Force

Straight Trippin’

  The days don’t feel so stretched which makes me think my body is acclimating to the time segments of this plane and I don’t like it one bit.

  What I need is a mass of energy. More concentrated than simple sunlight provides if I’m ever to find my way home.

  I miss modern day Los Angeles; the trash covered sidewalks, graffiti coated park benches and the smelly bums that sleep on them. I miss air pollution—the sweet stench of exhaust and smog hanging in the sky, yellowing day and night, blocking out the stars.

  I miss everything about home. Abi and Dad. Even Eli. Mostly, though, at this very moment, what I mainly miss is toilet paper.

  It’s one of those innovations that’s always been there—like indoor plumbing, shingles on a roof, and remote controls—so much a part of daily life that the thought of not having it never crossed my mind. Until I landed here. Here I don’t even have a toilet to rest on while I ponder. Instead, I hover over a hole in the ground and feel like crying.

  Don’t even get me started on soap. I’ve been keeping my nose tipped into the wind to avoid smelling myself.

  Energy... power... Modern infrastructure facilitates the uses of water, wind, and solar power. But I’m short on technological advancement and have no idea the amount of energy it’s going to take to leave this place.

  How did Daemon do it? When I chased him through that water world, he activated the stones. He opened a vortex from inside the body of a fish that swallowed him. I didn’t see the things whole body, I suppose it could’ve been some kind of electric eel.

  Eli thinks the stones work as amplifiers, but how much power do they need to start with? More than the energy it takes to run a hovercraft, but less than the power grid of three square miles in New York City?

  A small transformer in Ivanhoe was enough. An accident on the freeway was enough.

  What I’ve got is sunlight and a river. There’s some wind, but even if it were a hurricane, would that be enough?

  I think of Hoover Dam, how the power it generates lights Las Vegas. And that gives me a new objective: find a waterfall.

  Taking out the maps I’ve got, there’s one for California that marks the waterways and topography. I compare that with the route I’ve travelled along the river the last few days to locate my approximate position based on where I started and the course that the river in this world follows. The path of the waterway melds almost exactly with the line on the map.

  Yesterday, I passed an area where two forks of water came together. I’ve probably gone another seven or eight miles since then.

  As I study the grade of land in my area and up ahead, hope rises. If I’m right—which depends on how much the waterways have been affected by modern engineering and how similar this world it to mine—then, this river should lead to some white water in another couple miles.

  I’ll worry about how to gather power after I find the source.

  I’m feeling hopeful for the first time since I got here but still, must take time to catch a fish for lunch and rest up. There’s plenty of daylight left and I know I’ll need all my strength to focus on a way to harness the waters energy. Maybe I’ll get lucky and all I have to do is stand there.

  Threestone don’t fail me now.

  The ground is graded slightly down. About an hour into the second leg of my hike, the shoreline levels off and nearly disappears. The forest has grown thicker, steadily encroaching on the waters’ edge, eating my sandy path and any hope of keeping my feet dry. The surface of the water is choppy and it’s moving much faster. Flora at the edge of the burgeoning tree line thickens.

  I whistle a tune, skirting around, working through the thinner patches of foliage. When I come across a thicket of ripening blackberries, I pick my way through, coming out the other end with a satisfied belly and purple fingers.

  Up ahead, another tree has fallen victim to the river, blocking the thin stretch of beach. The top extends half-way across the water. The pointed top’s being thrashed by hasty water. The girth of the trunk is fifteen feet is it’s an inch. Enormous.

  I want to find the spot of the break on the trunk to count the rings and get an idea of the trees age, but as I get closer to the base, I see it won’t be so easy to read. There’s a mass of roots several yards into the forest. It’s not broken but uprooted. The knotted circuit looks like a giant ball of yarn that’s seen one too many cats.

  I stare at both ends of the obstacle. I can’t swim into the river to go around and I’d have to trudge pretty far into the forest to get past the other end. Fastest way is over the top. I walk towards the center where the trunk is wide but dry, where there are no branches to inhibit my progress.

  With a solid foothold, I push off the sandy dirt. “Alley-oop!”

  Stretching up the round log, fingers first, I’m searching for something to grab. My hand traces a thick patch of moss. Digging in, I feel the base of a small branch and use it to pull myself up. As I do, the stubby branch gives.

  I pull up double-quick and find myself nose to nose with two black eyes. Below them, a thick, hairy snout, teeth, and one shaggy stalk of a leg.

