flip. there wasnt enough real estate in the pan so when i flipped it it was going to land on top of the other taco. i didnt have a plan for what to do after that but i had confidence id figure it out.
“teddy’s here” madigan called from his room.
“hi teddy” i called back. in one fluid upward motion i executed the flip. the cooked side was completely black. madigan re-emerged from the hall and crashed more gently into the couch. “whats that smell” he asked with his face in his hands.
“nothing”. the alarm triggered. the piercing wail ricocheted through the apartment.
“what the FUCK” teddy shouted from madigans room. i flipped the other taco. It was charred almost to ash.
me and madigan sat on the blue plastic couch with all the windows open. i noisily and slowly crunched into my taco project and madigan slumped naked except for his thick red briefs. the tv politely showed a program about vanishing sand art from the southern coast. teddy strode into the living room half naked, bronze and shining with vitality. “did you fry cigarettes in here?”
“yeah” my cheeks filled with taco rubble “its a family recipe you want it?”
“no”
we all looked at the tv. a aged woman stood on a beach holding a long stick with a sort of comb attached to the end. she began a slow dance with it, her feet planted. she swung the stick in a slow and gliding circle around her, passing it between her hands. she bent backward and sideways and over and spoke in a rhythm.
madigan sat up and looked at me blearily, “i need to eat three dozen eggs.”
we decimated the breakfast buffet at the university cafeteria and afterward teddy left us for the painting studio. me and madigan were feeling renewed by the afternoon as we walked the long blocks across campus back home. the sun was gentle and the wind blew warm from across the eastern plateau. neither of us had plans or work hanging over our heads– the spring exams were all finished, the frenzied spiral to the end of the school year had slowed almost to stopping. it dawned on us that we were about to enjoy a perfect day.
“we cant go back to the apartment” madigan said suddenly
i agreed, “we have to stay outside”
“if we go back to that mess the day will all be squandered”
“i’ll become welded to the couch”
“and that’ll be that”
we halted on the small wooden bridge over the creek on the edge of campus. once we crossed the street we’d be back in our neighborhood of squat and languid brick shacks.
madigan looked up at the sky, squinting under his large red brows, “we cant go to turners, that place is probably in worse shape than ours”
i nodded “it was that spraypaint event last night. what about the mags?”
madigan looked down at the wood planks and blew air out his nose “they started smoking indoors again”. i watched the clear water bubble and run down its channel. its flow was stalled by a yellow traffic cone marooned in the creek bed.
madigan perked, “how about a drive”
my little green car was 19 years old and half of it was grey plastic. the hood ended in a low brow and squinted eyes over a thin grill stretching to a slight smile. the air conditioning was broken and when the heater core ran it covered the inside of the windshield in a thin film of oil. the whole thing weighed half a ton and i could take it anywhere. it deserved to see as much of the world i could show it in its twilight. it was more than happy to take me and madigan out beyond the end of the paved highway that followed the foot of the southern ridge. the pavement degraded into a gravel road and the easy slopes of the ridge were worn away to looming basalt cliffs.
the gentle heat of the early day had toughened and began to beat down on the valley. we were necessarily shirtless and my bra was leaving red tread marks across my ribs. madigan let his arm hang out of the window and looked at the basalt columns reaching to the empty sky. my mix cd played jittering machine music and we rumbled along the gravel.
madigan turned to me “so, you and val”. i tightened my grip on the steering wheel. “are you two a item yet?”
i tried not to crack, “lick my item”. madigan laughed.
“tell me though, i wanna know for real”
“i like her, yeah, everyone likes her shes cool and funny and she wears those small shirts”
he laughed again, “but you like her”
i chose the path of obstinance, “what do you want from me”
“realize the truth”
i made loud baby noises
“say it!”
i babbled and swerved the car across the gravel
madigan was unfazed “great i’ll tell her, shes been asking about you” i stopped swerving and looked at him
“wait really has she”
madigan looked at me and raised his eyebrows “do you wish she did?”
i narrowed my eyes at him and stuck my jaw out and looked to the road again and gasped and slammed the brakes. we slid to a stop in front of the wall.
the gravel road ended abruptly at a rock wall some 20 feet high. i looked left and the wall continued on down into the thin green gold forest of aspen and chokecherry. i looked right and it carried on straight into the basalt. straight ahead, there was a hole. about waist high off the ground a tunnel some six feet in diameter was bored into the wall. we got out of the car.
i walked up to the hole. the opening was a nearly perfect circle and the tunnel drove deeper on into complete darkness. the tunnel walls were ragged and a little trail of gravel had formed on the floor. i looked back at madigan, still standing next to the car. he looked back at me with his hands on his hips. i pointed into the tunnel and shrugged. he scowled. “im not doing that, no.” i stepped to the middle of the hole and hopped my ass up onto the ledge, still facing madigan.
“okaaay if you say so.” i brought my knees to my chest and crouched there on the ledge. i cupped my ear and pretended to hear something from deeper within. “but i hear what sounds like a knot of curious and newly bisexual men lost in the pleasure of each other” madigan looked at the ground laughing, “i guess i’ll have to tell them you couldnt make it.” i stood up and turned to face the dark.
