#'I fear I may be going down a slippery slope- at the bottom of which jackie is waiting for me with open arms'

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Let It Snow Chapter 4/4: Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

Pairing: Steve x Reader

Word Count: 7,051

Warnings: Smut, dubcon situations, emotional manipulation, more breeding talk/pregnancy fetish, come marking, oral sex, ABO dynamics and the nasty fetishes that come with it basically

Series Masterlist  Main Masterlist

A/N: So yeah this was all supposed to be a Christmas fic or at the very least a winter fic but now it’s April so, idk? Lol at least it’s finished, thanks for sticking with me through it. I may write an epilogue but I don’t want to promise anything because I basically have no motivation/time to write these days. Anyways, enjoy and let me know what you think!

It was around midnight when Steve awoke, restless, his heart in a flurry about finally having a mate.

Steve traced the lines of her face as she slept, gazing at her with so much love in his heart that it ached like a blow to his chest during combat. She would learn to love him, and she would come to accept their bond. All would come together in time, especially once she was carrying his child, which he intended for her to be by the time her heat concluded.

Since she had passed out after their first mating, Steve had waited for his knot to go down, and then he cleaned himself up and prepared a few meals for when she woke up. He had also ventured out into the shed out back for more firewood before it got too dark. There was a good foot of snow now and even if Steve wanted to drive them home in this blizzard, he knew it would be dangerous—even with the truck.

Good thing Steve was in no rush to get back to the city. Not with a needy Omega upstairs waiting for him.

Her hormones and scent had flooded the entire house now, almost to the point of making him dizzy. As soon as he situated the firewood by the fireplace, he turned back to her, undressed, and crawled back in their nest to lay with her. He was able to sleep for quite a while before he woke up, his Alpha yearning for her so much that it resounded deep in his chest, a constant thrum like an orchestra playing a symphony crafted specifically for them, for their love.

Now there was a flicker of anxious energy, the brass instruments of their orchestra buzzing around in his mind. It presented with the urge to claim her again, to make her his in every way possible. It had been too long since he’d had her, and he needed her, needed to reinforce his ownership of her. She seemed to feel it too, shifting in her sleep, her brow furrowing, lips turning into a pout. 

While he didn’t want to wake her up, he could still assert his love for her even while she slept. It wouldn’t be the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last.

So he began to scent her, rubbing his face on her scent glands, rutting his cock against her thigh and hips and stomach to mark her with his musk even more. One hand trailed down between her legs, where she was leaking his semen, and he pushed it deeper into her cunt with a few thrusts of his fingers.

He kneeled above her then, fisting his cock with the same hand, covering himself in both of their juices, pulling himself off with quick, efficient strokes for one purpose only—to mark her in his come. It wouldn’t be wasteful—the serum allowed him to create copious amounts of sperm, as well as regenerate it quicker than a normal Alpha, so he had plenty more to give her once he fucked her again.

But he needed to mark her in his seed, like a proper Alpha should. It would help her through her heat, help her body come to terms with their bond, with his ownership over her.

Just the thought of his cock knotted deep inside her, filling her up again—it brought him over the edge, and he spilled himself onto her stomach and thighs, countless white stripes across her smooth flesh, glistening in the firelight.

One of his strong hands came down to massage it into her skin, working at it until her skin was sticky and slippery and coated in his essence. He spread his come over her belly, up over her breasts, palming across her bonding glands to wipe his scent on them, and then down to her cunt, where she was visibly glistening with a mixture of his come and her own slick, her body already aroused from her heat, from his scent, from their bond.

He was still hard, his erection having never flagged once since their last knotting, and still antsy on top of that. This time, he wanted her to present for him, but she was still fast asleep and he didn’t want to wake her. His poor Omega was exhausted, and she would need her sleep.

Pushing her body onto her side, he laid down on the bed behind her and maneuvered her knee up and back over his thigh, his own leg thick and imposing stuck between hers. His cock slipped in easily, and he took it slow, rocking her back and forth as he fucked her, almost leisurely, taking his time to caress and kiss every part of her that he could reach.

As soon as he was inside of her, the music in their bond mellowed out into a soothing melody, and she relaxed into him, sleeping soundly now that he was in his proper place.

His hands slid over her abdomen, cupping it in one large hand, and he imagined how she would swell for him, his pups. She would grow so round, the skin taut against her belly, stretch marks decorating it like a painting of Steve’s ownership of her. He would worship her, rub lotion on her stomach, give her kisses all over, every single day.

Then he brought his hand up to her breasts, pinching at her nipples until she was squirming in her sleep. He couldn’t wait for them to grow along with her belly, engorged with milk, sometimes so swollen and painful that his sweet Omega would beg for him to help relieve some of her discomfort when the pups couldn’t. And he would oblige her with delight, happy to do such a service for his love.

Sharp teeth sought out her scent gland, which was swollen and red from his earlier marking of her. As he licked at it, cleaning the dried blood off, and sucked softly to stimulate more blood flow, he felt their bond sparking in his chest, sharp percussion tapping along his nerves, an electrical fire hot wiring his heart alive. Burying his face in her hair at the nape of her neck, he reveled in the feel of her warmth around him, her smell fogging up his brain. She felt like home, so warm and natural and comfortable, his mind completely at ease now that he was bonded with her.

“Sweet, sweet Omega,” he whispered against her neck, digging his nose into her scent gland, smelling the hot swirling tendrils of their bond. He was barely thrusting inside her at this point, more so rocking a gentle rhythm with his hips, basking in the slick heat of her around his cock. “What did I do to deserve you?”

She whimpered, the first crack in the shelter of her dreams, but he continued his slow tempo, his soft touches on her belly and breasts and hips, wanting to ease her into wakefulness, gentle, loving.

Her brain had other ideas, startling awake at once, alert and on edge at the feel of someone in her nest, someone she wasn’t prepared for fucking her awake. She jolted in his arms, and he could immediately smell it on her, the fear and anxiety and confusion, all overlaid by the residual desire from her heat. For a moment, she struggled against him, and Steve slid his hand up her collarbone to cup her throat, using a secure hold to press her against his body.

“That’s okay, sweetheart,” he whispered in her ear, then lapped at her bond mark again. “You’re okay, you’re safe, I’ve got you—”

“Steve?” she asked, voice thick in her throat, confusion increasing with her resistance as she tried to remember what happened. It tugged at their bond, harsh and unpleasant, and Steve scraped his teeth against the bond mark to spark the memory of it in her. It worked—she shuddered against him, the mixture of his hand on her throat and his pheromones flooding her senses forcing her to relax into him despite the uncertainty still lingering in the back of her mind. The presence of a strong Alpha taking care of her willed her body into submission, and he purred against her.

“Good girl,” he cooed, fucking into her with more force now that she was awake. She keened, clawing at his hand as it gradually placed more pressure on her throat.

“Alpha!” she squeaked, hips pushing back into him.

“Let me have your body, sweetheart,” he whispered, pulling out and turning over so she was flat on her stomach. “Be a good Omega and present for me.”

He adjusted their bodies so he was kneeling behind her, and she readily went up onto her knees, her head tucked into her arms to support her neck. For a moment, Steve admired the sight of her presenting for him, the slope of her back, the width of her hips, the shine of her cunt as it glistened up at him.

“Steve, Alpha, please,” she begged, heat peaking again without a cock inside her to appease her. As she tried to push her hips back, Steve held her still, wanting to take this at his own pace—although he loved it when she begged.

“Now, now, Omega,” he said, patting her ass firmly. “Your Alpha knows best. Trust me.”

She whined, and he could see her body tremble with anticipation when he ran the tip of his cock through her slick, but she didn’t say anything else. Satisfied that he had her submission in his pocket, he pressed in slowly, making her feel every inch of him as he penetrated her. Her whine tapered off into a shuddering moan, and it became almost a sob as he bottomed out deep inside of her.

“Yes, yes, yes,” she began to chant as he began to fuck her fast, his hips slapping against hers and echoing around the bare room. He admired her from behind, the arch of her back, her hands clawing at the pillows. Running his hands over the swell of her hips, her ass, he drew one hand back and spanked her with enough force to have her gasp and cry out into the mattress.

He kneaded her ass, pulling her cheeks apart and staring at his cock pistoning in and out of her. Their combined liquids frothed at her entrance, all around his cock, from the speed at which he fucked her, and he couldn’t help but to run his thumb across where they were joined, collecting the liquid, and then lean forward and shove his finger in her mouth.

She moaned around it and eagerly sucked it off, and Steve almost came right there from her blind heat-induced enthusiasm.

He changed his pace, now deep and slow, taking his time to feel every part of her. He was so deep inside of her and as he supported himself with one arm, he brought the other down to her stomach, cupping it and feeling her, imagining the day it would swell for him. She would make such a pretty little mommy, so sweet and perfect, making the perfect home for them, for their family.

Her whimpers filled the space, turning into high pitched moans as she lost herself again to the pleasure he graced her with.

“You love this, don’t you sweetheart?” he growled in her ear. She nodded, but he wasn’t satisfied with that. “Tell me, Omega,” he commanded her, voice deep. “Tell me what you feel.”

The first few sounds to come out of her mouth when she opened it to respond were not coherent words, but punched out moans as Steve fucked into her harder. “Oh, oh, God—” she cried, but settled down as Steve repeated his command directly into her ear, using a deeper Alpha voice, the voice of the Captain, one she couldn’t help but obey. “You’re—” she gulped down a moan, “So, so big… So big inside me, and deep, Alpha. So, so good—" Her words trailed off in a whimper. “Want your knot, please, Alpha, please—”

Steve grunted into her ear, his body practically flattening hers to the mattress as he fucked her harder, the urge to knot her too strong. He brought his hand down to rub at her clit, fingers sliding easily against her skin from all of her slick. “Love it when you beg me, baby, love you so much—”

“Alpha, Alpha—need your knot—”

“Tell me you love my knot Omega, tell me you love it—”

“Love it so much—need it—need you—” Her voice weakened to a squeal as her orgasm consumed her, burying her face into the pillow and shuddering underneath Steve’s hulking frame.

