So I was wandering around outside today, doing various things related to work, when I realized my hands were cold. It wasn’t crazy cold out, or snowing, or even raining – just cold enough that my hands kept getting cold and stiff. When the body feels as though it is being threatening existentially by the cold, it quits keeping the extremities warm and concentrates on making sure the core and the organs are warm enough for it to stay alive. That’s great, but you know you have to ask yourself what kind of crappy climate do I live in when a regular outing forces your body’s survival mechanisms to make dire life-and-death decisions several times a day? And we are pretty warm in comparison to most of this country. We may get used to it, but inside my head there is a siren going off and my brain is ordering the system to leave the hands to die each time I’m outside for a few minutes.
I read that cold hands and feet can also be caused by iron deficiency and some other diseases, so maybe I should take this seriously? At my age I am trying to resist becoming a raging hypochondriac, and it isn’t always easy. Every little chest pain is the Final Jammer getting started; each headache is an aneurism winding up to pop my brain; every little pain is a new, spreading cancer. I try to be brave and not alarm those around me, but I am quietly preparing myself for the worst, overreacting to stimuli much like the systems that would throw my hands overboard to keep my organs cozy.
If my hands fell off, my whole system would have bigger survival problems than cool weather, that’s for sure – like making it difficult to eat organ meat to lessen my iron deficiency.
I see my grandparents’ house was finally torn down last week. It’s amazing it lasted as long as it did. It was one of the last original houses left in the neighbourhood, and without a doubt the one that was in the worst condition. I spent decades on that property, playing as a child, being an idiot mostly as a teen, then bringing my children there as an adult. But its time was due. I was sad when I saw the churned up ground where the house had been, and I was surprised at how small the yard seemed now. The guy who rented the house after my grandpa died said he thought it was haunted, almost certainly from my grandma who died in the house. My story “Moving On,” which I put on here (October 2021) was about her and the boarded up wreck the house had become. I hope she has moved on and found some peace. She had a beautiful magnolia tree in the corner of the property that they must have planted soon after moving in around 1959. My uncle said one time he had thought about applying to have it protected as a heritage tree, but I see it has no protective fence around it, and it has the same little nailed-on tag as the other trees, all getting cut down to make way for some huge eyesore house. I broke a few branches off the magnolia, and I will try to find some way to propagate them to keep it alive. I want to share them with my sister who will have better odds of making it happen than me, as she has a yard full of trees to graft on to and a way with such things that passed me by.
And so it goes, the world jettisons the unnecessary: the old house on the block of shiny new mansions, and the hands and feet trying to hog all the warm blood.
I decided early on this year that this was the year I was going to devote to my hobby, writing. By some measure it was a success. My goal was to receive payment for something I wrote, which, to my great surprise, happened. Otherwise this year has sort of sucked as I have been complaining about for months. The war in Ukraine (is it the Ukraine, just Ukraine, or Ukrainia?) has been threatening to become a nuclear affair which could end us all, making any pebbles in my shoe pretty meaningless. Weather wise it was full on shit weather followed by 90+ straight days of sun and above normal temperatures, followed by the sudden return to monsoon conditions. Hockey-wise, my two favourite teams have managed to acquire some hot young talent, only to continue losing steadily. I meant to write for the CBC Fiction contest, but I had no ideas for a story, and the time I would normally spend alone at work dreaming up stories has been spent with someone foisted upon me. So the polite natter, natter of conversation has drowned out any plots. Disclaimer: the person I’ve been riding with is a fine person, and I nearly always enjoy his company, but sometimes I, like Greta Garbo, prefer to be left alone. But worse yet he is interfering with my singing. Usually I drive around singing at the top of my lungs like a fool, but it’s probably a United Nations human rights violation to subject the poor guy to my voice. American troops ‘tortured’ Afghanis by repeatedly blasting the Metallica song Enter Sandman at them, and they can actually sing. Just imagine the auditory discomfort a screechy, off-key seagull like me could inflict in an eight hour drive! Let the record show I have shown mercy on the prisoner in my truck.
November is my least favourite month. There, I’ve said it. It sounds negative to say, but really it is an acknowledgement that things are going to be getting better starting soon. The weather sucks, and since I work outside, that is a big deal to me. Even the one holiday this month is a somber occasion with lots of tears, black and white newsreel footage, and lonely bugles playing. Bah. I understand the significance of it all, but it is not a celebration of anything, just a reminder of how stupid humanity frequently is. If I need to be reminded about stupidity, all I need to do is read some news and find out what Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene have been up to, and the sad guy can put away his bugle.
Socializing has picked up lately. We went to a Halloween party for the first time in years last weekend. I dressed up as Alice Cooper. My costume was pretty good, but facially I don’t look much like Alice. Luckily the costume didn’t prevent me from drinking irresponsibly and playing beer pong. Tonight we’re going to a surprise birthday party. I have a cold, so an upcoming week of coughing and snot will be my gift to all who attend. I think I used up all my mercy on the young guy who wasn’t tormented by my renditions of Supertramp and CCR, among others, the past couple weeks. Maybe I could give Dave a preemptive box of tissue as a gift? He might not realize the value in it until 48 hours later, but it will dawn on him eventually.
We just got back from another weekend away, this time we went to Victoria. We stayed in a bed and breakfast in the Victoria suburb of Sooke. I was picturing awkward mornings around a table with a bunch of guests and hosts, simultaneously trying to wake up and make conversation with strangers while adhering to breakfast etiquette. Thankfully, what it was actually like was the hosts put a tray of breakfast-ish things out the night before, and we squirreled them away in our room until the next morning. We ate in private, came and went in private. Very nice. If anything, it may have been not enough people. Meanwhile, back in Cloverdale, our cat and water-sucking plants were kept alive by our friend Red while we were gone. Still, it turns out that our trip was the least exciting one in the family, although we did see a couple of whales. One party of five went to Disneyland, and another party of four (five?) went to Nashville to see Elton John in concert.
My work posted a job today that I am going to apply for. It is for a “Field Supervisor” which is a regular old charge hand with a fancy handle. It is the culmination of all the courses I have been taking over the last year or so. Anyone who has read this blog lately has heard me bitch about studying for tests or taking supervisory courses, so yes, there was a point to it in the end. Now I just have to do a good interview. Last time I had an interview for a job at Surrey I fumbled about and couldn’t think of anything to say. What saved me that time was that a couple of the interviewers knew me well. After I was finished, they managed to convince the HR girl that I wasn’t normally the complete dolt she had just seen in action. This time, those people won’t be a part of the process, so I better brush up on how to answer questions in coherent English. It’s times like this I could have really benefitted from having a debonair twin brother.