=>//85-harvest.flounder.online/index.gmi homepark [january23 22]2022-01-23T00:00:00Ztag:85-harvest.flounder.online,2022-01-23:/gemlog/2022-01-23[park].gmi#park [january23 22]
i remember it was night, late. i laid on my blue jersey bedsheets just barely sweating. id thought too much about what i'd been doing wrong and sleep was too far away. the Sound bloomed in my head, it urged me to get up and go, out of our brick and concrete cottage and into the open night.
i counted to 15 and sat up and swung out of bed. i laced my black boots over my bare feet and zipped my ragged black hoodie over my clammed skin and crawled out of my window.
it had rained hard that day and the stiff clay soil refused to soak up the wet. the whole block was a nasty swamp of bent straw and muck. i picked my way across our overgrown yard to the street. damp wheatgrass slipped over my shins like witch fingers. the Sound pointed me in the direction of the park. it wasnt far, a quarter mile up the the road, next to the cemetery. i splashed across the asphalt and hopped onto the sidewalk.
the street was quiet and my black shadow shrunk and faded long again as i walked past each lamp buzzing with warm green light.
i approached the cemetery where the last street lamp waited before the road twisted darkly away into the thin bracken forest. i passed the light and looked up to the sky. in the valley the stars come all the way out at night and the detail of their habitat becomes fully visible. the flat white on black of the 30 or so city stars becomes a deep roiling current of white over white over silver and hazy blue. the bruise of the galaxys pattern is flesh under the glow. thousands of millions together in a slow rotation, like looking deep through the sparkling silt of a slow river. i gazed, open and swaying like a lily. water had gotten in the hole in my left bootheel and begun to soak my foot.
i was hungry and i felt new sweat across my belly as i marched up the gently sloping street. the cemetery continued on my right, the red brick pump house next to the road held the same posture as the mausoleum at the center of the grounds. their walls leaned into my my gaze, daring me to hop the fence and tread their territory while the hour still belonged to them. i denied them, walking on and looking through the twisted metal fencing.
i surveyed the headstones. i wondered whos was the newest. who let themselves be taken by the dirt here. a car passed me from head on and i was blind. 2 pink green blossoms covered my vision as i strode on. i took a long blink and the black iron park gate jammed itself into my shoulder.
i recoiled stupidly and stepped into a jagged little whirl down the sidewalk. the sturdy pump house stood still, mocking my gangling motion. i halted myself with my feet planted wide and stable. i stood at the center of the arched gate of the park entry.
the Sound hummed contentedly as i looked out across the grounds. the park spread out at the bottom of the slope off the side of the road. it fanned out in a delta from the dozen concrete steps where i stood. tonight there was something different about it. i took my next step down the staircase, its sides sweeping out in imitation of the idea of grandness, reminiscence of a grand ballroom stair in a ancient mansion. wheat grew in the pebbly cracks.
usually, the park was a smallish run of grass with a looped path and benches. it ended where its green grass met the expanse of rock and brush and rubble that ran all the way out to the airstrip. a few hardy trees stood gnarled around the edges, guarding against the advance of the ruined field. tonight, though, i saw the whole thing was a mirror.
the rainwater from the day had fallen hard and had nowhere to go. so it pooled, and waited still, reflecting. i was momentarily lost in vertigo as the night sky gazed up to me. a perfect, unmoving recreation of the depthless starfield laid out below. i slowly descended the remaining steps to it. the final step was right there above the surface. i looked out across it to where the park and the floor of light ended at the stones and bushes. all enmeshed in the shining surface were little black blades of grass reaching through, up from the stars.
i did not touch it. i barely breathed. i could have slipped and fallen through
=>//85-harvest.flounder.online/index.gmi home
waga 3, lake [january9 22]2022-01-09T00:00:00Ztag:85-harvest.flounder.online,2022-01-09:/gemlog/2022-01-09 [waga3lake].gmi# waga 3, lake [january9 22]
relics of billboards counted down the miles to the lake as we passed them. ruinous preludes to a ghost town laid alongside the highway; clusters of wood shacks and well pumps all the same grey, the color burned and eroded away by the sun and the wind. one final billboard commanded we Exit Now to see the Beautiful Medicinal Brinewater of B’Thanguel’s Hidden Lake. we obliged and turned onto a dirt road. it wound downward into a large depression in the surface of the plateau. it was filled with huge and densely packed rock structures. we entered a shaded path that twisted between the natural architecture, fitted together like the mosaic of drought soil. wooden signs with faded red arrows mounted on the rock walls guided us through the winding dirt path. one final turn and the lake was revealed to us.
it was smallish and oblong, contained at sharp angles by low rock walls on all sides but one, where the dirt road became a sloping gravel shore. the water was nearly still. it was protected in the center of a stone labyrinth where idle wind did not agitate its surface. val pulled the car close to the water and coasted to a halt. she yanked the parking brake and let out a sigh.
val: “that took way longer than i remembered”
hector: “let’s get into there”
i stepped out of the car and stretched and stared around. the late afternoon sun fatigued into a hazy yellow. all around us the rock was streaked like Jasper Wall, blonde veins set in steely grey. we were alone here. hector was already ankle deep in the water when i looked back to the shore. val was sitting in the gravel taking her shoes off. i followed after them.