At the feeling of her cunt squeezing so tight around him, Steve roared out his orgasm, his knot swelling into place and locking them together, coming so deep inside her that he could feel her cervix pressed up against the head of his cock, everything so sensitive and soft inside.

“That’s right, sweet Omega,” he cooed, grinding his cock inside of her and grinning as she mewled, “So deep inside you, isn’t that right, sweetheart?”

She nodded and whimpered again, soft little sounds coming from her throat. Steve flattened his body over hers, providing a calming presence, sucking and licking at their bond until she shifted under him, at which point he turned them back to their sides and cuddled her against him with strong arms.

“Love you so much,” he whispered in her ear. She was still dizzy with pleasure, his knot pressing against her in all the right ways every time he pressed his hips into hers. He could feel her happiness and wholeness in their bond, the way she ached from how good it felt, the fogginess in her mind that remained from her orgasm.

Her heat was sated for the time being, and Steve allowed her to doze until his knot went down. At that point, he fetched some food and water for her, and when he came back into the bedroom, he roused her awake with a gentle tone. It was late and she was tired, but she needed to eat something and drink water before she went back to sleep.

“C’mon, sweetheart,” he murmured, sitting her up and leaning her against his chest. Her head lolled back onto his shoulder, but he nudged her head up and encouraged her to drink from a water bottle. “Just a little more, honey—that’s right, that’s a good girl,” he cooed as she finished the bottle.

Based on how delirious she was, he had decided that the soup would be too messy for her to try and eat, so he fed her small bits of finger foods—dried berries, chunks of hard meat and cheese, and crackers. He hand fed her small bites and made sure she chewed them properly, letting her suckle the remnants from his fingers until she was too exhausted to eat any more.

At that point, he let her snuggle into his chest as she fell into a deep sleep, one that lasted throughout the night.

 X

Steve awoke before her the next morning. He got up to shower, eat, and rebuild the fire, which he had tended to several times in the night. Luckily she hadn’t woken up anymore, and although he loved being inside of her, he knew she needed all the energy she could get for the coming days.

He didn’t bother putting any clothes back on, which paid off when he came back into the master bedroom to see his sweet Omega writhing in their nest, a hand between her legs. He had heard her moans coming up the stairs, but he hadn’t expected such a sight, her hair sticking to her face, glistening with sweat, her other hand clutching the pillow beside her.

“Oh, Omega,” he groaned, his hand coming down to run over his cock, already hard just at her scent, before cupping his sac in his large palm. “My sweet, sweet Omega.”

Their eyes met and she shot up, eyes focused on his cock. “Alpha,” she whispered, high and needy. “Need you, please—”

He chuckled and stroked his fist up his cock. In the back of his mind, he wondered how desperate she was for his knot, what she would do for it.

“Come and get it then, sweetheart.”

She wasted no time crawling over to him, sitting at his feet. There was a frenzied look in her eyes, a sort of wild gaze as she gave herself over to her animal instinct. “Alpha—” she mumbled, but her plea was cut short as he took a fistful of her hair and shoved her face forward onto his cock.

He didn’t enter her mouth, but instead he forced her face to rub against the skin, nose and cheeks rubbing against the skin, lips right at his balls. She moaned aloud, the animalistic display of Alpha affection going straight through her. Through their bond, he could feel her arousal grow stronger. He scented her like this, his musk all over her skin and lips until her mouth was watering and she was mouthing at his balls, yearning for his cock in her pussy.

By the time he took mercy on her and crouched down, she was dripping onto the floor. She practically threw herself on him when he finally kneeled down next to her, knocking him on his ass and tossing her arms around his neck.

She wiggled around in his arms until she was straddling his thigh, pressing her body up against his chest. “Alpha,” she whined, grappling at his neck and chest. Her eyes were glazed over again, mind fogging with the urgency of her heat. “Alpha, please, need your knot, please, I’ll do anything—”

Well, Steve really couldn’t resist it when she begged so sweet for him.

He fucked her right there on the hardwood floor, pure animal instinct, growling and rutting and locking his teeth into her neck as he came, breaking the skin once more and sending her deep into the clouds, her mind dizzy and drugged with pleasure.

 X

Over the next two days, she was so consumed with her heat that he could barely get her to eat or drink anything between their intense sessions of fucking and knotting. As soon as he knotted her, she would be in a sleepy daze until her heat consumed her body again, turning her into a sex-starved maniac. There were several times that he had to force her to consume food or water as his knot was still inside, plugging her up with so much of his seed that he didn’t think there would be room for anything else. Sometimes he had to force her to sleep, too, rather than continue fucking her after his knot went down. Most of the time, the only way she could even fall asleep was with his knot lodged inside of her.

He was a good Alpha, taking good care of her during her heat. It filled him with satisfaction to hear her purring as she fell asleep, belly full of food, pussy full of his knot, completely and thoroughly sated until another wave of her heat woke her up. He kept her warm with the fire, kept her cozy in her nest, and he was there for her whenever she needed him to fuck her. He always knew what she needed before she needed it, anticipating every thought and urge she had, memorizing her mind like the words to a song.

Their bond was strong. He could feel her through it so clearly, and he was sure she could feel him just as well, feel his love for her, his adoration.

Steve couldn’t wait until she was all his. His kept woman, his sweet Omega, barefoot and pregnant, devoted to him and his family. Their family.

On the third day after her heat began, she slowly came back to her senses as the crippling need ebbed away.

“Steve,” she croaked sometime after his knot had gone down. She had been laying against his chest, not quite asleep, and he could feel the haze clear a little bit through their bond. Her heat was still there, he could smell it, but it was waning now.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he whispered, tightening his grip on her, placing a kiss on her head. She stiffened in his arms and that sour scent of confusion crept back up into their bond.

She sat up, gathering the sheet against her chest. “What—” For a long moment she was silent as she looked around, taking in her surroundings. The rumpled blankets on the air mattress, her clothes abandoned on the floor, the stack of newspapers Steve had been keeping himself occupied with when she wasn’t begging for his cock. Then she looked to Steve, eyebrows furrowed, a frown on her face. “Steve—" Her voice was hoarse, and she cleared her throat although it didn’t help much. “What day is it?”

“It’s Monday, darling,” he answered, purposefully keeping his voice even and quiet, trying to exude as much of a calming aura as possible. He could feel the turbulence on their bond, the ripples from her end as she questioned it. He wasn’t pleased at the sudden dissonance, but he also wasn’t surprised by it.

“And—and—my heat—”

“You’ve been delirious with it all weekend,” he informed her.

“All… all weekend?” He nodded and reached for her, but she pulled away. Fingers shaking, she brought her hand up to feel the skin at her neck, the inflamed gland still tender from Steve’s bite. “And you… you m-mated me…”

There had been so many reactions of hers that Steve had anticipated, so many plans he had in his head depending on her reply, and he had practiced so many different ways to respond to the feelings she felt now. He knew, from their bond, that she was confused, conflicted, saddened, angry.

“Oh, honey,” he cooed, understanding laced through his tone, just shy of condescending. “You wanted me to, remember? You begged me to bite you.”

She frowned, a lost little look on her face that made Steve want to gather her in his arms and kiss her. “That’s not true,” she whispered, “I didn’t do that… Did I?”

Of course, it wasn’t true—she didn’t beg for it, but she clearly was missing a few memories from the last few days, so Steve was going to roll with it.

“You did,” he lied, his tone steady and sure. He placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder and she shivered from the touch. “You asked so sweet, too, when you begged me for my mark—"

She jerked away from him. “But Steve,” she hissed, eyes filling with tears as she glared at him, “Obviously I couldn’t really consent to that! To any of this! I was under the influence of my heat!”

A frown fell over Steve’s face, and his hand fell back to his side. He let that feeling sit on their bond—hurt, sadness. She could feel it, he knew, from the way she shuddered. His voice was low when he next spoke, eyes downcast. “So… you didn’t want me to mate you?”

“N-no—”

“You don’t want to be my Omega?”

“Steve,” she whimpered, feeling the tug of their bond in her heart, the primal urge to submit to him despite her reluctance. The bond was not to be underestimated—it tied them both to each other, and no matter if she wanted it or not, it was there. Steve was utterly devoted to her, and that could be felt in every pulse of the bond, overpowering her aversion to it.

And she was a sensitive girl, too—so sweet and empathetic, never wanting to hurt anyone. The first time she said no to a date with him, she told him how bad she felt, how she didn’t want to let him down, but she couldn’t compromise the project. Now, she could clearly feel his love for her. She could feel his devotion. And she could feel his pain, too, he knew, and he could tell it was hurting her just as much as it hurt him.

 He would simply have to convince her that it was the right thing for them, that it was meant to be. And, well, if she continued to reject him, reject their bond—he had a plan for that contingency, too.

Steve sat up opposite of her, taking her hands in his and forcing her to look at him. “Sweetheart, I know you’re not sure about this,” he began, pouring as much sincerity into his words as possible. “But I wanted this before it happened. I wanted to be with you before we came up here—and I know you wanted me, too.”

“No, Steve,” she shook her head.

“You didn’t want me? Can you honestly say that?”