  My hand is not grasping a stubby branch but a very large claw. One of four that’s attached to an unfriendly looking bear. Just behind him, down on the rocky shore, is a second, standing on two back legs. Staring up at me with hungry eyes.

  “Shit.” That’s what the bear’s breath smells like.

  Wilderness safety tips ramble through my mind:

  Don’t look animals in the eye. Too late.

  Don’t run. I think I’ve shit myself.

  Get on the ground, in a fetal position. I’m not on the ground.

  My nerves ball up when the giant paw of the huge bear—I’m still touching!—flinches. The other paw digs into the dead tree we share and chips away a chunk of wood without effort.

  My hand acts of its’ own accord and retracts. A half inch into recoil, I’m suddenly flat on my back, looking up at the giant brown bear gracefully climbing down my side of the trunk.

  All I know to do means nothing because more than anything, I don’t want to be eaten.

  Pulling tight the straps of my pack, I roll up to my feet and hustle into the woods. Fast as I can, I’m weaving through the trees, trying to take the path of least resistance, but every bit of ground is covered in viney plants conspiring against me. An eyelet on my wet hiking boot catches on the denim of the opposite leg. I feel the quick jerk and tear. Normally, it wouldn’t be enough to make me fall but nothing about what’s happening right now is normal.

  Heavy footfalls and that shit smell hover all around as I shift onto my back and feel for the mesh bag still tied at my waist. The moment the stones are in my grasp my company appears. Two big brown bears closing the distance. One is noticeably smaller than the other, but they’re both huge.

  Sack up, I tell myself and raise the mesh bag with the Threestone. Yelling, kicking, trying to be loud and fierce. But my throat is so dry. I sound like Pee-Wee Herman doing Karate.

  Back to my feet, I make an infinitesimal move forward and scream again, “Ha! Ha!”

  The bears are staring at me and I can’t tell if they’re genuinely confused or mentally divvying up body parts. Either way, they’re not moving forward. So I thrust the stones at their furry faces, hanging tightly to the strings of the mesh bag, making sure to stay far back, hoping the smell of fear is no more real than Sasquatch.

  The big bear takes a small step back. Not like he’s leaving, more like he’s wondering why his dinner is talking back.

  On the right, a breath-halting three steps away, a large flat rock juts from the ground. With my eyes glued to the bears, I leap up on the rock, hoping to look bigger. Trying for menacing, I mimic a roar while leaning and stretching out my arms. Bears have a thing about size, don’t they?

  Big bear saunters closer, dark eyes locked on me. Smaller-but-still-big-bear follows.

  I look to the stones floating i
nside the mesh bag and cry out. “Help!” All my posturing did was draw the bears in.

  The raised bag sways back and forth. The bears aren’t really interested, but it takes their eyes off me.

  Actually, I don’t think I’m moving it. I am shaking though.

  As I contemplate this turn of luck, or temporary distraction, Teddy One and Two turn aside and stroll past me into the woods.

  My glare stays locked on them, heart pounding out relief until I hear a feral growl—not a sound that belongs to a bear. It’s the echoing threat of a mountain lion bouncing from every tree and I can’t tell if the wild cat is close or not. I’m not sticking around to find out.

  The once tranquil woodland is suddenly alive with predators. I break back through the tree line at the riverbed at full speed.

  The thin strip of shore is thinner than I’m prepared for. The rock and sand offer no purchase and I tumble into the river, ass over end. While taking a moment to be thankful that I wasn’t eaten alive I realize I’m floating away from shore; grasping at the branches of the fallen tree as I’m sucked into the rushing water.

  My mind swirls like the river, remedies flowing in and out before I can take hold. But then the water slows and so do my nerves. Well, it’s not the river itself that slows, at least not the whole thing. It’s the water in my immediate proximity.

  The current still carries me from dry land, away from the giant fallen tree where I met the bears and toward the unknown, though the water surrounding me feels as calm as a swimming pool.

  It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.

  I’m moving, yet not moved.

  Grasping the mesh bag holding my precious Threestone, I kiss each one, overflowing with awe.

 

  Carry Me

  I hear it before I see it.

  At first, I’m not sure where the roaring wind is coming from, and then realize the breezy hum isn’t wind at all. It’s water. Noisy, bubbling, rushing water.

  Looking downriver, I can’t see any waterfall; I can only tell that in about two hundred yards, this wide and rowdy river disappears.