Two of our daughters have rescued a couple more dogs from Morocco. Why Morocco? It must be a place with a lot of wild dogs, but I have never been there to see. Again it involved an agency on their end sending the dogs as far as Montreal, and our middle daughter going there and putting the pooches on a plane heading West. The daughter who was living with us up until a couple months ago got a testy little mutt who refuses to interact with my wife and I. I must remind the poor dog of someone abusive back in Morocco, because all it does is snarl at me. Which is weird as normally I’m pretty good with pets. This would be another great use for a twin brother. He could get in there and gain the dog’s trust, and I would be ready to take him for stitches as required. I would make him wear my clothes to get the scent right, and the clothes would fit him as well (or badly) as they fit me. Brilliant plan, but alas, there is no twin to rescue my dumb ass. My early life was the lonesome one of a single zygote, swimming about by myself in the womb, unaware that I would be forced to live a life in which I would have to do all my own stunts.
I just got back from Penticton, where my partner and I attended the Wine Country Writers’ Festival. That was the event that sponsored the writing contest I came second in, so we took Friday off work and drove to get the prize. Of course, they would have mailed everything if I could have sat still and waited, but where’s the fun in that? Our motel was a flea bag operation, but we didn’t spend much time there. We just checked our stuff in then took off to the fancy hotel where the conference was, in our rented Cadillac SUV, no less, so we looked like snobby assholes to anyone who didn’t know us – which was everyone. They announced my second place story and called me up to receive a certificate and a book with my story in it. I have photographic proof that I got up on stage and smiled without having an anxiety emergency! I’m such a wienie sometimes, really. The room was filled with writers, most of whom have had something published and/or have won prizes that put mine to shame, so I was humbled that I was congratulated several times by some impressive people. The man who judged the fiction was Garry Litke. He won the Surrey Writers’ Festival competition last year, and is a published author and former mayor of Penticton. He gave me a great complement when he told me my story reminded him of Robert Heinlein. So here is my stretched out version of Lieber’s Report. If you read the short one, this one follows the same trajectory, it just elaborates on a lot of details I couldn’t include in a 250 word flash fiction story.
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Lieber’s Report
Inside the dark, silent Exoplanet Explorer the lights flickered slowly to life, and the cryogenic systems began to raise Captain Lieber’s metabolic functions. Soon his resting place of heavy saline began to cool, and his stiff limbs creaked to motion.
The intensifying light burned his eyes as he rolled out of the suspended animation chamber and clumsily toweled off the excess saline. He squinted around the cabin as the mental fog started to clear. He pulled on his underwear and suit for the first time in 17 years and stretched his tingling legs.
The retro rockets were firing and the ship was breaking hard, falling into a geosynchronous orbit above his destination, the planet Wolf 1061b. Little was known about it besides its size and the fact its relative proximity to its star made it a potentially inhabitable refuge for mankind. Soon Lieber would determine just how hospitable it was.
Lieber drank some water and turned on his monitor. The Exoplanet Explorer was one of six ships sent to nearby planets outside Earth’s solar system with the intent of trying to find humanity a home to make a new start. A start that would be engineered, calculated not to destroy the host planet with petty wars and greedy overharvesting of resources.
Lieber found five reports on his computer, all the other explorations were complete.
He trembled with excitement as he opened the first one. Proxima Centauri b: barren, void of atmosphere, uninhabitable. There was much more, but the point was made. Then, Proxima Centauri c: heavy acidic atmosphere, oppressive gravity, uninhabitable. Next was Barnard’s Star b: incomplete report, mentioned potentially aggressive civilisation then ended abruptly. Lieber swallowed hard and took a quick break to pace around the small work station to calm down. That mission was captained by Williams, his training partner back in Florida. There was clearly no way to return from these missions, but shuddered to imagine what poor Williams’ last moments were like.
Ok, there were two more chances for the missions to have had success. Ross 128 b: thin atmosphere not suitable for humans, highly acidic oceans with no apparent life. So it was down to Luyten b: another barren planet, crisscrossed with what seemed to be roads and large structures in ruins, but the verdict was still uninhabitable. Lieber had prayed that this wouldn’t be how it ended. He hoped beyond hope that ships full of migrant people would be settling the nearest planets by now, not waiting for his report to either save or doom the human race.
He peered through the portal at the ever-nearing surface of Wolf 1061b. It was a planet that rotated in synch with its star, keeping one face baking in the sun, and the other side frozen in the eternal darkness. Between the hemispheres was a strip hundreds of miles wide that would be somewhere between the extremes and potentially life sustaining. Either way, the whole mission was implemented quickly and on a small budget, with no plan for a return trip. Lieber was looking at the place he had come to die.
Lieber could see he had a few hours before the ship was in place. He ate some packaged bread and protein paste that was imitating peanut butter with little success. He went over his equipment and made sure everything was powering up and in the landing pod. He stashed a few groceries behind his seat, then a few more. He re-read some of the reports in greater detail, avoiding the Williams mission. And he waited, in time that went both too fast and too slow.
He closed his eyes and relaxed. Short daydreams came that marched by without his interference. They took him to his boyhood home in Manitoba, the merciless winter wind driving the snow across the stubble in the fields as he watched from his bedroom window. He thought of those gentle June evenings after dinner, sitting on the porch with time standing still. He thought of the way Mary would innocently stand in front of the sun and the light would outline her body through her thin summer dress. And all those years studying, plying his engineering skills, the years that went by too fast. They weren’t fond times necessarily, but the fruit of them was here before him, in the service of his species.
The mission status on his monitor let him know the stationary orbit had been achieved. There was no reason to rush, but there certainly was no point in waiting in the main capsule either. Outside was a beautiful greenish yellow world of rocky hills casting long shadows over high mesas and valleys. The wide valleys were dotted with what appeared to be small lakes, glittering in the low sun, even at this distance. The infrared thermometer read 26 Celsius below him and gradually 25 as he pointed it to his right, further from the star. This would be a permanent summer afternoon where he was from.