“Steve—”

“No, you need to be honest with me, sweetheart. Because I don’t think I was imagining it. The lunch dates, the little baked treats?” He held on tighter to her hands as she tried to pull away, shaking her head. Tears fell down her cheeks but he could feel her emotions sparking in their bond—her guilt, yes, and her frustration, but also her fondness for him. “That time we went to Prospect Park and I bored you to death with all that stuff about the Grand Army Plaza? And then you fed your popcorn to the squirrels—and God, the way you laughed, the way you smiled. It was so precious.”

“But Steve—” He could feel the pain she felt as he overwhelmed her with sweet words. He could feel her warring with herself to give into the bond she never wanted. It was exactly where he wanted her.

“And that time you showed me all of your favorite places around Brooklyn, and I told you about how everything had changed since my time. You were so excited about it all, and then you got real sad, nostalgic. I knew then that you were perfect for me.” He lowered his voice, remembering the day fondly. “And that day I came for lunch and you were crying, and you told me about your father’s death, and I held you as you cried. Sweetheart, I want to be able to do that for you any time you need it—"

She wrenched her hands away, burying her face in her palms, shoulders shaking. “No, Steve—”

“I know you feel something for me,” he insisted. “I can feel it. I’ve always been able to feel it. And I’ve always felt this way about you, too. I was going to ask you on a date after we were finished with this place, even though I knew you probably wouldn’t say yes because you’ve got Tony’s new project to plan…” He trailed off with a well-rehearsed sigh. “But a man can hope, can’t he?”

“You don’t get it, Steve,” she choked out between sobs. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Sure, I liked you, I liked spending time with you. But I just wanted to take it slow with you. And now…”

Steve moved forward and gathered her face in his hands, wiping away her tears with his thumbs. “Honey, I know. I know. And I didn’t plan for this, either—but we’re in this situation now. If you want to medically break the bond, we can do that, but I’m also open to trying to make the best of it.”

Breaking a bond was possible, but the process was painful and lengthy, involving an injection of shots over the course of a few months to weaken and eventually break the hormonal bond between two people. It was contraindicated in pregnant women due to the potential for damage to the fetus, and there was no way she wouldn’t be pregnant by the end of all this. He felt certain she wouldn’t choose this route—could already feel her aversion just at the suggestion.

Even if she did choose it, he wouldn’t allow it. But he needed her to believe that he supported her no matter what.

Her panic mounted, and she met his eyes. “Steve…” she whispered. “Did you use protection?”

“No, honey, I didn’t. I thought you’d be on birth control.”

Another tear fell and her face crumpled. “I’m not… I’m not on birth control… I don’t like what it does to my body—that’s why I’m not on suppressants, either, Steve.”

Of course, that was another thing he loved about her—that she refused to put any of those modern-day poisons into her body. “I’m sorry, darling, I didn’t know that.”

False hope lit her face up. “Maybe I could get a Plan B pill—”

“Honey, it’s already been three days. And we’re going to be stuck here for another week at least before the weather clears up.”

“The—the weather—it’s still snowing?”

Steve gestured to the window, which was whited out with the snow falling heavily outside. “It’s barely stopped.” Her hope dimmed again, and he could feel her panic rising within the bond. Her breathing turned heavy and soon she was hyperventilating, letting out anxious sobs and moans. Steve took a hold of her again, forcing her head up. “Look at me,” he demanded, repeating her name and the order until she obeyed. “Breathe with me, darling. In and out, okay?” He coached her through miming his breaths until she was following along with him. “Good girl, you’re doing so good,” he praised her. “Just like that, keep breathing like that.”

Once she had calmed down, he drew her in against his chest, stroking down her hair and back to relax her.

“Sorry…” she mumbled weakly. Too weak to fight him off, too weak to question him anymore. Exactly where he wanted her. 

“It’s okay, sweetie. I know this is all overwhelming. I know it’s a lot. Just know that I’m here for you. I’m gonna take care of you, and I’m not going anywhere.”

“Okay…”

“Let’s just take it one day at a time. The roads should be clear enough by the end of the week that we can head back to the city. We’ll stay here until then, and once we’re back in the city—then we can make the decisions. How about that?”

His meek girl, his feeble girl, although finding herself in an unwanted situation, was not going to fight him on it. She nodded against his chest, bending to his will so beautifully, his sweet, submissive girl.

X

Steve ran a bath for her and took his time washing her hair, conditioning it, and running a soft washcloth over every inch of her body. He soothed her until she was boneless against his chest, purring and shivering every time he went over any particularly sensitive area—her sides, her pelvis, the insides of her thighs. Once every perfect inch of her body was clean, he got her out of the tub and dried her off with thorough swipes of the towel against her skin, handling her with firm hands that had her nipples hardening and her scent peaking with arousal.

“S-Steve,” she whispered as he sat her atop the bathroom counter. Her small hands clutched at his shoulders as he dried himself off. “Steve, I think my heat is spiking again.”

“I know, darling, I’ve got you,” he assured her, wrapping the towel around his hips. She pawed at his chest, hands scrambling down his waist until he caught her wrists, long fingers encompassing her forearms completely. “Relax, honey,” he cooed, “Be patient. Don’t need you wearing yourself out again so soon, do we?”

“But Steve—”

He silenced her with a few tender kisses to her fingers, her knuckles, her palms. “Shh, baby. Let your Alpha take care of you—Alpha knows best, right?” At his words, his reminder of his ownership of her, he could feel the conflict within her. Her initial rejection of their bond followed by her urge to give into it. To give into him.

She whimpered at the feeling of that harsh, jarring tug on their bond. He felt it just as much as she did, the discord within their souls, and rather than let her dwell on it, he distracted her.

He ran his hands over her sides and tutted. “Your skin is a little dry, Omega. Can’t have that, can we?” Although she didn’t respond, she didn’t refuse him when he pulled out a bottle of lotion from the cabinet. “I’ll get you all fixed up, sweetheart.”

Steve started by massaging the lotion into her right hand, up her arm, and then doing the other arm before working on her shoulders with firm strokes of his fingers. He did her back next, stepping close between her legs and giving her sweet kisses as he blindly smoothed the cream into her shoulder blades, down her spine, into the divots of her sacrum. By the time he started working on her sides, she was trembling in his arms, hands clenched into fists against his shoulders as she tried to avoid pulling him against her or grinding her cunt against his pelvis.

“You’re doing so good,” he cooed, rubbing more lotion onto her neck and clavicles, before his hands wandered down to her breasts. Her eyes fluttered closed as he cupped them in his hands and massaged the lotion in. “Such a good girl for me.” She shuddered at the feeling of his calloused thumbs rubbing across her nipples, and then he continued down to her abdomen, spending a little extra time there admiring the softness, the life that had to be already growing inside. Then her hips, and her thighs, all the way down her legs to her feet, where she giggled and kicked reflexively when he dug his thumb in too hard.

“Steve,” she moaned, legs jolting from her arousal as he kneeled before her, teasing her endlessly. “Please, please, please—”

He grinned against her skin as he kissed up her shin, nipping at her kneecap, before spreading her thighs with his large hands. “Please, what, my sweet Omega? Tell me what you need.”

“Need you,” she gasped as his hot tongue lapped against the insides of her thighs, tasting her slick that had rubbed off halfway down her leg already from her squirming and writhing on the vanity. “Need you, need you so bad—”

“I know it, baby.” He methodically sucked the wetness off until his facial hair brushed against her outer labia. She cried out at that, hands fisted in his hair, nails scratching against his scalp.

“Please, Alpha—I can’t take it!”

He chuckled, lips pressed right against the juncture between her cunt and her thigh, and the deep vibrations of his voice so close to her core made her pulse with need. His palms ran up the length of her legs before stopping right at the apex of her thighs, and he used his thumbs to spread the lips of her cunt apart, having to dig in with some force to prevent them from slipping out of his grip with how wet she was.

“Fuck,” he cursed, looking at her exposed pussy glistening for him, all for him, flushed red from how much he had fucked it in the last few days. “Perfect. Absolutely perfect.”

With that, he wasted no time in burying his nose into her cunt, wanting to scent her deeply before he tasted her. He could still smell himself within her, and he rumbled with satisfaction that he would remain a part of her for so long, his come marking his territory, marking her as his.

The flat of his tongue trailed heavy up her slit, making the Omega keen, clench her thighs around his head until Steve gripped her knees and wrenched her thighs apart. He chuckled as her muscles trembled against his grasp, and the sound vibrated through her cunt and made her jolt in his arms.

Before moving forwards, he drew his head back to admire how swollen it was, flushed and engorged, sensitive to the touch as he ghosted his lips over it. He blew a line of air against her and she cried out, body shaking still. Then he wrapped his lips around it, suckling gently at first before swirling his tongue around, giving her a little nibble when she writhed against him.

Her reactions to him made his cock ache, the way she trembled, grinded her hips against his face. Her whimpers and cries and the way she said his name, breathless, whiny, desperate. “Steve, Steve,” she chanted, hips jumping with the rhythm of his tongue. “Steve, Alpha, please—” When he slipped two fingers inside of her, she went wild, crying, begging for his cock, his knot. “Need it, Alpha, please, please, please—”

It didn’t take much longer for her to come, what with how sensitive she was. He coaxed her slick out of her sweet cunt with his fingers buried deep inside of her, running his tongue around her entrance, around his fingers, licking up the fluids leaking from her. He was drunk off the taste of her, the taste of himself inside of her, the combination of them heady on his tongue like delicious mead, sweet and earthy, like tasting from Mother Nature herself.

She collapsed back against the vanity, her back against the cool mirror, panting and jolting with aftershocks as Steve continued to clean her up. Then he slowly kissed back up her body, placing sticky kisses against her skin until he reached her lips.