hector: “it’s all muddy in there”
hector stepped gingerly back onto the shore and started pulling his shirt over his head. the muscles in his back twisted and coiled as he fought his shirt off and tossed it behind him without looking. val stood up and loosed her belt. her olive green shorts fell away from her waist. i sat down next to her and quickly pulled my boots off and unbuttoned my jeans. val crossed her arms and grabbed the edge of her t shirt. hector was up to his knees when he stopped and held his arms straight out like a T. he leaned forward and splashed into the water like a wooden power pole. he kicked and swam and beneath the surface his orange boxers looked like fat koi swerving after him. valerie turned to me and smiled. i admired her matching underwear. copper, like the rings in her eyes.
val: “theres a surprise for you in the water”
she made her eyebrows dance as she said it, and then she turned away from me, sloshing into the lake. hectors head bobbed a ways out
hector: “it’s still muddy out here too!”
i slid out of my jeans and pulled myself out of my shirt. i felt like i was made entirely of knuckles, all knobbly and bent as i picked my way across the gravel. i stepped into the cool water and felt softness under my feet. i looked down as i took another step and saw plumes of sediment erupt slowly from my footfall. with every step there was softness that became less and less firm as i made my way out into the lake. i stood for a moment, with the water at my waist. i began to sink very slowly into the softness. i looked out to val and hector. val called to me
val: “did you see yet?”
“see what?”
val: “look”
i looked down again into the water. my pale legs ended at the ankle, my feet were buried in the brown. i looked at my hands just beneath the surface. and then i saw. little pink specks swirled around my palm. i cupped my hands together and brought them out of the water. i held a small pool and in it swam scores of things. creatures. i looked closer. brine shrimp. i looked down at the water again. there they were, all around me, tiny and looping, gliding and everywhere. the lake was filled with billions of brine shrimp. i looked out to val.
“holy shit”
val: “youre standing in it!”
i was sinking slowly still. into shrimp shit.
hector: “this is nasty!”
val: “no its very cool. i like it everyone likes it”
“i like it”
i kicked my feet out from under me and laid on my back. i closed my eyes. i tried to feel the tiny creatures dancing across my skin. i saw orange from behind my eyelids. the sun glared its hotness on my wet face.
gently, i felt val place her hand in the middle of my chest. her fingers were splayed and warm. i kept my eyes closed. her other hand gripped my thigh. the water around me warmed with the new hotness of my skin.
val: “hold your breath”
i inhaled through flared nostrils and locked my throat
val: “ready?”
i nodded.
i felt her fingers stiffen, and in one motion she pushed me below the surface of the water.
the orange behind my eyelids went to darkness, the cool weight of water rushed over my face. i held my body still, laying like a stage girl under the hands of a magician. val held me firm. i felt her fingertips digging gently into my skin and finding purchase on the topography of my shallow set bones. she felt like the sun where she held me.
and in a moment there was stillness. and i felt them all around me. across my forehead and over my stomach and in the arch of my feet and at the small of my back and in the divots of my shoulders. the touch of a thousand tiny ancient things meeting my porous interface in benign indifference. their touch carried the force of a whisper in the space of a pin of static electricity. in hundreds of instants they brushed my surface over every part of me. in the darkness behind my eyelids i saw dancing stars.
fifty miles away was my unlit apartment where i would return later that night, wrapped in my blankets in my dark room, warm in the quiet, the lake would still be laid within the rock maze and teeming with all its life. it was here before i was born and would be here after. it would gently ripple in the cool dark and the hot light and through the ices and storms of every year. it was all here, remaining. and we were here, for just an instant in its history, val submerging me in the time held within it.
val held me with her firmness and the little many flowed across me. gentle and soft was everything in this water.
i felt vals fingers relax. she released me and i rose up to the surface. i opened my eyes to just val against the bright empty sky. she smiled and i stopped myself from saying something i wanted. i thrashed and wrapped my arms around her.
“your turn”
=>//85-harvest.flounder.online/index.gmi home
waga3, lake [january9 22]2022-01-09T00:00:00Ztag:85-harvest.flounder.online,2022-01-09:/gemlog/2022-01-09%20[waga3lake].gmi#waga3, lake [january9 22]
relics of billboards counted down the miles to the lake as we passed them. ruinous preludes to a ghost town laid alongside the highway; clusters of wood shacks and well pumps all the same grey, the color burned and eroded away by the sun and the wind. one final billboard commanded we Exit Now to see the Beautiful Medicinal Brinewater of Bracet's Hidden Lake. we obliged and turned onto a dirt road. it wound downward into a large depression in the surface of the plateau. it was filled with huge and densely packed rock structures. we entered a shaded path that twisted between the natural architecture, fitted together like the mosaic of drought soil. wooden signs with faded red arrows mounted on the rock walls guided us through the winding dirt path. one final turn and the lake was revealed to us.
it was smallish and oblong, contained at sharp angles by low rock walls on all sides but one, where the dirt road became a sloping gravel shore. the water was nearly still. it was protected in the center of a stone labyrinth where idle wind did not agitate its surface. val pulled the car close to the water and coasted to a halt. she yanked the parking brake and let out a sigh.
val: “that took way longer than i remembered”
hector: “let’s get into there”
i stepped out of the car and stretched and stared around. the late afternoon sun fatigued into a hazy yellow. all around us the rock was streaked like Jasper Wall, blonde veins set in steely grey. we were alone here. hector was already ankle deep in the water when i looked back to the shore. val was sitting in the gravel taking her shoes off. i followed after them.