Lieber climbed into the landing pod and powered it up. The diagnostic checklist scrolled down the main screen when suddenly it encountered a problem. “Too much weight on board. Alarm level: medium.” He had squirreled nearly every crumb of food aboard, so the alarm was no surprise. “Tough shit, ship. I may get hungry down there.” He relented and tossed a few litres of water back onto the loading dock, but the alarm remained. Oh well, it probably wouldn’t matter.
He sealed the hatch and started the descent sequence. He was still hundreds of kilometres above the planet when the landing pod broke free, and the automated thrusters maneuvered the tiny pod to the correct angle for atmospheric entry. The velocity increased and the small space got hot and stuffy. All the insulation they could afford couldn’t fully keep the friction of the atmosphere from heating up the craft. For several minutes it became nearly unbearable, the tiny ship shook wildly as the temperature rose. The thrusters kicked in again and adjusted the angle and slowed the pod down enough to keep the heat constant. Then it began to cool slightly, and the pod offered Lieber control of the vehicle. He was now only 10,000 metres above the ground, and he looked for a smooth place to land. On the screen he watched for a clearing as he skimmed above a flat mesa, and finding none, he decided to try to land on whatever vegetation was there. He gradually floated down on some tall plant-like growths and found them yielding. He secured his breathing apparatus and opened the hatch. Outside was a gust of cool, refreshing atmosphere. There was a soft breeze blowing toward the star, and the plants were permanently bent, bowing to their god, Wolf 1061.
The mesa gave him a panoramic view for many kilometres in every direction. There was no sign of a civilization, no buildings, no clearings in the vast grasslands, no insects, no obvious animal life. His gas analyzer gave a reading of 19 per cent oxygen, with no known toxic elements. Cautiously he opened his mask and took a breath. It had a strange smell, acetylene almost, but he found the air sufficiently palatable. He turned off his suit’s oxygen and removed his helmet. Next he examined the plant life. It was what would pass for a stiff grass on Earth. It seemed to cover most of the area he could see, and it seemed to grow to about waist high as a maximum. He might experiment later to see if there was anything edible growing, but first he concentrated on the soil itself. He scraped together a small shovelful of coarse dirt and dumped it into the analyzer. It was moist and full of nutrients. Crops could thrive here.
He waded through the grass to the edge of the mesa. The nearest lake was only a kilometre or so away, and an examination of the water, or whatever liquid it was, was in order. He returned to the landing pod, had a quick snack and armed himself with a knife, just in case. He shut the hatch and was going to lock it with his fob, like he had parked his car at the mall, and the absurdity of it made him laugh out loud. “Better lock up! Looks like the rough part of town,” he said to no one in particular.
He tested the slope for loose rocks that may send him skidding down the embankment, but the ever present grass kept it stable. Part way down he turned to see if he was making a trail through the grass that he could follow back, and he could faintly make out his route. Either way, finding the pod would be easy on top of the hill. After an hour or so of scrambling he reached the shore of the small lake. It was definitely water, and very clear water at that. There didn’t seem to be any plant life in the pond, and he saw no sign of any aquatic creatures. He studied the gravelly shoreline for signs of animals that may come to drink, but there was no sign of any disturbance. He dipped a lidded beaker into the water, dropped in a green pill and shook the tube. He poured the water into an analyzer and waited for the readout. The test result was ideal, like everything else to this point. Ph of 7.0, no sign of waterborne bacteria, no coliforms. With great care and caution he took a small sip. It was tasteless and odourless, like distilled water. It hit him that he was likely the only one of the six explorers who got as far as performing all these tests.
Lieber made his way back toward the landing pod, following his trail of slightly bent grass. The uphill hike was grueling and hot, and he stopped to rest and drink some of his Earth water a few times. This planet was a blank canvas of possibilities, he thought. How rich in minerals it may or may not be he couldn’t easily assess, but humanity could at least be fed, hydrated and kept warm here, with nothing threatening showing up to this point. It was nearly time to send his report, but there was a nagging sadness he couldn’t quite identify. Was it the fact that this might be his final transmission home? That didn’t really capture the mood. He was fairly content on his own, so it wasn’t loneliness. If he was prone to loneliness they would have screened him out long before he left. Then, inexplicably, he burst into tears. He buried his face in his hands despite the fact the nearest person to be ashamed in front of was quadrillions of kilometres away.
Lieber opened his transmitter and began to compose his report. “Planet b, star Wolf 1061, Earth year 2039, the findings of Captain Lieber, Exoplanet Explorer 6. This planet is rocky and inhospitable. There is no growing medium for crops, no potable water and a hostile atmosphere. My meager supplies will be enough for me to survive a while, but there may be aggressive native life who will shorten the process for me. I am hunkering in my landing pod, awaiting the end. I wish you luck in your continued search for a refuge for our species, and I am sad I couldn’t be part of the solution. Please pass along my love to my wife Mary, and warm regards to the faculty at the University of Manitoba and any well-wishers.”
His hand shook as he hesitated a moment, then he pressed SEND.
Peace and relief swept over him. Planet Wolf 1061b would be far better off without us.
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So there it is. If you read the whole thing, thanks, but I’ll understand it if you didn’t.
Me accepting my award behind a strangely placed speaker
Everyone was being nice to me, but they might have stepped on my foot if they saw the ostentatious Cadillac we arrived in. Saturday morning I went to a one hour workshop on writing a first draft. It was excellent, and I wish I had taken notes, but I went in unprepared with no pen or paper. At least I got to hear some good advice that I will try to remember when the time comes to write something longer.
I see the blog hosting site Bloglovin’ is sending out notices again, so, who knows?, maybe they’ll send an alert about this again. I should be so lucky! I don’t have a lot to say, or a lot of time to elaborate on whatever I could say. But I want to get something out there to test the notification process.
I had a lucky spell this month, but it seems to be receding now. First I bought a keno ticket and it won $50. I bought another one and it won $41.50. Then another that won $308, then one that won $134. After that I won fifty or so a couple times, but the thrill was gone after the 308. I put a bunch in savings and pocketed the rest. Since the flurry of winnings, I have bought a few losers so I’m cutting back while I’m still ahead.