Her mouth opened for him on instinct, letting him lick into her mouth and share the taste of them until her mouth was coated in the taste of herself. After her whimpers started ramping up again, he pulled her against him, allowing her to grind her pussy on his abdomen while he caressed her body, plucked at her nipples, brushed his fingers across her mating gland.

“Alpha,” she gasped, pulling away finally. Her juices were all over his stomach and she was dripping onto his cock, impatient as he denied her. “Steve, Alpha, please, the nest, the nest, please fuck me there.”

“Aw, baby,” he cooed, cupping her cheeks and gazing at her reverently. “Of course, my love. Anything for you.”

With that, he scooped her up and carried her back to the bedroom, all the while praising the nest she built. “So soft and cozy, honey, isn’t it? You built it just for us, built the perfect nest for us. Such a good girl, such a good Omega, aren’t you? Perfect for me…”

He trailed off with his mouth on her breast, suckling her nipple after laying her down on the mattress. He was so wrapped up in her softness that he didn’t notice her lining her hips up to his or reaching for his cock until she was lifting her hips and fucking herself onto his cock.

“Impatient today, aren’t you, honey?” He chuckled at her responding whine, but he stopped torturing her, impaling her completely on his cock until he was buried deep within her. She felt like home, she felt perfect, comfortable and natural and warm. She was home for him.

Steve made love to her, whispering sweet things against her lips between sweet kisses, holding her safe in his arms while he moved within her, chasing her pleasure and his own. He worked his cock inside of her, so, so deep, right up against her womb, and the thought made him shudder.

“So good for me, so good to me,” he whispered over and over, laying kisses on her lips and then her cheeks once her mouth dropped open from the overwhelming pleasure coursing through her. He could feel it on the other end of their bond, pulsating with life and joy and comfort, every single bad thought drained from her mind because of him. He was the only thing she could think of, the only thing in her life, the only one.

And she was his only one. The only thing he loved, the only thing he cared about. Her, and the life that would grow within her.

“My sweet girl,” he rasped, voice catching in his throat. The overwhelming love he felt for her poured out. “My sweet Omega, my love,” he breathed into her neck, up against her mating gland, and she shivered, feeling their bond thrum like different strings of a harp being pulled all at once, a perfect harmony resounding and vibrating within them, within their souls. “I love you,” he whispered, kissing her bond mark. “I love you so much, I’ll always love you—”

She came around him then, sobbing against him, clutching at his shoulders and back with more strength than he would have expected from her, but his mind was blank at the feeling of her cunt fluttering, massaging his cock as his knot grew.

He was so, so close—just a little bit more—just a little. “Look at me,” he gasped, lifting his head to observe her prolonged orgasm. “Open your eyes, look at me, baby—” Once he took a hold of her jaw, she obeyed him, locking eyes with him as she writhed in pleasure beneath him. “Good girl,” he praised her in a low grunt, watching her eyebrows furrow in pleasure just from that. “You’re my good girl, my good Omega—I’m—"

He came inside of her with a groan and his knot locked them together. He remained leaning over her, careful not to put too much weight on her, and kept his eyes on hers. Her gaze never faltered, so full of emotion, and he preened under her watch, proud that he could satisfy his Omega so thoroughly. His happiness leaked into their bond, enough to sate both of them, and he soaked in the feeling of their bliss, their joined souls, his Omega happy. Happy because of him.

He couldn’t wait to fall asleep with her every night in this house, in their nest, with his knot buried inside of her. Couldn’t wait to have her sated and sleepy all the time, barefoot, pregnant, a perfect bundle of joy in her arms, mind blank and undisturbed from the gratification of fulfilling her Omega duties. She would never have to worry ever again.

Steve would take care of her. He would never let her go.

[tealin]

Observation Hill

To see the post in its original format, please visit twirlynoodle.com/blog

There is no mistaking Observation Hill when you arrive at McMurdo, if you know anything about it.  It is a distinct cone, right at the end of the peninsula – even if you've never seen a picture of it, its name alone tells you it's a prime lookout, and sticking out into McMurdo sound as it does, it has clear views in every direction.

I had seen pictures of it, but I was still surprised how it loomed over the station.  Unlike the vastly larger Mt Erebus, it is visible from everywhere; whether you're eating in the Galley or crawling back to bed from the Crary lab in the wee hours, it's always looking over your shoulder.

Though not apparent in the above photo, it is clearly visible in person that there is a large cross mounted nearly at the peak of the hill.  Visitors especially from the States might assume it is just another expression of religious devotion – Christ died on a cross on a hill, so hilltop crosses are not unusual in a country which puts great stock in expressions of Christianity – but this is not another one of those things, in fact it isn't even American.  This cross was erected in January 1913 by the surviving men of the Terra Nova Expedition, as a memorial to Captain Scott and the other members of his party who died out on the Ross Ice Shelf on their way home from the South Pole.

Before the ship arrived it was decided among us to urge the erection of a cross on Observation Hill to the memory of the Polar Party.  On the arrival of the ship the carpenter immediately set to work to make a great cross of jarrah wood [an Australian hardwood].  There was some discussion as to the inscription, it being urged that there should be some quotation from the Bible because "the women think a lot of these things."  But I was glad to see the concluding line of Tennyson's "Ulysses" adopted: "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."  

... Observation Hill was clearly the place for it, it knew them all so well. Three of them were Discovery men who lived three years under its shadow: they had seen it time after time as they came back from hard journeys on the Barrier: Observation Hill and Castle Rock were the two which had always welcomed them in.  It commanded McMurdo Sound on one side, where they had lived: and the Barrier on the other, where they had died.  No more fitting pedestal, a pedestal which in itself is nearly 1000 feet high, could have been found. 

(Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World, pp.565-7)

The establishment of the cross took two days: the first, to hack a hole in the volcanic rock in which to mount it, and the second to carry up the pieces and erect them.  

It stands nine feet out of the rocks, and many feet into the ground, and I do not believe it will ever move.  When it was up, facing out over the Barrier, we gave three cheers and one more.   (ibid., p.567)

106 years later, there is a hiking trail up Observation Hill.  I had intended to make a pilgrimage since the moment I arrived, but with everything else going on, and the ongoing challenge to get enough sleep, it wasn't until quite late in my visit that I finally made it.

My first attempt was on a relatively fine day, when I thought I could get some good views. The trailhead was clearly marked on the station map, but when I got there I couldn't find a way to reach it without crossing a fuel pipeline, and I had a dim recollection from orientation that this was a big no-no.  I wandered about looking for access until I started getting a headache from the fumes, and gave up.

The next opportunity came a few days later, after I'd found out from a veteran that it was OK just to step over the pipeline there.  It was a thickly cloudy day, and hazy by Antarctic standards, so I wouldn't get as good a view, but that did mean I could look forward to having the hill to myself.  So I stepped over the pipeline and started up.

It looks like a terribly steep climb from the bottom, but once on the slope it's not so bad, and is far less slippery than the gravel slope of Arrival Heights.  Partway up I passed a mountain rescue class, but beyond that the trail was entirely mine.

Like the rest of Ross Island, Observation Hill is volcanic in origin – in fact it was once a small volcano of its own.  Unlike the subglacial volcano that is now Castle Rock, which grew cylindrically through a hole it melted in the ice, Observation Hill must have been uncovered in its later years  at least, because it has the classic cone shape made by molten rock running down the outside.  It is a lighter colour than much of the rest of the exposed rock in the area, and in places, it gives a really good impression of being sedimentary rather than igneous.

While the climb was not as physically intense as I had feared, it did still make me very warm, and I had two pauses, not to catch my breath but to cool down.  One was to watch the rescue class, the other was when, somewhere near the top, I lost the trail, and examined the terrain for a while to guess which side would be least fall-off-able.  I chose the wrong one, it turns out – I didn't fall off, but I did have to pick my way over some bare rock and came out above the cross, which is mounted in a pocket of rubble just off the peak.

It's hard to tell from the photo but it is in fact quite large – I am an average sized female and I  stood well under the crossbar.  The inscription is still there, but over a century of blizzards have battered it, and some parts are just barely decipherable.

The names – above of the worst of the blowing grit – are still legible.  This gave me one of those moments which always seems to come by surprise.  I have lived most of my life, and certainly all of my career, in close proximity with fictional characters, who demand to be believed in, either out of escapist necessity or professional duty.  Most of the time I am off in my own little world, and the fact that that little world is now a historical moment in Antarctica does not, necessarily, make it more real, in relation to my literal present reality, than any movie I've worked on.  I know these guys were real, I have seen film footage of them, and read their handwriting, and, some of them, even met members of their families!  But when I'm up to my elbows in the work, it's easy to give it the part of my brain that suspends disbelief on a production.  Suddenly something will come along that jolts me back to their reality: in this case, a name carved on a physical object by someone who knew them personally.

At the same time, this physical object impressed upon me again just how much time separates their reality and mine.  Originally the cross was painted white, with the incised letters filled in black.  Only a little of the white paint remains in the deepest recesses of what are quite shallow letters, now.  In 1960, when Silas Wright returned and was photographed up here, the wood had already been scoured clean.  His visit was 47 years after the cross was put in place, and 49 years before mine.  The same imagination that conflates historical realities with fictional ones can make those years evaporate, but that is still a lot of years, and erosion, unlike imagination, doesn't lie.

Cherry may have believed that the cross would never move, but it has in fact blown down twice, once in the winter of 1974 and again in 1993.  Its restoration in 1994 was a significant effort: a new concrete "boot" was made for it at Scott Base and delivered to the site by helicopter, and the cross itself was relayed up the hill by teams of helpers.  (You can see photos of the event here, p.44)  I cannot say how moving it is to see such an outlay of resources and enthusiasm by people who never met the Polar Party, to perpetuate their memory.