hector: “it’s all muddy in there”
hector stepped gingerly back onto the shore and started pulling his shirt over his head. the muscles in his back twisted and coiled as he fought his shirt off and tossed it behind him without looking. val stood up and loosed her belt. her olive green shorts fell away from her waist. i sat down next to her and quickly pulled my boots off and unbuttoned my jeans. val crossed her arms and grabbed the edge of her t shirt. hector was up to his knees when he stopped and held his arms straight out like a T. he leaned forward and splashed into the water like a wooden power pole. he kicked and swam and beneath the surface his orange boxers looked like fat koi swerving after him. valerie turned to me and smiled. i admired her matching underwear. copper, like the rings in her eyes.
val: “theres a surprise for you in the water”
she made her eyebrows dance as she said it, and then she turned away from me, sloshing into the lake. hectors head bobbed a ways out
hector: “it’s still muddy out here too!”
i slid out of my jeans and pulled myself out of my shirt. i felt like i was made entirely of knuckles, all knobbly and bent as i picked my way across the gravel. i stepped into the cool water and felt softness under my feet. i looked down as i took another step and saw plumes of sediment erupt slowly from my footfall. with every step there was softness that became less and less firm as i made my way out into the lake. i stood for a moment, with the water at my waist. i began to sink very slowly into the softness. i looked out to val and hector. val called to me
val: “did you see yet?”
“see what?”
val: “look”
i looked down again into the water. my pale legs ended at the ankle, my feet were buried in the brown. i looked at my hands just beneath the surface. and then i saw. little pink specks swirled around my palm. i cupped my hands together and brought them out of the water. i held a small pool and in it swam scores of things. creatures. i looked closer. brine shrimp. i looked down at the water again. there they were, all around me, tiny and looping, gliding and everywhere. the lake was filled with billions of brine shrimp. i looked out to val.
“holy shit”
val: “youre standing in it!”
i was sinking slowly still. into shrimp shit.
hector: “this is nasty!”
val: “no its very cool. i like it everyone likes it”
“i like it”
i kicked my feet out from under me and laid on my back. i closed my eyes. i tried to feel the tiny creatures dancing across my skin. i saw orange from behind my eyelids. the sun glared its hotness on my wet face.
gently, i felt val place her hand in the middle of my chest. her fingers were splayed and warm. i kept my eyes closed. her other hand gripped my thigh. the water around me warmed with the new hotness of my skin.
val: “hold your breath”
i inhaled through flared nostrils and locked my throat
val: “ready?”
i nodded.
i felt her fingers stiffen, and in one motion she pushed me below the surface of the water.
the orange behind my eyelids went to darkness, the cool weight of water rushed over my face. i held my body still, laying like a stage girl under the hands of a magician. val held me firm. i felt her fingertips digging gently into my skin and finding purchase on the topography of my shallow set bones. she felt like the sun where she held me.
and in a moment there was stillness. and i felt them all around me. across my forehead and over my stomach and in the arch of my feet and at the small of my back and in the divots of my shoulders. the touch of a thousand tiny ancient things meeting my porous interface in benign indifference. their touch carried the force of a whisper in the space of a pin of static electricity. in hundreds of instants they brushed my surface over every part of me. in the darkness behind my eyelids i saw dancing stars.
fifty miles away was my unlit apartment where i would return later that night, wrapped in my blankets in my dark room, warm in the quiet, the lake would still be laid within the rock maze and teeming with all its life. it was here before i was born and would be here after. it would gently ripple in the cool dark and the hot light and through the ices and storms of every year. it was all here, remaining. and we were here, for just an instant in its history, val submerging me in the time held within it.
val held me with her firmness and the little many flowed across me. gentle and soft was everything in this water.
i felt vals fingers relax. she released me and i rose up to the surface. i opened my eyes to just val against the bright empty sky. she smiled and i stopped myself from saying something i wanted. i thrashed and wrapped my arms around her.
“your turn”
=>//85-harvest.flounder.online/index.gmi home
waga2, cliff [november10 21]2021-11-10T00:00:00Ztag:85-harvest.flounder.online,2021-11-10:/gemlog/2021-11-10 [waga2cliff].gmi#waga2, cliff [november10 21]
the grey highway sloped gently downward on its way to meet the river. ancient disused truss bridges passed overhead and red radio spires stood in formation all along the ridge south of us. antelope brush grew large and bright with little pink blossoms, their roots grasping at red rock strewn across the desert floor in clusters like music notes. val and i passed her dark cigarettes back and forth. Hector sipped old beers he found tucked under his seat. we rolled on.
the river appeared to us as we crested a small slope. it flowed gentle, wide, shallow, and blue. its waves glittered white with countless tiny suns reflected back to the sky. on the opposite side of the river was the Jasper Wall, the west face of the plateau. it rose up a thousand feet in stripes of ivory and grey metallic weldstone. tiny silhouettes of trucks and cars glided along its edge. hector and i stared out our windows as we curved with the highway along the river bank.