Next weekend is our big chess tournament. We haven’t had one in three years, and the response has been crazy. Normally we get around 60 players, but this year we could have had double that, but we cut registration off at 100. I have no idea if that many players will fit in our building or if there are enough chairs and tables. It should work out, but the potential for disaster is moderate. Every day I am bombarded with emails and queries, and some days I spend literally hours responding to people and transferring money. My last weeks of summer are blowing by. The guy who usually helps set up this event is having cognitive troubles, so I have done way more correspondence than normal, and I don’t know if I want to do this every year by myself. Although, to be fair, the TD I talked into helping is doing a lot of the organizing of the tournament itself, so I can be thankful for that. I complain about this event every year, but the truth is it takes me out of my routine of sitting on the sidelines. And without this sort of disruption in my life, I would stay cozily in the shadows.
I had a conversation recently with a blogger named Sherry Cassells, who writes a blog called Feeling Funny. It’s sort of like this blog (except more polished) – it’s a day to day blog of thoughts and stories, with bits of fiction she’s written added in. I highly recommend it to anyone. One thing she said to me that I am wanting to adopt, is the idea of changing this blog’s name to eightbeer_shakespeare like my email address. I have to admit, it’s catchier than Teflon Ghost for sure. When I used to walk around reading meters I would avoid getting drawn into long, time-sucking conversations with people by being so intentionally bland that people lost interest in me immediately. The downside was I often heard a snippet of their life’s story before I bored them away. So months later I would sometimes encounter the same person, and I would say something like “How did the operation on your mom’s hip turn out?” and they would be shocked and swear they never met me before etc. In my mind, I was comparing my disappearing act to the mafia boss ‘Teflon Don’ who no one could get a criminal charge to stick to, except I was more like a teflon ghost in that no one ever saw me before either. It’s sort of a sad name. If I can figure out a way to change it without deleting the 100 or so posts I’ve written, I probably will.
I’m through rambling for now. I will now resume my life as a stress case who is organizing a medium sized event and studying for a career-altering test he doesn’t really want to take. Can’t wait to see if anyone gets a notification!
There was an old saying, something along the lines of “working here is like pissing your pants in the dark – you get a warm feeling but no one notices.” That is how I feel about my writing lately, blog included. In the distant past, I would write something and all the people who subscribed to my blog would get a notification saying there was a new post. Lately, that hasn’t been happening for some reason. And to make things worse, I have virtually no audience at home, either. I have become a sad creature, like a four year old who drew a picture, tugging on shirts and saying “lookit, lookit,” usually to no avail. Since my last post I have written stories for two more contests, and neither of them is very good. I heard someone say (just last night) that if you do something out of inspiration it is usually a lot better than something done out of necessity or obligation. With little encouragement or feedback, my latest efforts have been to fulfill obligations to contests, not writing with any flair or imagination. So that’s what you get: pretty flat results. Yet in a way it feels like that’s hanging the blame on other people for what I’m unhappy about, when it is almost completely my own fault.
Since the tagline of this blog promises (threatens?) bargain basement literature, I will post the first story. It’s – OMG – another romantic comedy, which features the same two hopeless dolt lovers, Jeff and Ruby. I don’t really enjoy writing rom coms, but it keeps on happening. This one was for NYC Midnight, a 1,000 word limit. Had to be set on a ski lift and contain gasoline or petrol.
The skiers made their way to the chairlift and were scooped up, two by two, for the return ride to the top of the run. Jeff stepped into the path of the oncoming seat and was lurched into the air. He settled in for the six minute ride and took in the stunning mountain view. He glanced to his right to see he was accompanied by an athletic woman, a few strands of blonde hair danced around her face in the breeze. It couldn’t be. “Ruby?” he inquired.
“Jeff? Holy crap! Of all the people to get paired with. How have you been?”
“I’m doing great. What have you been up to the last five years?” He hadn’t seen her since he left for university.
“Just finished my registered massage therapy training. You know, working now, rubbing sore people, that sort of thing.”
The chairlift suddenly stopped with a jerk, and the seat swung in the breeze. The ground was at least 40 feet down, too far to jump. Jeff could feel panic rising in his chest. Surely they will get it running again very soon, no need for concern. Ruby smiled at him and shrugged a “now what?” sort of a shrug. She seemed pretty calm, which he focused on for support.
“I sure hope this gets going again soon. I’d hate for all those sore people to go un-rubbed,” Jeff said, trying to sound composed.
“This must happen all the time. They probably just have to send away to Switzerland for parts.” Ruby remembered Jeff suffered with anxiety, but she chose to keep things light. “Shouldn’t take more than a few days.”
After a pause he asked “What will happen first: will we starve to death or freeze to death in this wind?”
Ruby was glad Jeff was joking around. “Probably freeze. They can throw us sandwiches and water, but a blanket would never make it this high. And starvation takes weeks. I, for one, am in no immediate danger of starving,” she said, patting her tummy. “You have some saved up fuel too, pizza guy.”
“Of course we could cuddle, which would help prolong our agony.”
“Thanks, Jeff. Glad to know you considered cuddling with me painful.”
At this height the wind was really blowing. It was fine when the lift was only a few minutes, but as time went by and there was no physical exertion between rides, the cold was becoming an issue. They pushed together on the chair, but their ski suits were insulated enough that it didn’t make much difference.
“Are you here with a boyfriend? Someone who may have a problem with us cuddling?”
“No, I’m single. I came here with my sister and her husband. You?”
“Single too. I came home from work one day to an empty apartment. She cleaned the place out without so much as a goodbye.” He was relieved to know she wasn’t being watched, and the human contact was comforting. “Can you imagine getting stuck up here with someone you wouldn’t cuddle with, like your mother?”
“I’m sure my mother wouldn’t enjoy it either. She was pretty happy when you left town.” The truth was her mother may have thrown Jeff to his demise by this point. The only thing that may save him in that scenario is the possibility he might survive the fall and live to testify against her.
“I’m pretty cold. If I was stuck with someone totally repellent, I might need some toes amputated later,” she said, getting back to the question.
Jeff closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing. Take deep breaths in, and slowly exhale through the nose. Nothing to worry about. Ruby is right here, being sensible and warm. Just stay cool. Like Arthur Fonzarelli working the juke box, everything’s under control. He could feel his heart rate slowing and his mind clearing.
Suddenly Ruby shouted and he snapped back to the present. “Hey! What’s the hold up?” She caught the attention of a ski patrol worker in an orange jacket.