The cross isn't the only thing to see at the top of Observation Hill, of course – there is everything else.  It turned out to be the perfect way to end my tour of Terra Nova landmarks, not only because it was the last bit of home territory the Terra Nova men themselves visited, but because I could see nearly everywhere I'd been from up here.

As you can see, it was not the greatest day for landscape photography, what with the matte light and the taller mountains being covered with cloud.  But I had not come up here to take pictures.  The sombre atmosphere befitted what I had come to do, which was to remember these men and thank The Powers That Be for the blessings that had been showered upon me in the last few weeks.

The cross faces south, towards their last camp, and the Pole.  This is, of course, a thoughtful and fitting aspect of the memorial.  It also gives the impression of a beacon, a light in a window, a lighthouse on a headland, guiding them home. The men who erected it knew the men were dead.  They are still dead.  We all know this.  But they are still out there somewhere, and it is not impossible to imagine some small irrational part of the human psyche wanting, in some small way, to show them the way back, and call them back by name.

Minna Bluff was covered in cloud, so I couldn't use it as a bellwether, but the wind started to pick up and was colder than before, so I thought I should start heading down again.  The correct trail was obvious from this end, and I poked along it for a little way before everything caught up with me and I sat down to have a little cry.

The cross is a historical artefact, and while it is not as plum or as complex as the huts, it still requires conservation.  Alarmed by the degree of erosion on the lettering, the Antarctic Heritage Trust has devised a shell to protect it from the worst of the winter winds.  That will do something, but it has already lost a lot.  When I was up there, I wondered why it hadn't ever been repainted, as the paint would go a long way to protecting it, and when the paint wore off it could just get repainted instead of eating further and further into the wood.  The raw timber is more harmonious with the environment, and I like it better aesthetically that way, as do many others I'm sure – the white cross with black letters in Debenham's photo from 1913 is very stark and artificial in such a magnificent landscape.  But it would last a lot longer.

On the other hand, generations of Antarcticans now have the cross as a touchstone, not only as their link to the history (not everyone gets to visit Cape Evans)  but as a landmark in their own experience of Antarctica.  It was personally important to the men who painted it white and put it up, but it is also personally important to hundreds, if not thousands, of people since then, who have never seen it white and don't know that's how it started, and might see the repainting as a travesty.  If it were to be conserved, to what extent would that go?  Would the letters be re-carved deeper, obliterating what remains of Davies' original work?  At what point does conservation end and adulteration begin?

The alternative is to take down the original and keep it somewhere out of the weather – Scott Base perhaps – and replace it with a replica.  Jarrah is still available, the letters could be carved afresh, it could be the bare wood everyone has known and loved for the last fifty years at least, and the original could be saved from the effects of weather once and for all.  But doesn't this defeat the intent of the original in some way, and make it – dare I say – a Disneyland version?  Do we owe more to history to keep it as it is and let the elements wear it down, or to preserve it as long as possible and do whatever might be necessary to extend the experience and historical understanding of a place, if not its authenticity?

These are all questions that curators and conservators have been grappling with for years, so I leave it to them to make the decisions.  I am grateful to have seen the original, and to have a moment to myself up there to reflect on these things, and more.  I hope, whatever happens with it in the future, Observation Hill is not de-crossed entirely.  How else will they find the way home?

[hauntedprettything]

On Discernment...

...This side of the hedge.

Today we’re going to learn about pathos, a literary device that is used to persuade readers to take the proffered side in an argument. It can be used appropriately, but it can also be used inappropriately, such as to manipulate. As a preliminary note, the adjective form of pathos is “pathetic,” meaning “of pathos”--so when “pathetic” is used here, it is not used as a negative or disparaging word, only a factual descriptor. Here’s some info about pathos:

“When an author relies on pathos, it means that he or she is trying to tap into the audience’s emotions to get them to agree with the author’s claim. An author using pathetic appeals wants the audience to feel something: anger, pride, joy, rage, or happiness...Emotions can make us vulnerable, and an author can use this vulnerability to get the audience to believe that his or her argument is a compelling one.” [source]

The same source also says, “When reading a text, try to locate when the author is trying to convince the reader using emotions because, if used to excess, pathetic appeals can indicate a lack of substance or emotional manipulation of the audience.” (Emphasis mine.)

There’s also some great information here (and here, here, here, and here) about fallacious pathos, which is pathos that is used incorrectly or excessively to manipulate others. Here are some indicators that are common in witchblr:

Knee-jerk, blind, immediate dismissal of others’ views. If someone dismisses other viewpoints without giving a good reason for it, that’s a red flag. If the reason doesn’t make sense or hold up under scrutiny, same thing. This also extends to directing others to dismiss other viewpoints without engaging and deciding for themselves.

Unjustified and/or irrelevant emotional appeals. If somebody is using a lot of extremely emotional language, it’s probably a good idea to look closer. It’s possible that the emotion is being used to distract people from the facts; this happens a lot, for example, in political arguments. An additional sub-type of this is using a personal anecdote to gain pity from others, although in most cases, the personal anecdote has little bearing on the argument as a whole. This is especially effective on people who are generally empathetic and caring, because they tend to put themselves in the person’s shoes and thereby fall for it a lot easier (speaking as one who has learned the hard way).

Using guilt. If a person tries to guilt you into believing them or doing what they want, I’m guessing you already know that’s a big problem. But this can be more subtle than most people realize, and you may not notice it. Watch for language like, “If you do/don’t do x, then y (bad thing) will happen to me.” A related concept is using fear, which most people recognize pretty readily.

The slippery slope argument. This is when someone says things like, “If this isn’t taken care of now, the community will suffer for a long time to come.” For non-native English speakers’ reference, the name is derived from the phrase “it’s a slippery slope,” referring to walking along the top of a muddy hill and trying to avoid sliding down to the bottom.

Loaded terms. Using loaded terms is always, always an attempt to sway readers’ or listeners’ opinions, and it often works, while simultaneously being subtle enough that many people don’t notice the manipulation. That makes it quite prevalent in abusers’ speech. A loaded term is a word or phrase that is very difficult to argue against, like “freedom” or “responsibility”. No one wants to argue against these concepts, and that can lead them to subconsciously be more willing to believe the argument they’re presented as part of.

Generalization. We’ve all seen this a thousand times. “All Wiccans are fluffy,” “all tradcrafters are snooty,” and so on. This can also be slightly more specific, however: “that whole server is bad,” “all their followers are kids”. Whatever it is, it’s worth a second look, because generalizations are almost never correct. If ever--but then, that would be a generalization. ;)

I think that’s enough for now. There’s plenty of resources linked here, so I encourage everyone who is part of witchblr, or any social media group really, to use them. Do your research. Think for yourself. Vet everyone and everything--including me. Good luck.

[blazehedgehog]

Do you ever think of yourself as being on the ASD? Up until the past few years (I'm 25 now), I never considered the possibility but as I delved deeper I identified with a lot of common behaviors (obsession, preferring isolation, social issues/anxiety, pickiness) and explained why I found it so difficult to assimilate in high school.

I’ve occasionally wondered, but there are a lot of things that kind of go against the grain of that kind of diagnosis. The few symptoms I exhibit of ASD also overlap with something that’s far more likely, and that’s that I probably have ADHD.

I had two or three teachers growing up try to convince my Mom that I had ADHD and that I needed to be medicated for it. My Mom refused to believe them, because back in the early 90′s, the traditional definition of ADHD included hyperactivity, and I was not a classically hyperactive kid. The image of ADD kids back then was being unable to sit still, unable to stop acting out. ADD kids were loud and grabby and uncontrollable, which I definitely was not.

We understand a lot more about the condition now and even though you should never self-diagnose, I’m 99% sure I have ADHD. My inability to focus on one singular hobby (hi, I’m an artist, game developer, sound engineer, youtuber, streamer, and writer), my extremely selective and poor memory, my inability to switch tracks and get motivated on something else after my mind is already set, my utter impatience for certain things, etc.

My isolation and social issues can be explained simply by my depression more than ASD, I think. I’ve talked about this before but I fell apart in high school. Things happened to me in middle school; I had bullies that acted like my friends, they did some deeply horrible things to me, and it completely destroyed my ability to trust anyone for decades. To some degree, it still persists to this very day. It just... wrecked me, in a way that’s hard to describe, and harder to even comprehend. I stopped showering. I stopped brushing my teeth. I just gave up on taking care of myself. I’ve blocked most of the memories out because of trauma coping mechanisms; I only know some of these things because other people have told me they happened. It really was that bad.

I had a really bad stretch of like, five years, from around 13 years old to 17 or 18, maybe even 19. I did eventually get away from those bullies in high school, but the combination of self-loathing they left me with combined with my ADHD and the mounting anxiety problems I was developing meant I coasted through an entire semester of algebra class absorbing absolutely nothing and I got a failing grade. Friends (new ones) dared me to skip one class with them for fun, and I figured “Well I’m doing bad in algebra anyway, so yeah, I’ll skip with you and go to the bowling alley.”

And that started the snowball. I became unmoored from the routine of school, which can be a big problem when you have ADHD. Skipping algebra every now and then became always skipping algebra. Then I started skipping gym too, because getting undressed in front of the other kids in the locker room was an introvert nightmare. Skipping two classes turned in to skipping three. Then four. Then all classes. Who cares, right? I couldn’t muster up the interest, especially when I realized I had no idea what the current lesson plan was anymore.