val: “we're gonna take the little river crossing before the bridge. it'll take like fifteen minutes to get across but you know” she swept her arm to the view of the plateau wall, “worth it”
we came to a orange tower standing at the edge of the water. it was surrounded by a blanket of gravel, and a concrete pier jutted out of its side a ways into the river. there were two craft bobbing at the end of the pier. the first was a largish ferry with a squat white bridge and a red stripe wrapped around the hull. the second was a tiny transport skiff with bright yellow railing on all sides and a operator booth like a pay phone.
val coasted into the lot and stopped before the pier. we stepped out of the car and onto the gravel. a rusted metal door shrieked open on the side of the tower and a squat man came out smiling. he wore a blue reflective utility vest and a bucket hat with the logo for river transport services. he waved as we got out of the car. i leaned on the door next to val and hector set two beers on the roof.
boatman: “howdy, you looking to get across now?”
he crunched his way across the gravel and val called back
val: “aye yeah you got a way over for us?”
boatman: “a couple. looks like you're a small enough crew for the skiff yeah”
val dug in her pocket and pulled out a wad of bills.
boatman: “you just daytrippin?”
we nodded and val said we'd be back to get across again in a few hours. “betiful day for it, hows you tuck your money back and toss me a can, guy” he looked to hector.
they both grinned.
we pulled onto the pier and the boatman waved us onto the skiff. it slouched into the water as the car trundled onto it. the boatman hopped aboard and unhooked a large chain from a metal loop on the deck. he stepped into the booth and hit several buttons and a gate swung up behind the car and the engine below us rumbled and hummed. we leaned against the railing and lit our cigarettes. the craft lurched forward and we pulled away from the pier into the glittering gentle water. hector and val stood at the side of the car and chatted with the boatman, sipping his beer. i stood at the railing and watched Jasper Wall float silently toward us.
the wall is a near vertical face rising straight up against the river. theres no bank to build a road on so the highway is way up on the plateaus edge. to get from the water up to the highway there is a steel causeway riveted into the face of the wall. wide enough for two trucks to pass, it slopes at a steep diagonal up from another orange tower with another pier. its all held up by a dense webbing of black I-beams jutting at angles out from the stone and up from below the water.
the boatman explained that this crossing was established long before the bridge was put in further north. back then the next closest crossing wasnt for another fifty miles.
boatman: “water runs dark and fast up there. cold from the mountains”
Jasper Wall drifted closer and gigantic. the skiff crossed into its shadow and the air suddenly cooled. i looked back at the pier we left from, so bright in the sun and so tiny on the far bank. the river stretched out far in every direction, and the rock wall blocked the sun in cyclopean hugeness. the scale of natural form in the steppes felt made for things of a different scale than human.
i looked back to the wall and black steel causeway. i began to make out the details of the steel chaos holding it up. a hundred black I-beams were woven together like a nest or a funnel web. the driving surface was set on top, a smooth roof for the entanglement supporting it. little white patches dotted each of the beams.
the boatman geared down the skiff and we slowed gentle up to the end of the pier. servos sang a tenor note as the gate behind the car swung back down. the boatman called for one of us to hop onto the pier and toss a chain over. hector handed val his can and nimbly leapt off the skiff as it moved. he landed on the concrete and keeping momentum he jogged alongside us. the skiff slowed to a halt. hector bent and scooped an armful of chain laying next to a concrete anchor and heaved it over the railing. the boatman hooked the chain onto a metal loop on the edge of the deck.
boatman: “great legs, good son, pull us tight now”
hector grappled with the loose chain hand over hand and pulled it taught. the skiff swayed and bumped up against the pier. the boatman looked to me and gestured that i step off. i stepped wide over the gap between land and the skiff and planted my foot firmly on the pier. the ground pushed upward against my foot, catching it, holding it. the skiff bobbed up and released my other foot, i planted it next to the other on the concrete. the land was quiet beneath me, alien for a moment. i felt the sudden absence of the vibrations and shallow rolling motion under me.
val and hector and the boatman worked to disembark the car and i stood smoking and staring at the I- beams under the causeway. the patches caught sun from the water and shone in thin streaks. i walked off the pier and into the gravel parking lot looking intently at the patches on the beams nearest the pier. i got closer and the patches got larger. from the boat they seemed small but up close each was about the size of my torso. the patches were membranes. i reached the far end of the lot where the gravel met the steel ramp of the causeway. the causeways surface was grated steel, and i stared through the holes to the beams below my feet covered in white. it was webbing. i squatted down. the beams under the causeway were covered in colonies of spiders.
i gazed at the patch only inches beneath me. my eyes focused deeper and i saw tiny dots of red within the dense webbing. dozens of little red bodies moving slowly within, with limbs as thin as the threads woven around them. small and pointed arms all reaching and grasping and pulling their little weight. i thought about what it would feel like for one of the tiny red specks to reach with its slow and sharp legs and pry between my closed lips and crawl into my mouth. val honked the horn.
we waved to the boatman as we pulled out of the lot and onto the causeway. we were pressed back against our seats by its mad tilt. the grated surface vibrated and the car resonated sympathetically, harmonizing with the hum of its own engine. i looked out my window back across the river to the red rock and the dark grey strand of highway we rode to get here, all of it dropping away from us. i turned to look out the front window. vals knuckles were white with control over the wheel, resolute facing the empty grey blue sky.
we summited the causeway and turned away from the river, back onto the solid silent earth. the car faced east again and we accelerated down another grey ribbon to the mineral lake.