“The power is out. There’s a generator but we don’t have any gas. Someone went to get some, so hopefully we’re going again shortly.” Jeff felt his anxiety rising again. Hopefully? Shortly? He didn’t like the lack of certainty he was hearing, and he also didn’t care for the acknowledgement that this pause wasn’t ending right away. Gas? What sort of fly by night operation uses a gas generator? He pictured a huge diesel generator, something with some serious wattage. Jeff was getting riled up, feeling trapped. If panic fully set in, he would need an escape plan. Would the snow break his fall if he jumped? Could he shimmy along the cable and climb down the next tower? He needed to get back to the breathing before he did something stupid.
The ski patrol guy continued down the hill, conveying his message to the other skiers hanging in the air. “Well, they’re working on it, I guess,” Ruby said emptily. “How are you doing?”
“Not great. I need to relax, get my pulse back to normal.” He held out his gloved hand and it was shaking visibly. Ruby gathered him in for a hug. She knew he would be ok, but she wanted to make him believe it.
“It’s ok, do your breathing. I’m sure the ski patrol man is heading into town with his jerry can as we speak.” In hindsight, that didn’t really strike the confident tone she had hoped for. “Or maybe they can just siphon some gas in the parking lot, really speed things up.”
Jeff laughed. “Hopefully the employee parking lot, starting with the boss’s car.”
They squeezed together and it was warm and familiar.
Then the lift started moving again, with cheers from stranded skiers echoing on the hillside.
“Thanks for keeping me warm, Jeff”
“Thanks for keeping me calm. Any interest in letting me take you to dinner?”
I’ll wait if you have the urge to brush your teeth or gargle or something to purge bad tastes. Pop a mint if you have one nearby, and let’s all pray that’s the end of those two characters. The other story I wrote was just a stretched out version of Lieber’s Report. I had six weeks or so to write any fiction I wanted, but I waited until the deadline was 48 hours away before I started writing, so I just took a story I knew already and stuffed it with Pop Tarts and whole milk until I had it fattened up to 2,000 words from 250. If you want to read it, send a comment and I’ll post it. Otherwise just read the first Lieber’s Report again, posted in November 2019.
I have another contest to write for in a couple weeks, and maybe two contests if I get through my first round. And I have to study for a test at work which I take in September. I know why I have to take the test, but it is hard to study water work stuff after a full day at work. Last time I read that book I woke up face down on it with my reading glasses askew and drool coming out of my mouth. Oh well, first world problems, eh? Enjoy the rest of your summer!
I just had a look at my blog and realized I haven’t posted anything in two months. I have been super busy, but I have also wasted many, many hours watching the hockey playoffs, so I have no viable excuse. My flimsy excuses begin with going to physiotherapy for my shoulder. It had healed on its own to the point where I could get a decent sleep, but the therapist got it all riled up again, so now it hurts at night and a fair bit of the time I’m a glassy-eyed insomniac zombie. Also I have begun to organize our annual chess tournament that will take place in September. Usually I do this in conjunction with other people, but my partner in crime has begun to have memory issues and is no help at all. Not that I’m blaming him in any way. In fact, I feel awful for him and his wife. I bumped into her a couple weeks ago at the casino. I was watching hockey and she went walking by. We talked for a while and she is not having a good time with her hubby who is forgetting everything and – almost – everyone. Anyway, the organizing takes a lot more time and energy than you might expect.
I was reminiscing the other day about a dinner at a restaurant I had with my parents when I was about 10 years old. It was at the Clydesdale Inn in Cloverdale, which used to have a fancy restaurant in the front of the building where the cold beer store is now. If you’re not familiar with this establishment, it doesn’t detract from the story so hold on. We all got menus, so I asked a typical kid question “What can I order?” and my dad said “Anything you want.” A medium sized mistake, for sure. To my parents’ surprise and horror, I ordered the most expensive thing on the menu: Pheasant Under Glass. When the food arrived, everyone got a dish of pasta or a burger or whatever, but the waiter stopped before me and lifted the glass dome off my pheasant with a waft of steam and a triumphant zing. My family stared blankly, and no one ever brought it up again. But what sort of Little Lord Fauntleroy orders pheasant? And why did they not step in and say something? Was I extorting them in some way? It was a genesis moment in the life of a soon-to-be asshole.
My list of complaints with the year 2022 has a new item on it: the spring weather has been awful. It has been raining and cold for months. Today it got up to about 17C, which isn’t frigid, but is still below normal. A month ago we had days which were full on rain and 8C which is more like late January than May. Crops are rotting in the fields, people’s unmown lawns are going to seed, my legs are not merely white but translucent. Where’s my summer? Can I get a refund somewhere?
Another bit of news. Right after my last post my car got hit by an Uber driver who took off. Luckily my neighbours saw the whole thing and gave a full description of the guy, his car and his license plate. Unfortunately, just witnessing the accident wasn’t enough for the insurance corporation who says I have to pay my deductible, as the other driver is denying he did it. Last week we were having breakfast at about 5:45am when there was a terrible racket outside. I went and looked out the window and saw a guy had veered off the road and side swiped four parked cars, my wife’s and my daughter’s included. His little pickup truck was demolished, and so was a little black Subaru parked between my wife and daughter. My daughter had her car for exactly one month when this happened, and her car has so much damage it may get written off. Luckily she has replacement insurance! My wife’s car only got hit by the Subaru which was driven forward in the crash into her back bumper. Still, that impact damaged the whole rear of her car, no doubt thousands in damages. Why the lack of focus by the driver? He dropped his cigarette and leaned over to pick it up. At least he didn’t take off like my Uber douchebag. Of course, his truck was totaled and embedded into a Subaru, so escape would have to have been attempted on foot.
In the photo you can just see the front of a red van which got clipped and lost its driver’s side mirror. Next is my daughter’s brand new Mazda, scraped from end to end. It got hit hard enough to bend the rims of the tires against the curb. Next is the Subaru which was a beater anyway, but the sad part is the owner just filled it with premium gas. Lastly the bright car is my wife’s. It got pushed forward a couple feet by the Subaru. It’s a crappy photo, but I failed photojournalism, so what do you want?