My girlfriend dumped me. The school waited until the start of my senior year to pull me aside and inform me that it was impossible for me to graduate under any circumstances (the first and only sign of disapproval they had shown me in three and a half years). My internet friends were yelling at me. I lost touch with my real-life friends. I had massive, gigantic, reality-ending panic attacks that left me too paralyzed to leave my room even to go to the bathroom. I teetered on the edge of having a nervous breakdown. I lost over 100lbs, leaving me nothing more than skin and bones. The mountain of stress I was feeling was taking a toll on my health.

I shut down. Closed myself off to the outside world. Ryan did not exist anymore. And for something like a decade, that’s how I lived. My only human contact was with immediate family (when they could drag me out in to the sunlight against my will) and with a core group of shrinking internet friends. The few that did not lose respect for me, anyway.

That does things to you. The parts of your brain that knew how to socialize atrophy and you forget how to hold a conversation. When I was still going to school, my cousin and I told each other we should become therapists, because we were excellent at listening to people and being mediators. We could fix anyone’s problems. Now, those skills died inside of me. I went from being able to make anyone feel better to constantly sticking my foot in my mouth. Being a nuisance, even when I wasn’t trying to be. I lost all sense of what was appropriate to say, or how to convey my feelings. Or convey anything outside of a keyboard, really. I made a lot of people angry and upset totally by accident, or pushed them away without realizing what I was even doing.

And all of these bad habits fed in to each other like an endless loop. It was a slippery slope that steeply went down, and down, and down. The more isolated I became, the more I wanted to isolate even more. The shame and embarrassment for who I was becoming kept getting stronger. I was caught in a spiral.

I was getting close enough that I could see where the bottom of the barrel was. I call myself introverted, but I’m also the guy who, completely of his own volition, downloaded the Shoutcast Server software in September of 2000 and hosted an all-night live internet radio broadcast. Alone. I was livestreaming myself playing video games for the internet four years before Twitch.tv was even invented. Whenever it came time to read aloud in class, I was always one of the best, clearest students, never needing to sound out words or pause for anything. Nowadays I'd never say I was anything but an introvert, but deep down there’s also been a voice inside of me dying to get out, and at some point I woke up and realized I could be better. I just need less fear and more confidence.

The person you see writing this blog today is the result of finally starting to become aware of what I was doing to myself, and forcibly dragging myself back out in to the world, inch by inch. I don’t think it’s going very well, but at least I’m still making an effort. I fell apart in to many small pieces, and they’re taking a long time to reassemble. I finally graduated high school about five years ago. (I re-read that post a few months ago and started crying.) As you may pick up on from the differences between that post and this one, I’m still learning a lot about myself and what’s wrong with me. The picture is always becoming clearer by the day.

But knowing the problem means you can find the solution, right? That’s what you’re doing, too.  It’s a slow process, but I continue the fight to heal the damage I’ve done to myself.

Anyway, sorry for getting so randomly heavy and spilling my guts out like this. I appreciate people looking out for me like this. And who knows, maybe I am on the spectrum after all. Just because I have my own theories doesn't mean they're necessarily right.

[tinyshe]

Thinking about ditching all social media? I am. This includes things like youtube and other items that you “log in”... “feeding the machine” -- food for thought...

Story at-a-glance

The whole justification for the War on Terror was to target “precrime”, or terror acts before they happen; the legislation was meant to target foreign governments and individuals, but bills are pending that would make the legislation applicable to Americans in the U.S.

Investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald stated that the end goal of the newly emerging war on domestic terrorism is to "essentially criminalize any oppositional ideology to the ruling class," adding, "There is literally nothing that could be more dangerous”

Journalist Whitney Webb is concerned about fusion centers, at which the Department of Homeland Security, FBI, NGOs and others in the private sector collaborate to decide who’s a terrorist and who’s not

Fusion centers have been around for a while, but as the war on domestic terror progresses, Webb believes that fusion centers will take on the same role as the CIA-run Phoenix Program during the Vietnam War, which were designed to collate names of dissidents and people with extremist sympathies to databases so they could be pursued by the relevant authorities

Silicon Valley and the national security state are now fused; deleting your social media accounts is one of the best ways to stop feeding the domestic terror machine

In June 2021, the U.S. National Security Council released a new “National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism.”1 While it’s being largely framed as a tool to fight White supremacy and political extremism, the definition of what constitutes a “domestic terrorist” is incredibly vague and based on ideologies.

In a podcast with one of my favorite independent journalists, Whitney Webb,2 Media Roots Radio host Robbie Martin notes how this creates a dangerous slippery slope, one that’s connected to the attempts to have increased surveillance and tracking of Americans’ data after 9/11.3

The “War on Terror,” launched in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, Martin says, “was merely a prelude to a larger domestic crackdown on political dissidents.”4 Webb agreed, stating that we’re “near the bottom part of the slippery slope” already, and it’s not a stretch that one day anyone who disagrees with the government could be labeled a domestic terrorist and charged with a crime.

Criminalizing Oppositional Ideology to the Ruling Class

The whole justification for the War on Terror was to target “precrime”, or terror acts before they happen. Initially, the legislation was meant to target foreign governments and individuals, but bills are pending that would make the legislation applicable to Americans in the U.S.5

Investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald stated that the end goal of the newly emerging war on domestic terrorism is to "essentially criminalize any oppositional ideology to the ruling class," adding, "There is literally nothing that could be more dangerous, and it's not fear-mongering or alarmism to say it.”6

This isn’t a partisan issue, but something that’s been in the works for decades. Greenwald stated that viewing Washington as Democrat versus Republican, with one side being “your team” and the other being “your enemy” is a flawed belief, as an elite ruling class is truly in power:7

"There is a ruling class elite that is extremely comfortable with the establishment wings of both parties ... who they fund equally because those are the people who serve their agenda. Then there's a whole other group of people at whose expense they rule in. Some consider them on the left, some on the right," but "it's time to break down those barriers."

It’s important to understand that the U.S. already has aggressive criminal laws in place, such that more people are imprisoned in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world.8 Do we need further laws to criminalize people put in place? A concerning pivot has occurred as well, shifting in focus to the FBI targeting this new model of terrorism while the terms like “incitement to violence” have been radically expanded in meaning.

“It is accompanied by viral-on-social-media pleas that one work with the FBI to turn in one’s fellow citizens (“See Something, Say Something!”) and demands for a new system of domestic surveillance,” Greenwald wrote.9

People Who Spread ‘Disinformation’ Classified as Extremists

You don’t have to be violent to be declared a terrorist. You may simply have what the government deems to be “extremist views” or could be accused of spreading disinformation — although there’s no clear definition of what “disinformation” is. According to Webb:10

“There is talk in the domestic terror strategy that people who spread disinformation can also be classified as extremists and a threat to national security and, of course, we’ve seen over the past several years, how this disinformation label can be applied to independent media as a way to promote censorship of voices that are critical of U.S. empire, among other things, or that just don’t fit a particular government narrative.”

As taken directly from the National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism:11

“Domestic terrorists have — particularly in recent years — often been lone actors or small groups of informally aligned individuals who mobilize to violence with little or no clear organizational structure or direction. These individuals often consume material deliberately disseminated to recruit individuals to causes that attempt to provide a sense of belonging and fulfillment, however false that sense might be.

Their ideologies can be fluid, evolving, and overlapping. And they can, in some instances, connect and intersect with conspiracy theories and other forms of disinformation and misinformation …

These elements combine to form a complex and shifting domestic terrorism threat landscape and create significant challenges for law enforcement. Especially on Internet-based communications platforms such as social media, file-upload sites, and end-to-end encrypted platforms, all of these elements can combine and amplify threats to public safety.

… These efforts speak to a broader priority: enhancing faith in government and addressing the extreme polarization, fueled by a crisis of disinformation and misinformation often channeled through social media platforms, which can tear Americans apart and lead some to violence.”

Fusion Centers Are Ready and Waiting

Webb is concerned about fusion centers, at which the Department of Homeland Security, FBI, NGOs and others in the private sector collaborate to decide who’s a terrorist and who’s not.

Fusion centers have been around for a while, but as the war on domestic terror progresses, Webb believes that fusion centers will take on the same role as the CIA-run Phoenix Program during the Vietnam War, which was designed to collate names of dissidents and people with extremist sympathies to databases so they could be pursued by the relevant authorities — many ended up being kidnapped, tortured and killed.

Fusion centers are waiting to take on a more active role in the newly declared war on domestic terrorism, but in order for them to gain widespread acceptance, Webb believes that an outrageous event needs to take place — one that goes further than the January 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol, such as something that targets civilians and sparks outrage among the U.S. public that something must be done.

“This is why I worry that some other event may take place in order to push this strategy further. They’re setting up an infrastructure here that they plan to use, right? And I think given the current climate in the U.S. it would be hard for them to justify taking that where the strategy clearly shows they want to go,” Webb says.12

She also draws parallels between the present day and the U.S.-backed Operation Condor, which targeted leftists, suspected leftists and their sympathizers, resulting in the murders of an estimated 60,000 people, about half of which occurred in Argentina. Another 500,000 were politically imprisoned.13

“There was no investigation into whether the claims against these people were even true,” Webb explained. “There were no trials … it was a dragnet to create reorganized society using a climate of fear to encourage acquiescence to authority and complete obedience to the state.”14 It’s history that often gives the greatest clues about where society is headed, and Webb also details a bill President Biden introduced in 1995 in response to the Oklahoma City bombing.