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waga1, field [july17 21]2021-07-17T00:00:00Ztag:85-harvest.flounder.online,2021-07-17:/gemlog/2021-07-17 [waga1field].gmi#waga1, field [july17 21]
when spring came to the valley i emerged from my terrible apartment, a pale grub weak from a hundred dark days spent indoors and saturated in citrus ethanol. over the winter my friends and i had found what upperclassmen called the wieldings, the substances we chose to abuse to cope with stress and circumstances. for months we'd sat with each other during the long sunless weekends with our drinks and pills and strains and powders all developing new unexplored dependencies.
our older friends had also passed down the skill of skimming for rations at the overnight truck landing off the freeway. we'd pool some money at the start of the night and then pairs of us would zip up our coats and stomp through icy parking lots asking loitering drivers if they "had anything for sally". more often than not theyd grin and nod and disappear into their cabs and return with capsules or baggies or bottles that we'd bring back to our brood.
good fruit was a rarity in the winter months, the good pickings were either sold fresh or exported during the autumn harvest, so what was left was usually mealy or underripe by midwinter. i think thats why i took to citrus vodka.
the best of it would come in glass bottles on the red trucks from the east. there was always clean lemon ethanol for sally on a truck with territory 23 plates. The trucks from the 30s carried nasty stuff that burned the eyes. we didnt know if it was some kind of additive they used during the fermentation process or what but uncapping a fresh bottle from a 30 was like opening a propane valve. we'd hold a lit match at the cap and break the seal and watch the little flame plume. it was awful on the tongue but i liked how it burned slow in my chest. my other friends found their affinities for powder and exceptionally cheap beer. it all kept the winter ice from creeping into our veins.
spring was a relief. bony brushes with tiny pink blossoms bloomed on the stone ridges overlooking the valley floor renewed with green. the sun shone gently through clouds riding the brisk mountain winds eastward to the plateau. we could stand together outside and smoke and look at the moon without chattering the filters off our cigarettes. to celebrate this great change we had Waga.
Waga was an annual celebration on the first weekend of spring, where the music department faced the art department in a friendly softball game followed by drinking for the rest of the day in a field. it began decades ago, organized by the student leadership of the the arts department. i dont know how many games were actually played but by the time i was enrolled there was no softball and no art department, just musicians drinking in a field. a fragment of its ceremonial quality remained-- in the weeks leading up to the event if you heard someone say "Waga" you had to shout "Waga" to the sky.
so the day comes and me and hector hitch a ride with val to the old baseball field a couple miles east of town. the only indication that the field was ever used for baseball was the twisted cyclone fencing all bent in a pile some 30 yards from the road. the rest was all weeds and antelope brush and abandoned couches.
most of the cohort was already there, spread out in little groups across the field. a couple of jags from the sax studio were pegging each other with whiffle balls. trombonists shotgunned tallboys. woodwinds traded secrets. me and hector drifted to a knot of percussionists who tossed us beers and played freakish jazz from a tinny bluetooth backpack speaker.
the sky was grey with thick clouds that held the heat and moisture against the valley floor. i sweated against my too thick t shirt and hector's ex held court with some vocal majors some feet away. there were worse hangs but they at least had AC.
fifteen minutes passed of stuttering uninteresting conversation about finals. hector looked at me and i looked at him and we wordlessly drained our warm tallboys and crushed the cans. we were a microsecond away from turning to find val to retreat back to town when we were hailed by Cracker Dogg.
Cracker Dogg, or C Dog, was a red faced tuba player with ambition. his ambition was most often to drink sixers and get belligerent but there were some days when he was also interested in playing the tuba. C Dog was loud and made messes of himself like a groundling dog with too large of ears. he gave no respect and seemed happy enough to never receive it. he carried himself like a boulder and he approached me and hector at the edge of the field with a open ziploc bag of something.
he greeted us with a sweaty wassup and asked how we were doing. "good, man" me and hector both replied at almost but not quite the same time. hector looked at the open ziploc bag C Dog was cradling in the crook of his arm. "what you got there C dog" hector asked. he was wearing a grin like a welding mask.
C Dog lifted the bag and showed us a wad of noodles swimming in a grey green matrix filled with chunks. colorless ectoplasmic vegetal material formed a thick layer at the bottom. a white plastic spork was marooned in the mess, half submerged and wet all the way up the handle. the pale noodles jiggled obscenely as he gestured. i thought of worms devouring rotten whales on the sea floor.
C Dog:"its some spaghetti with sauce i made from aged beer".
i coughed.
Hector: "Oh yeah howd you do that"
C Dog: "i had a six pack of pyramid that i put in my closet for about seven months."
i closed my eyes to prevent my eyes from bulging completely out of my head.
C Dog: "i cut up the cheeseburger patties i had in the fridge and cooked it all together"
C Dog dug around in the bag with the wet spork.