Ok, so in my last post I selfishly suggested that 2022 was off to a lousy start due to me hurting my shoulder and a few other minor inconveniences, but I was a fool. As usual. My little boo-boos were nothing compared to the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, so I apologize for being a wimp. Also more significant than what I listed is the inflation rate, $2/litre gas, and the collapse of the Canucks’ playoff chances. So 2022 continues the recent trend of years that keep on surprising us with their ability to disappoint.
At work I have been re-assigned as a water meter reader. I love the job, and I can already feel my cardio getting better from walking six hours a day. What no one talks about, except us readers, is that the hardest part of the job is finding somewhere to pee. This is a pretty old problem for me as I have a bladder with the capacity of a shot glass. Once I worked in a planer mill, and I was pretty much stuck grading for two-hour stretches with no hope of a break. Then I began to have blood sugar problems as I morphed into a diabetic. The first symptoms, as you probably know, are the thirst and having to pee frequently. You can never get enough to drink, and it made going without piss breaks unbearable. To make things worse, the planer mill didn’t have its own plumbing, so anyone needing a leak just went over and peed in the Fraser River from the banks, taking a little cover from a shed with a hydrant in it. BCIT had a forestry program, and every year they had the students tour our mill. For some reason, the class was nearly all women. So there I was, in between breaks, dying for a piss when suddenly I was surrounded by about 20 women taking notes on everything I did. To my great relief, the planer stopped for some reason, so I dashed outside to donate some used Gatorade to the local fish habitat. I got to the river bank and was about to unzip when I realized I had a full class of students right behind me, pens in hand, taking notes. …The grader goes to the river bank when the planer stops… I think I said “This isn’t part of the tour,” but they kept on gawking. So much for that! I had to go back inside and clench and dance until the next coffee break, upset and surrounded by strangers. In meter reading it rarely gets that bad, but it’s something I have to plan for.
Now I take a once a week injection to keep my blood sugar low, and it seems to work quite well. Its main side effect is that it makes my stomach sour if I eat too much, or eat or drink certain things my all-knowing medicine decides I don’t like anymore. Tragically, it often upsets my stomach when I drink beer. The good news is I lost some weight which also helps the blood sugar stay low, but the bad thing is I am a wimpy beer drinker now. I have always thought a person’s alcohol habits determine their friends, at least to some degree. If a person doesn’t drink at all, it’s hard for them to socialize with those who want to piss ‘er up every time they interact. I used to drink quite a bit. I suppose if you lined up the drinking habits of people and rated them from 0 – never drinking, to 100 – drinking while awake, I would have been around 80 or 85. Now I’m about a 40, and it’s made me ashamed to see friends of mine who were my compatible 85 buddies and who would be well within their rights to ridicule my sissy tummy troubles. God knows, if the situation was reversed I may ridicule them. Maybe I will eventually get a tolerance to the medicine and will go back to my familiar 85th percentile. Time will tell.
As a side note, it might make an interesting sociological experiment to rate the alcohol patterns of people and their friends to see what range they can accept. For instance, would my 85th percentile buds hang around with a 75 or a 95? Would they keep it close, say 80 to 90th? Is there a 5 out there who can go have dinner with an 85 without judging? Maybe the 85 is doing the judging? I should get a research grant and do the math. This also might make a fun doctoral thesis for someone.
Well this year didn’t really start off the way I was hoping. First, I separated my shoulder which rendered me (mostly) useless at work and interfered with my sleep. That is starting to get better now, but I can see that it’s going to be quite a while until I’m past the injury far enough to use my fancy new golf clubs. Next we had a baby born into the family, so we took a whirlwind trip to Edmonton to snuggle the newest grandchild. When we got back, there were signs of sickness in the air, so we tested and discovered we had picked up Covid in Alberta. So for the last week or so I’ve been working from home, doing administrative stuff. The working conditions are good, and the commute is perfect, but I find myself missing the outside world and, even more, my co-workers. As for the Covid, I got pretty lucky and never got any illness more than the sniffles. Me and my three vaccinations scored a quick KO.
I also found myself pretty disappointed with that story I wrote, so sitting down to write in the blog seemed unappealing. But you have to get back on the metaphorical horse eventually, so here I am.
The big news thing of the last few weeks has been the trucker protest in Ottawa. I am glad we live in a country free enough to allow such a disruptive event, but a few things about it leave me shaking my head. First, their stated aim was to repeal the vaccine mandate for truckers crossing the border, but the USA has the same rule, so pestering the Canadian government wasn’t going to do them any good. Second, most of the secondary things that they were upset about, like masks and social distancing, are set by the provinces, so going to Victoria or Edmonton or Quebec City, or whatever capital you live near, would be a lot more efficient than clogging up Ottawa which can’t do anything about those rules. Then the protest got latched on to by fringe people, waving flags with swastikas and confederate flags, pulling off people’s masks and bullying Asians. The protest didn’t really need the bad publicity, but there it was. I also saw several instances of crowds swearing at and menacing news crews. For what? You want your point of view broadcast for all to see, so why shoot the messenger? If favourable coverage of their grieves was what they wanted, that’s going to have the opposite effect. Thanks Donald Trump and everyone dumb enough to worship his world view for bringing in a new era of public mistrust. It’s funny they say the media are liars, because even when someone says that, they go back and report it as a fair part of the story. Or maybe you want some bias confirmation in the form of Tucker Carlson, who surely is infinitely less credible than the CBC. I have said before: you can tell a lying journalist easily – he’s unemployed, and the ultra right Fox News is not the home of many actual journalists. Plus, it’s American, and we don’t need their bullshit here, we have enough of our own already. And the result of the truckers’ attempt to swing public opinion on Covid restrictions? Around 72% of Canadians disagree with them, and that is higher than when the protest began. Maybe not enough American donors pitched in…
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There’s still time to get it together, 2022, but let’s not leave it too long.
Not long ago I got my next writing assignment from NYC Midnight. I was horrified to see the genre was Fantasy, and the subject was Mutiny. The kicker for me was I had to include a character that was an Imitator. What the hell does that mean? I had eight days to write a 2500 word story using those guidelines, and I spent the first two days pouting and complaining about the cruel twist of bad luck that put me in group 151 with those rules. So I named a character Flamel the Imitator, but he did nothing to imitate anyone, in person or on stage. I hope I don’t get disqualified for failing to make my Imitator do anything remotely like duplicating. Maybe all I really needed was to include a photocopier in my story, but so few good fantasy stories occur in the modern office. I also picked a pretty dumb name for my story, in my opinion. I had been looking at it day and night for a week and I just wanted it to go away, and the lame title reflects that. Since a reader might wonder if the people get away, calling it “Getting Away” is almost like calling it “Spoiler Alert.” Anyway here it is (it is very long for this blog, so get yourself a drink.)