It was initiated by the FBI as a charter to investigate political groups and included the following disturbing points. Fortunately, the bill wasn’t passed in this version — a lot was taken out and watered down — but if allowed to pass unrevised, it would have:15

Allowed the FBI, military and other groups to investigate political groups at their will, without any higher-up approval

Allowed a 10-year prison sentence for the crime of supporting the lawful activities of an organization if the president deemed the organization a terrorist entity

Made it so that the president alone decides who is a terrorist, and the decision could not be appealed

Loosened rules for wire taps

Reversed the presumption of innocent until proven guilty

Allowed the military to be used in domestic law enforcement activities and potentially made it legal for soldiers to invade people’s homes and take possessions without probable cause

Allowed secret trials for immigrants not charged with a crime, and allowed the use of illegally obtained evidence in those trials

Silicon Valley Is Fused With the National Security State

Silicon Valley and the national security state are now fused, Webb says. The decadeslong wars against domestic dissidence have always involved technology like databases, and now the link is inseparable.

Webb wrote about “tech tyranny” at the start of the pandemic, revealing that a document from the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI) — acquired through a FOIA request — said changes were needed to keep a technological advantage over China:16

“This document suggests that the U.S. follow China’s lead and even surpass them in many aspects related to AI-driven technologies, particularly their use of mass surveillance.

This perspective clearly clashes with the public rhetoric of prominent U.S. government officials and politicians on China, who have labeled the Chinese government’s technology investments and export of its surveillance systems and other technologies as a major ‘threat’ to Americans’ ‘way of life.’”

Many of the steps to implement the program are being promoted as part of the COVID-19 pandemic response. NSCAI is not only a key part of the Great Reset’s fourth industrial revolution, but also promotes mass surveillance, online-only shopping and the end of cash while noting that “having streets carpeted with cameras is good infrastructure.”

NSCAI’s chairman is Eric Schmidt, the former head of Alphabet, Google’s parent company. Other notable Silicon Valley NSCAI members include:17

Eric Horvitz, director of Microsoft Research Labs

Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon Web Services (CIA contractor)

Andrew Moore, head of Google Cloud AI

Meanwhile, Greenwald highlighted a statement by Alex Stamos, a former Facebook security official, who recommends social media companies collaborate with law enforcement to crack down on extremist influencers online, especially those with large audiences in order to “get us all back in the same consensual reality.”18

Social Media Plays a Huge Role in the War

If you’re reading this and are concerned, I urge you to listen to the Media Roots Radio podcast with Whitney Webb in full.19 It’s just under 2.5 hours, but time well spent to understand the historical events that have led us to where we are today. For those who want to take action, a mass exodus from social media platforms is a good start.

Many suspect Facebook is the public-friendly version of the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Lifelog, a database project aimed at tracking the minutiae of people’s entire existence for national security surveillance purposes.20

The Pentagon pulled the plug on Lifelog February 4, 2004, in response to backlash over privacy concerns.21 Yet that same day, Facebook was launched.22

Lifelog — and likely its successor Facebook — was meant to complement Total Information Awareness (TIA), a program that sprang up after the 9/11 attacks that was seeking to collect Americans’ medical records, fingerprints and other biometric data, along with DNA and records relating to personal finances, travel and media consumption.23

Now Facebook is asking users to report “extremist” content and misinformation. Fortunately, there’s a way to passively disentangle yourself from the data mining and legacy social media that is intertwined with the war on domestic terror. Webb says: “Delete your Facebook and your Instagram and your Twitter, because you are feeding the domestic terror machine.”24

[abramsbooks]

Step inside Count Dracula’s coffin-filled castle of casements and casualties!

An excerpt from Decorating a Room of One’s Own: Conversations on Interior Design with Miss Havisham, Jane Eyre, Victor Frankenstein, Elizabeth Bennett, Ishmael, and Other Literary Notables by Susan Harlan

Name: Count Dracula, vampire to end all vampires (I see you, YA novels) Location: In the snowy mountaintops of Transylvania Size: Big Years lived in: That’s a hard question to answer without inspiring disbelief; owned

Although young lawyer Jonathan Harker had read about Transylvania in the British Library, nothing could prepare him for the real thing—or for the extraordinary architectural marvel he would encounter as the guest-slash-prisoner of Count Dracula.

The green sloping land around Dracula’s castle is full of forests and woods, with here and there steep hills crowned with clumps of trees or with farmhouses. These hills rise up to the lofty steeps of the Carpathian mountains, which tower above with all their glorious colors, deep blue and purple in the shadows of the peaks, green and brown where grass and rock mingle. A cock crows with preternatural shrillness through the clear morning air, and there are many jagged rocks and pointed crags.

“I love a jagged rock and a pointed crag,” Jonathan discourses. Nestled among the wild and hypnotic howls of wolves and the agonized cries of women, the ancient castle boasts broken walls, a gloomy courtyard, great round arches, worn-down stone carvings, imposing fireplaces, bars on the windows, and many chains and bolts. The library contains a large number of English books and periodicals, and Dracula enjoys lying on the sofa and reading riveting things like railway timetables and reports of royal commissions.

Jonathan is particularly struck by the brilliant moonlight that bathes the beautiful expanse.

“Anywhere can have excellent light,” he says. “But few places have moonlight capable of casting phantom shadows that fill you with a sense of doom.”

In spite of the castle’s extraordinary evidences of wealth, some “odd deficiencies” add to its nightmarish character. The enormous front door has no bell or knocker as you enter freely and of your own will, and there are no servants. On chilly nights—and really on most nights—the wind breathes cold through the broken battlements and casements.

“It’s a simple insulation issue, but I haven’t looked into it yet as I find I’m dealing with bigger issues,” Jonathan says. “Like the fact that the count crawls down the castle walls.”

The castle’s curb appeal is bolstered by a narrow ledge of stone that runs around the south side of the building. The stones are big and roughly cut, and the mortar has by process of time been washed away between them. Jonathan enjoys venturing out onto this ledge and, trying his best not to look at the awful depths below, gradually making his way to the window of Dracula’s room, which sports quirky details like a great heap of gold in one corner, odd things that seem never to have been used, and dust. Jonathan’s own room is well lighted and warmed with a log fire, and the centuries-old curtains, the upholstery of the chairs and sofa, and the hangings of his bed are of the costliest and most beautiful fabrics.

“I saw something like them in Hampton Court, but they were worn and frayed and moth-eaten,” he says. “So I said as much in my review on Yelp.”

A CHAT WITH JONATHAN

Dracula’s Style

He loves that his house is old and big. He himself is of an old family, and to live in a new house would kill him. “A house cannot be made habitable in a day, and after all, how many days go by to make up a century,” Dracula likes to say. He enjoys frowning walls and dark window openings. Of course, you want a castle that inspires fear, horror, and wonder—something a little vampy. But you don’t want to tip over into the domain of theme restaurants. This isn’t the World Famous Jekyll and Hyde Club, people. Cheap animated mummies are not okay.

Important Influences

We agree that the Bran, Poenari, and Corvin Castles are all quite nice. Bran thinks quite a lot of itself. But Dracula’s castle really takes its cue from the surrounding area. It’s quite impregnable on three sides as it’s located on the edge of a terrible precipice, and a stone falling from a window would fall a thousand feet without touching anything! Below, there are silver threads where the rivers wind in deep gorges through the forests. It is gorges. Get it? Christ, I should put that on a T-shirt.

Favorite Element

There is a portion of the castle that was evidently occupied in bygone days, judging from the relatively comfortable furniture that is now ravaged by time and moths. Sometimes I write there, at a little oak table, overcome by a loneliness that chills my heart and makes my nerves tremble. There is also a lovely dining room where the Count never dines. And the castle has a number of mirrors that seem to be defective. Maybe we should return them.

Potential Improvements

Dracula loves heavy doors, so we could put in more heavy doors. And maybe we could add more nails. You can’t go wrong with studding things with large iron nails.

What Friends Say

Mina would find the place intriguing, but she’s kind of preoccupied with a friend in England right now, so her thoughts tend more to garlic and wolves than interior design. But I think she’d say that wolf figurines can make nice accent pieces. There are some whimsical and not-horrifying options in Target’s Threshold line.

Biggest Embarrassment

Let me not think of it. My heart grows cold at the thought. It’s enough to inspire a violent fit of hysterics and uncontrollable emotional eruptions.

Biggest Indulgence

I would say the ancient, ruined, tomb-like chapel at the bottom of a dark, tunnel-like passage through which comes a deathly, sickly odor of old earth newly turned. The space is decorated with fragments of old coffins. Transylvanian nobles don’t like to think that their bones may be among the common dead. No, siree. The count has his own box, with a lid pierced with holes. It is bespoke.

Biggest Challenge

Sexy lady vampires, definitely. They are terrifying.

Best Advice

Steer clear of trends that refuse to die. Take terrariums, for example. You might think: Oh, they’re sort of creepy, these little self-contained worlds of rocks and plants. Kind of Transylvanian. They might add an element of terror, dreadful pleasure, and languorous ecstasy. But no: Dracula absolutely does not allow terrariums in the castle. You get a terrarium, and it’s a slippery slope to macramé. And that’s some diabolical wickedness.

What would Little Women be without the charms of the March family’s cozy New England home? Or Wuthering Heights without the ghost-infested Wuthering Heights? Getting lost in the setting of a good book can be half the pleasure of reading, and Decorating a Room of One’s Own brings literary backdrops to the foreground in this wryly affectionate satire of interior design reporting. English professor and humorist Susan Harlan spoofs decorating culture by reimagining its subject as famous fictional homes and “interviews” the residents who reveal their true tastes: Lady Macbeth’s favorite room in the castle, or the design inspiration behind Jay Gatsby’s McMansion of unfulfilled dreams. Featuring 30 entries of notable dwellings, sidebars such as “Setting Up an Ideal Governess’s Room,” and four-color spot illustrations throughout, Decorating a Room of One’s Own is the ideal book for readers who appreciate fine literature and a good end table.