Hector: "thats crazy man" he shook his head, "you are a crazy dog man from the cave".
a gentle hand laid itself on my shoulder. val's voice came from behind me, "im not getting any play you suckers ready to dip?"
i turned to her, "hey val yeah but do you see what C Dog's got?" C Dog scooped into his profanity
val: "Crackers what the fuck is that. thats fucked. you are fucked" Cracker Dogg smiled and lifted a lump out of the bag
C Dog: "i made it from aged beer-"
val: "if i see you put that in your mouth im gonna fucking barf man im out we are fucking out. nasty as hell"
val pulled me and hector away from C Dog. we picked our way back through the weeds to vals little round car. "that shit was a bust all the lesbians have boyfriends and all the cute guys are too fucking depressed to admire me”.
i rounded the back of her powder blue volkswagen "they need sunshine and water every day and they'll grow into normal happy guys who can receive your beauty".
"they need piss" hector yelled and slammed the door
"sorry they need piss" i ducked into the car
val buckled her seatbelt "what they need is piss". she grabbed her carton of cigarettes off the dashboard and dug a orange lighter out of her pocket "we got way too much daylight left, you guys feel like going for a drive?" she lit her cig and the smell of dark ashen herbs filled the car.
i laid the back of my hand on my forehead and collapsed across the back seat "anywhere, sweet val, take me anywhere"
hector: "lets go to play planet"
val: "oh im gonna send you to play planet" she grabbed hectors collar and pretended to slash his throat. hector mimed blood gushing out of his neck and fell against the window.
val started the car "you been to the mineral lake?"
hector and i both shouted no.
val: "nyalrighty" she turned the wheel. we pulled off the gravel shoulder and onto the highway. hector rolled his window down and loudly retched as we passed everyone standing in the field.
we rolled east toward the wide and slow river that curves through the red clayland and rides against the cliff of the eastern plateau. the clouds dissolved and the sun burned vital and yellow. i held my hand out of the window and let it glide and cut through the wind. val did the same. i reached forward and touched her elbow and she smiled at me in the side mirror. i smiled back.
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southern steppe canyon [june7 21]2021-06-08T00:00:00Ztag:85-harvest.flounder.online,2021-06-08:/gemlog/2021-06-08 [canyon].gmi#southern steppe canyon [june7 21]
south of the steppe valley where i went to college are the winding canyon roads that bend and bow like slow, narrow rivers. carved into the canyon walls they flow southward and upward, eventually spitting out in the high hills of the plateau windlands. they branch into old tunnels or trail off to ancient mining shafts that are crumbled or collapsed. like all rivers, dead things wash up on their banks.
the first time we rode out to the canyons was to escape the yearly summer fires that creep over the eastern hills, pouring smoke down into the valley. the smoke lays in a thick haze and covers the valley floor for weeks until the dog winds pick up and carry it all out to the mountains.
when the valley was submerged in smoke we had two options for how to spend our days. we could either lay blankets to cover the gaps under the doors and shutter the windows, drinking the day away and breathing silted air piped in through the whining external cleaners, or we could drive somewhere-- anywhere-- outside the valley. upperclassmen told us about the regular places they escaped to, the waterfalls along the creek further west or the limestone caves in the pine forests directly north passed the turbines.
we wanted to find something for ourselves, though. we packed in my little green car and pointed it south.
we followed Main street out of town and crossed the railroad tracks. Main became the old cross border highway. we rose with it up onto the foothills of the valley's southern ridge where the smoke could not reach. we looked back to the bracken tide of grey brown fog before dipping away, down into the canyon.
the canyon was a rugged beauty. the rock walls were streaked pale yellow and rose. the air was hot and clear and bony shrubs grew out of the gravel banks beside the road. we drove slowly, admiring the colors and patterns of the rock, coasting along serpentine bends of the canyon floor. the walls curved East and the road curved with it, and the floor became shaded and cool. we pulled over to lay on boulders and smoke and drink. we parked and gathered our things and walked along the gravel bank and found two black garbage bags.
the bags were both similarly filled and sat neatly next to each other. they were knotted on the top and laid wide and flattish on the ground. they shone darkly like ground beetles. we turned and walked back a ways toward the car to lay ourselves out.
for hours we drank beers the same color as the blonde canyon walls and smoked all the tobacco we had. the sky greyed to twilight as we sobered and i stepped away to piss before we crowded into the car again to return to the valley. i found the bags again. i relieved myself and watched the black knots twitch in the evening wind. i wondered what people in the canyon dumped on the roadside.
i stepped over to the nearer one and crouched next to it. i laid my hand on its surface and felt fur against the plastic. i quickly stood and stepped back. a hideous smell followed me. it was rotten meat, sulfuric and touched with sweetness. it blossomed in my sinuses and into my mouth. i stumbled away and quickly rejoined the group. the evening sun painted the canyon red.
we returned many months later in Spring. i drove us deeper into the canyon where it split, the right branch becoming a small network of gravel paths leading to the ancient mining stations. we continued left along the paved highway and came upon a bloated horse laying dead on the roadside. we were strangely shaken and i felt soft between the hot canyon walls streaked with red. we looked away when we rode passed it quietly on the way back home.
the last time we were there was to explore the old tunnels. they were for the rail system that ferried material to and from the mines. the rails ran vaguely parallel to the highway, boring through the rock to maintain an even and gentle path where the canyon jutted and and angled harshly.
the tunnels that still stood open had high ceilings with floors covered in layers of rubble. some of them had skylights where the earth above had fallen through. graffiti covered the rough walls, "The Wandering Vauxhall of the Folklore Brothers" was scrawled in white chalk in most all that we visited.
one of the larger tunnels had one enormous skylight in the center of its ceiling. directly under it on the rocky floor was a mound of dead birds. it was a pile of pheasants and crows and brushbirds chest high. rock crumbled somewhere deep within the tunnel. we ran.
when i think of that canyon i feel the softness again. softness of my body and my mind, vulnerable between the rock walls jagged and high. i felt naive, being scared and darkly curious about the patterns of life there that i didnt understand. it was so quiet and bright and clear and peaceful. and all the animals we ever found there were dead.