The tall, lanky knight, Guillaume, and his fellow knight, the stocky red-headed Renaud strode the misty waterfront of Narbonne, surveying the harbour. They scanned all the ships, looking for the familiar white sail with the bold red cross. A few white sails were furled on their masts, but a quick investigation proved none to be Templar vessels. Without a ship from the Order, they would have to find another ride out of France.
The stronghold at Montsegur had been sacked and looted the day before. The knights escaped with their two pages. Flamel the Imitator, an alchemist and mystic, and Georges, the curator of artefacts from the castle, had joined them in their run to the coast. The armies of the Pope and Louis IX would be looking for them as soon as they discovered the relic missing. The attack on the castle had not been an attack on the Templars, but the Order knew what was concealed there and dispatched these knights to Montegur to keep it from the attackers.
“Well Renaud, it looks as though we don’t have an easy way out of here. Any thoughts?”
“Even if there was a ship from the Order, they would likely have been engaged in some shipping and had no time to waste on our troubles. We will have to hire a boat and crew.”
Guillaume spotted a small boat, a single-masted cog, rocking gently against the wharf with one occupant watching them intently. “Hello captain! I see you are not busily loading or unloading, would you be for hire? My fellow knight and our small entourage are in need of flight.”
“Never any good comes from dealing with you bullies. My crew just sailed from Antioch and they have ten days off at home before we depart again. It would need to be a substantial offer to lure my men away from their homes, and an extra bundle for the trouble you and those long swords are probably bringing along for the ride.”
“There would be no reason for us to invite trouble onto you or your crew. We do have an urgent matter that we must leave to attend to , but I assure you we can give you a fair price for passage to Valencia.”
“Valencia, eh? That would be two days each way plus a day to rest and feed there. That cuts my men’s time at home in half. I have a crew of four, so I think 100 deniers is a fair amount to pry my devout crew from their beloved families.”
“100 deniers?” Renaud interjected. “We simply want to leave France, not buy your boat and deck it with silver. 50 would be generous and fair.”
“100 is my price. Feel free to keep looking at other crews, but I know there is no one else for hire.”
The knights lowered their voices. “it’s too high, he clearly thinks because we wear the tunics of the Order our purses are bulging with coins,” Guillaume whispered.
“We have that and more, but I’m sure his mangy crew is laying with the local working girls or sleeping off wine in some gutter. Pious family men? Ha! He should go ask this crew of his. If my guess is right, they would love the extra pay and return to the gutter for five more days after the trip.”
Renaud summoned the curator into the discussion. “Georges, could you please walk the rest of the harbour and see if you can find anyone to hire for less. Your lack of Templar insignia may be of some benefit.”
He raised his voice again, “Say Captain, why don’t you at least go to your crew and tell them the offer. 60 deniers to Valencia, and we’ll throw in another 5 deniers each.”
“I’ll go and ask, I am a fair man. Come back before sunset and I will have their answer.”
The knights and their pages, Flamel, and two chests of luggage found a tavern nearby and ordered some fish soup and bread. Renaud nudged Guillaume and pointed to the back of the inn where the captain was shaking two drunks at a table. They laughed heartily. Family men indeed!
They saw Georges wandering around outside. Renaud’s page ran out and brought him into the tavern. “Well, Georges, did you find anyone else for hire?”
“No, everyone is very busy around here, they seem to think we had good fortune finding one boat.”
Georges and Flamel sat quietly. Georges vacantly stirred his soup, and the mystic leaned back with his eyes closed. As relieved as they were to escape Montegur with their lives, they knew most of their friends and neighbours had not been as fortunate.
“Why did you say Valencia?” Renaud asked, picking a large crumb out of his red beard.
“I thought picking somewhere not too far away might help our chances.”
“I see. Well the Catholic majesties of Spain will be more inclined to side with Louis on the Montegur business. I don’t expect a warm welcome there either.”
“We need only to get that boat away from land. We need to go a lot farther than Valencia to get the Grail safely hidden.” He took a quick look around to see if anyone nearby had heard his careless mention of the Grail, but was glad to see everyone was focussed on their own affairs.
Late in the afternoon they made their way to the waterfront. The captain was on his boat already, gathering sailing gear. “Hey Templars. My crew will take the offer of 60 plus 5 each. We can be ready by daybreak.”
Guillaume tried not to look too relieved. “Fine, my good man, we will see you then.”
They spent the night tucked in a cherry orchard between the trees. When the knights awoke, they were alone. They opened a chest and made sure the Grail was still there and intact. The pages returned shortly with some bread and fruit, and everyone gathered to eat. Light was spreading across the cloudless spring sky as they made their way to the docks, gulls screeching overhead. The Mediterranean was almost still.
“Good morning, travellers,” the captain said with more than a hint of sarcasm. He and three sunburnt but muscular men were readying the ship for sail. “We have enough food for you for the trip, but we’re not running a hotel here, so I hope you find sleeping in the hold to your satisfaction. Oh, and we’d like our money up front so there’s no funny business later. Luckily for you one of my men can’t make the trip, so you have just saved yourselves 5 deniers.”
Renaud’s page stepped forward and counted out 75 deniers on a barrel top. The captain scooped the coins up and handed a 5 to each man. The last of the provisions and cargo was hauled aboard and stored. Heavy ropes were unwound from the bollards and the ship eased away from the dock. Add pre boiled milk and cardamom to it and stir levitra on line well. Basically there are so many people viagra 100 mg out there who are struggling with erectile dysfunction problems and feel inadequate, frustrated and unhappy about it: Stop feeling inadequate during sex. And the TCM views that the pain is caused by erectile tissue, identical to that found “down under.” So, does taking a cialis without prescription deeprootsmag.org worsen one’s sense of smell? That’s a question yet to be answered. (I appreciate that if you’ve just taken a cialis, going around smelling things is probably the last thing on your mind). This medicine usa viagra store deeprootsmag.org ensures that the blood is flown properly to the penis of the man.