  I swim for the rocky bank of the raging waters, the waters calming as the stones absorb the energy. Still, it’ll be a miracle if I manage to make it to the edge of a group of boulders resting in the waterway. The water rushes and swirls outside the reach of the stones. It’s too strong to swim through. I’m striving, but make little headway.

  It’s weird because I should be very scared that I’m floating towards the mouth of what looks like a huge waterfall. The water surrounding me bares no teeth though. Its’ growl is a thundering rumble, but it’s not chasing me anywhere. It’s carrying me. We’re moving together.

  I’m gliding through the powerful waterway that’s absent of mans’ consumerist footprint—all to Mother Nature’s benefit and probably my own detriment.

  Yet, I’m hardly afraid. I’m barely trying to swim for shore.

  At the very edge where the sharp drop will force me down, a vast landscape stretches out before me. The view ahead is amazing. Wind washes the damp air, spreading vapors into a breathtaking array of colors that stream across the sky above the plunge.

  The falls are massive, consuming, and glorious. Water passes over the edge and pours down into magnificent arcs that bleed into the falls and feed a wide pool below. The wet surrounding the stones moves quickly, but not violently.

  As I near the edge of the waterfall, all fear leaves me. It’s replaced with awe as the raging rapids slow their speed until the falling water tapers to the force of a pouring faucet.

  The wondrous thing is: I’m not falling.

  I don’t even feel the strength of the water beating against me. Looking all around, I’m trying to take it all in; the majesty and mystery of the power-hungry rocks in my hand. I’m clinging to the three stones as they pilot the waters, somehow weakening gravity and slowing the rushing water. They are absorbing the power of the water and keeping me from being hurled off the cliff.

  Like the water within the grasp of the stones—I’m floating. Flying the same way Daemon did from the edge of the building in New York.

  Almost as exciting as my leisurely plummet is the sprawling vista. Dense forest lines each side of the river beyond the falls, thinning to grasslands as the banks give way to land. The forest, full of bubbling and pointed tree tops, is split by the snake-like line of the uneven banks below.

  In all the beauty, one spot of sadness I must acknowledge is that there is no city in sight. No sign of people.

  But on the right side of the river below is a familiar sight surrounded by dense trees. A globular space, painted in varying shades of brownest brown melded into one another, forming a smooth, unnaturally circular patch of dead and dying vegetation.

  Mother Nature doesn’t make bulls-eyes.

  My landing in the pool below the drop is clumsy, but easy considering it should have killed me.

  Once I’m on shore, I change into a set of dry clothes and spread the wet ones over a grouping of stones in the sun. I was planning to find a way back up the falls to take another ride down—that was just too amazing to for one go-round, but I’ll have to put it off for now.

  Another set of stones may be within my reach and that increases my chances of running into Daemon.

  So after I slip into a dry set of clothes I dig out my binoculars and a length of rope.

  I’ve climbed a few trees, gone up as high as I could, only to discover I’m in a part of the valley that’s too low to see the rings of brown I spotted from the tip of the falls.

  Down here, the land is rough, full of overgrown rocks and tall grasses which make progress difficult. The center of the dead spot ran alongside a slope of rock or hillside. It was hard to tell how high it might be since I was moving when I noticed and the slope was the same shade of brown as the nearby ring. But I did note that the base of the slope eased into a rock wall set low, like a hillock. There was also a darker shadow that looked like it might be an opening. The line of it looked smooth and deliberate like it was carved. And if it was, I need to be double-careful.

  It’s been a long, exciting day. I’m utterly drained, trying to make camp about two-hundred yards back from the waterfall in a small clearing filled with dandelion weeds. The air is thick with their bitter smell and lit with their brightest yellow.

  After the heart-stopping sunset, purple darkness falls, bringing the first cloudless night.

  Every other evening, I looked up at the deep clouds and thanked them for keeping the air warm. I am dangerously close to settling into a routine. Day after day, its wake-up, get water, eat, pack-up, and move on. And every day, I feel a little more uneasy. Tonight, the sky is more beautiful than anything I’ve ever seen and I’m freezing my balls off. I can’t take my eyes off it and I barely care. I’ll make sure to die with my eyes open so as not to miss the glorious sheet of sparkling diamonds stretched over velvet. Prisms of reflected light make each star twinkle with streaks of pink, blue, and green. I’ve never seen a night sky with actual color.

  Laying an extra log on the fire, I bundle up close to the fire and gaze into the glorious night.