=>//85-harvest.flounder.online/index.gmi homethe cooling tower [jun5 21]2021-06-05T00:00:00Ztag:85-harvest.flounder.online,2021-06-05:/gemlog/2021-06-05 [tower].gmi#the cooling tower [jun5 21]
since i'm starting this out i'm thinking about my own beginning-- the memories that feel significant to who i am now.
in 8th grade our social studies class had an end of the year project where we all planned a city together with little groups of us acting as municipal departments. me and my friend Gina were the energy department. we decided the city would be powered by geothermal and wind power (our mayor Javan founded the city on a volcano, we named it Flameburg).
as part of the project our teacher coordinated each group to visit our real life citys corresponding real life department and learn a bit about how they actually function and use that information when making decisions about Flameburg.
at the time the citys power company was undergoing a complete overhaul, they were installing rot saps along the river and dozens of new swifts off the coast. a yellow fissure accident at the reactor years prior had swayed our town to try to keep energy production as low tech-- and low stakes-- as possible.
for me and Gina that meant that we didnt get a tour of the regular facilities that were all under construction, reorganizing their systems to manage the new power sources. instead, someone at the power company decided we should see the closed down reactor.
our TA chaperoned us to the site where we met with a guy from the energy company. when we got there the guy gave us big white hard hats with the brim that went all the way around, "if it all starts coming down". he laughed and it made us laugh.
we walked up the short service trail through the fir trees that made a ring around the facility. i remember my ears started to hurt when we broke through the treeline at the edge of the huge lawn sloping up to the building. as we got closer i was all squinty and Gina was too. the guy noticed and said that it was from the magnesium rods.
he explained that the old fissure chamber way below the surface was lined with an array of huge suspended magnesium rods running all the way up through the cooling tower. they flexed with the changing resonance caused by the fissure expanding and contracting, and directed the pulses and waves of energy upward and out of the chamber. he said that sometimes they still rang. he fished in his fanny pack and handed us gum as we went inside.
the facility was out of commission but all the lights were still on. the hallways were long and everything was pink and green tile. we stopped in different monitoring rooms with marks on the walls where screens and readouts used to be mounted. "i wish all the old equipment was still here for you guys to see" the guy explained "but all the screen burn had to be studied after what happened". our TA asked if they ever figured out what caused the fissure to yellow. "with what we know now we understand it could have been a lot of things. the tools we had at the time werent so sophisticated that we really knew what we were touching when we had it open. all we know for sure is we hit something that made it way too hot and way too loud". we walked through more empty rooms.
our last stop on the tour was the cooling tower. it was separated from the main facility by another stretch of lawn. the gum in my mouth was hard and flavorless from an hour of chewing. as we approached the tower my ears had a hot fuzzy feeling on top of the dull and throbbing pain. we walked up to a big red door and the guy brought out a big red key. i dont remember what he said, all the sound was weird and muffled. he unlocked the door and we followed him inside.
a tower was above us and a pit was below us. we stood in twilight darkness on a steel catwalk mounted on the inside of the tower, lit by the disc of light from the opening high above. it had to have been thirty meters across, an enormous concrete pipe driven into the earth leading from the sky down into darkness.
on either side of the catwalk were the rods. they were huge like old fir trees. spaced at regular intervals all along the wall of the tower, they descended deep into the dark below our feet. we stood between a pair of them and i felt waves of force through my ears and my chest. it was hard to breathe.
i turned to the rod on the right and stepped away from Gina to the railing. i reached out and with my fingertips and i touched the rod. it was cold and it was vibrating, one voice in a petrified chorus humming endlessly in a dark and empty hall. i pulled my hand back and quickly turned to our guide. he smiled and gestured for us to go back outside.
we walked back down the lawn to the trees. "those things will probably never stop ringing completely" the guy said. Gina asked if they were going to tear it all down. the guy laughed and said "we still dont know if we can. theres a lot we dont know about what's going on down there. this place could be standing for a long time still." that place never left my mind.
i went to the reactor again when i was home for a summer during college. there was a concrete barricade at the entry to the service trail. I got out of my car and hopped over it. the trail was overgrown with ferns and ground vines, and it was a longer hike than i had remembered. it was dusk and the forest around me was losing its color in the fading light. my ears started to ache and i broke through the treeline.
up the sloping lawn the main facility sat dark and slumped. the few windows on its grey face were all broken and no light came from inside. i looked to the tower. the concrete was all streaked and stained, bruised grey flesh that could not heal. i walked toward it and the ache in my ears became a throb. i circled the tower and found the door, faded, its metal hinges frozen with rust. my ears felt warm and like they were stuffed with cotton and my chest was tightening and untightening with the deep pulses coming from behind the door.
i placed my hand on the metal door. it was cold and it was vibrating. it hummed in sympathy; the choir inside was still singing. if the tower stays standing theyll keep singing forever.
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