There was very little talking. Flamel and Georges conversed quietly at the rear of the boat while the knights watched the water and the receding land to their right. The pages found a spot on the rear upper deck and played dice. The crew skilfully tacked the sail to manoeuvre the boat forward, but it was calm and progress was slow. Lulled by the gentle pitching of the ship and suddenly exhausted from the relief of being away from France, the knights gradually fell asleep on the deck benches.
In the early afternoon they awoke. Guillaume saw one of the sailors watching him. “Hey, how are we doing? Can you judge what progress we’ve made?’
“We’re still off the coast of France. There’s next to no wind. At this speed it will be at least three days to Valencia.”
“Thank you.” Guillaume stretched and decided to track down the mystic, finding it slightly unnerving to walk on the rolling deck. Flamel was still above deck, drinking in the beauty of his surroundings. “Say, mystic, is there anything you could do to speed this trip up a little?”
“I thought you’d never ask.” He closed his eyes and lifted his arms to shoulder height, turning his palms to the sky. At once a strong breeze blew and those men standing stumbled to regain balance. The sail filled and the boat lurched ahead. They could hear the crew shouting to each other over the wind, suddenly busy after a sleepy morning of sailing. The captain came out from under his covered steering compartment and had a quick conference with his men. The bow of the boat crashed through white waves and spray soaked the decks. The boat bucked ahead, making it hard for the land dwellers to move around.
Guillaume smiled at Flamel. He made his way forward, holding the mast for support. The sailor he spoke to earlier was controlling the angle of the sail with ropes. “How about this wind? Are we making better time now?”
“Yes sir, this is much more work but a damn sight faster. If this holds up, we will be back in the tavern in Narbonne tomorrow night,” he said with a wink.
So the afternoon passed in commotion and haste. They passed an outcrop of rocks far to their right and the captain tilled the rudder slightly, changing bearing to almost due south, passing the traditional border of Spain. When the land fell away to the west, they cut toward it, hugging the coast at a safe distance. As night was falling they saw the lights of Barcelona ahead. The boat headed toward it but stopped in shallow water, furled the sails and dropped anchor for the night. Strangely for the crew, the winds abated abruptly. There were comfortable below deck cabins for the captain and crew, but the travellers retired to the hold. The floor was uneven and wet, and the cargo area was draughty and completely dark. They slept but not well, waking often to wonder if a noise was ship boards creaking against one another, or rats.
They awoke in a press of men. Everyone was tired and sore. It was before dawn on another clear day when they clamoured to the lower deck in their damp clothes, breath billowing around them. Soon the crew and captain appeared above deck with bread and cheese and everyone ate.
“We got lucky with a good tail wind yesterday, but today looks calm,” the captain mused. “We might make Valencia by nightfall if we get going soon. Barcelona is a nice town,” he said, waving a bun in its direction, “but we haven’t got time to be tourists today.”
The anchors were winched up and the sail was unfurled. It filled with cool air and the boat began to skim forward. Guillaume motioned Renaud to join him in private conversation on the front upper deck. “We have to make our move early so we can have some hours to run in case there’s trouble.” Renaud didn’t react, but he knew exactly what his fellow Templar was suggesting.
“We will need to recruit the help of at least a couple of the crew, unless you are suddenly a sailor.”
Guillaume nodded. “How many deniers do we have left? There’s a chance they could be paid to stay with us for a while.”
“My page is clutching the purse, but I would estimate we have perhaps 450 left. Enough for a fat bribe for a common sailor.”
“I have never dispossessed a man of his boat before, so you will have to help me. As a feisty redhead, this is more your type of action.”
The wind picked up a little as the morning passed. Flamel smiled to himself as he found the right gradual amount to increase the wind without almost knocking people over like the day before. Georges sat with the pages and told stories about his former home, and the pages taught him how to play chess from an ivory set from one of the chests. Meanwhile the two Templars waited uneasily.
Guillaume caught Renaud’s glance and nodded. It was time. He shouted to the sailors, “Come here now! We must speak.” The puzzled sailors gathered around them.
“We need to go a lot farther than Valencia, as I’m sure you have guessed. But we cannot sail a ship. Who among you is willing to remain with us through Gibraltar, and for what price?”
He saw the captain storming toward them. The knights drew their weapons. “You sir, have a choice to make. We are taking your ship, and you can steer ashore and survive, and we will pay you for your ship, or you can resist and we will feed the fish with your entrails. How do you choose?”
The captain panted angrily. “I knew you bastard thugs were no good! This boat is all I have in the world, but I would prefer to remain alive. Just know that if we ever cross paths again and you aren’t hiding behind a sword, I’ll serve your testicles to the harbour rats.”
“And you men?” Renaud said, “Who will stay to sail us through Gibraltar for 50 deniers, and who will wade ashore with your captain?” A young sailor stepped forward and spat in his face and was run through with Renaud’s sword and fell gasping on the deck. The other two sailors backed away.
” I will stay.” “I also.”
“Then get back at the sail and you the rudder. Captain, put that man in the water and stay where I can see you.” The dying man was rolled off the ship with help from the pages.
Guillaume instructed them to approach the shore. When they were close enough, they gave the captain 50 more deniers and made him jump. Swimming was difficult with pockets full of silver, but they watched him drag himself up the beach, miserable but alive for another day, and relatively wealthy.
Flamel raised his palms again and the ship skipped ahead at high speed. They had many hours to get ahead of whatever trouble the captain might try to unleash on them. They sailed south but moved slowly east as far from land as they could while remaining in sight. In the afternoon they passed the island of Ibiza which was level with Valencia, but they continued. The crew who remained cooperated with their new masters, and as poor sailors they were eager to work for owners with money. Guiding the ship was hard for two men, but they instructed the pages who were soon passably competent.
A day past Gibraltar they took advantage of the more Templar-welcoming nature of Portugal and ventured ashore in Lisbon for supplies. Flamel purchased a broken lead mold from a blacksmith shop which he would make chemically imitate gold for the journey. Hiding the Grail was still weeks away, but its safety was now almost assured.
************************************************
Well that was it. You probably needed that nap (or maybe you need one now.) My last two stories are both about violent French people from years gone by. I must be in a rut. I’m not crazy about the story at all, but I hope that I don’t get called upon to write anything like that again any time soon. I find out what the judges think of it in April, which is a long time to feel apprehensive about it.