For more information, click here.

[imjustthemechanic]

Natalie Jones and the Golden Ship

Part 1/? - A Meeting at the Palace Part 2/? - Curry Talk Part 3/? - Princess Sitamun Part 4/? - Not At Rest Part 5/? - Dead Men Tell no Tales Part 6/? - Sitamun Rises Again

The mummy reappears, but under circumstances that raise more questions and answer absolutely none - and our heroes already had no answers.

Sir Stephen wasn’t the only one who’d had a particularly nasty shock.  Natasha may not have seen the first man disappear, but she’d definitely seen Allen’s reaction to it, and had noticed how he refused to take the gas mask off the one who looked like Barnes for fear it would happen again.  So in the afternoon, while Sam and Clint went to an arcade and Sharon took Sir Stephen to the Louvre to try to distract him, Natasha took a cup of coffee up to their room for Allen.

He had been gazing mindlessly out the window at the boats on the canal. She set the cup down on the sill and stood on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek.  It was still something she had to decide to do and then make herself, feeling more like part of an undercover identity than something she would do naturally.

“I know Sir Steve’s upset,” she said.  “How are you?”

 Allen shrugged.  “It’s like he said.  I just keep seeing it.  I wonder if I’ll do that when I die.”

That thought hadn’t occurred to Natasha, and it was a bit of a shock. Allen wasn’t quite a real person, he was something she’d constructed by accident.  He felt like flesh and blood.  He ate and slept and remembered an entire lifetime that had never happened.  He hadn’t vanished when they’d shut the Grail down, so it didn’t seem likely that he would just disintegrate when he died – but when Barnes had touched her hand, Nat hadn’t noticed anything odd about him, either.  Was there any way to know?

Maybe there was.  “The blood on the cloth vanished when the rest of him did,” she said.  “You bleed and it hangs around – I’ve seen it.”

At that, Allen actually managed a small smile.  “That kind of helps, actually.”

Nat patted his shoulder.  “I think we need to do some research,” she told him.  “Want to find a library?”

“Research on the mummy?” he asked.

“No,” said Nat.  “On true crime.  I want to know if anything like this ever happened before, and if so, what was the motive behind it.”

Just a couple of blocks to the southeast was the Bibliothèque Crimée, which seemed appropriate enough.  It was a modern building with blue and white tiled walls and a rainbow-painted railing at the sidewalk.  Nat settled down with her laptop at one of the pale wooden tables, and connected to the library wi-fi to read up on art heists.

Over the course of the afternoon they dug up news stories about art thefts in France, the UK, and the Americas – and not one of them was anything like what had happened to the mummy.  Art thieves took small things, easily transported and hidden, and ones that were not too famous unless they were planning to ask for a ransom.  The sarcophagus of Sitamun was the exact opposite of that: huge, unwieldy, and instantly recognizable.

“What are you thinking?” Allen asked.

“I’m thinking it had to be a heist for hire,” said Nat, resting her chin on her hands as she scrolled through an article in French about the theft.  “Somebody out there wanted it specifically, saw the opportunity, and hired Barnes and his brother, or whoever they were, to get it. The question is, what do they want it for?  The sarcophagus valuable, but they can’t sell it or show it off for fear of being reported.”

“Maybe it’s a very complicated murder attempt,” Allen suggested.  “Maybe they’re going to give it to somebody they secretly hate and see if the curse works.”

Nat chuckled.  “Now there’s a plot for a heist movie!” she said.

“Or maybe it’s something in this.”  Allen poked the newspaper photograph of the sarcophagus, indicating the inscriptions. “Maybe there’s some special magic or something in there?  They want to learn how the curse works and use it themselves?”

Natasha hadn’t thought of that.  “Somebody’s gotta have a translation,” she said.  A google search was unable to find it, so they emailed the curator of antiquities at the Victoria and Albert Museum to ask.

Much later, when they were back at the hotel, Natasha’s phone dinged to tell her the reply had arrived.  The contents, however, were disappointing.  All that was written on the sarcophagus was the usual list of Princess Sitamun’s titles, her relationships to various other members of the royal family, and some standard blessings for the afterlife.  There was no hint of a curse, or of anything unexpected at all.  Nat finished reading it for the second time, then set her phone on the bottom bunk next to her and flopped back onto the mattress.

“No good?” Allen guessed.

“Nothing,” said Natasha.  “What the hell did anybody want with that mummy badly enough to pull such a dramatic stunt?”

“Maybe just the thrill of the chase,” said Allen.

“It’s almost looking that way,” groaned Nat.  “The thing about Barnes is still bothering me, too.  There are hundreds of guys named Jim Barnes in the United States, so it’s not like I can track down just one of them easily.  I looked through the Times website and they’ve got two guys by that name on their staff, but neither is a reporter and neither is in Europe right now.”

“So we know he was an imposter, and practically nothing else,” said Allen.  “That’s a shame.”

“Don’t start,” Nat warned him.

“Start what?” he asked innocently.

“Teasing me about almost making a date,” said Nat, propping herself up on her elbow to look at him.  “I’m still mad that he tricked me.  I don’t want to hear about it, or about grandchildren, or any of that stuff.  You’re not allowed to be that kind of father.  Understand?”

Allen looked startled, but he nodded meekly.  “Yes, Ma’am,” he said.

It was very early in the morning on their third day in Paris when Nat was awakened by her mobile phone ringing.  She opened her eyes when the tone began to play, then buried her face in the pillow and groaned softly.

The jingle played a second time, and from the bunk above she heard Allen ask in a sleepy voice, “you gonna get that, Ginger Snap?”

“Yeah,” she grumbled, and reached to pick it up off the table at the end of the bunk.  Nat had a very short list of people she would be willing to answer the phone for at this hour, but the caller turned out to be one of them – it was Fury.  She swore under her breath, then pressed the button and put the phone to her ear.

“I hope it’s a reasonable hour where you are,” she said.

“No, because I’m still in England,” he replied, “but I figured you guys needed to know as soon as possible – they found the mummy.”

Nat was suddenly wide awake.  “They did? Where?”

From the bunk by the window she heard Clint mutter something, followed by, “what kind of stupid time is it?”

“I’m not allowed to tell you outright because they don’t want sightseers gathering,” said Fury, “but since it was stolen by disappearing guys with the same face and all, I asked the Gendarmerie to let you take a look at it.  They’re sending a car, so you’d better get dressed.”

“We don’t know what was going on with those men,” Nat protested, although she was already getting out of bed.

“Nobody else does either,” said Fury, “but you’ve dealt with stuff like this before.”

“No, we haven’t!” said Nat.  The Grail had been completely different.

She wasn’t going to pass the opportunity up, though, so after hanging up she reached up to give Allen a shake, then crossed the room to wake Sir Stephen.

“Everybody up,” she ordered.

“Why?” asked Clint.

“They found the mummy,” said Nat.

“So?” he asked, from the top window bunk.  “It’s not like she’s getting any deader.”

Fortunately everybody else was a little more enthusiastic.  They dragged Clint out of bed with the promise of espresso, and there was just enough time for everybody to wash their faces and throw on some deodorant before the Gendarmerie cars pulled up outside the hostel. The French police looked just as annoyed at having to get up before dawn as the CAAP, and nobody spoke much as they drove out into the countryside for what felt like hours.

In fact, it was hours – by the time they arrived, the sun was coming up.  They pulled over to the side of the country road, just above a steep slope down into a wooded valley.  Through the trees, Nat could just barely see yellow crime scene tape.

“There,” one of the cops said, pointing.  He had a heavy accent and somehow managed to imply that this was at least a third of his English.

They had to be very careful climbing down the hill.  It had been raining overnight, and the autumn grass and fallen leaves were slippery and treacherous.  Clint would have fallen on his face and slid the whole way if Nat hadn’t been in time to grab him, and a moment later she had to pass him on to Sir Stephen so that she could take Allen’s hand before he lost his footing on the slick ground.  There were several scrapes and bruises before they finally came to the tape, and ducked under it.

From the top of the hill, the yellow tape had been visible through a break in the trees.  Now that they were up close, Nat could see that it was literally a break: branches had been smashed by something heavy crashing into them.  The fallen thing had rolled down the hill, hit the trees, and then shattered on a boulder in the middle of the small stream at the bottom.

It was the sarcophagus of Princess Sitamun.

“Oh, no!” Natasha exclaimed.  She hurried forward the last few steps, climbed over a broken tree trunk, and pushed aside a white-suited forensics specialist who tried to stop her.

She had hoped for a moment that it was some trick of light and shadow that made the sarcophagus look broken, but it wasn’t.  The lid had snapped in two and was lying in the gravel on the shoreline, while the body was broken into three large pieces and countless tiny ones, leaning on the boulder and strewn across the shallow stream bed.  In the middle of it all, half-in and half-out of the water, was the mummy itself, broken in pieces and twisted almost beyond recognition as a human body.  Nobody would be getting any DNA, or anything else, out of it now.

“Madame!” the specialist said.  “You must not touch!”

“Non, pas vraiment,” Nat agreed, drawing her hand back.  “Je m’excuse.”  The stream had probably already washed a lot of evidence away and her poking around wouldn’t help.  The police had to figure out who had done this terrible thing to such a treasure and punish them for it… but whoever it was, she thought, when she found the guilty parties Natasha would break their necks herself!  The spy in her had been angry yesterday.  Today, the archaeologist was livid.

She must have looked it, too, because as she rejoined the others back at the tape, they all moved away from her – except for Allen, who put an arm around her shoulders to comfort her.

“So somebody took the mummy and the sarcophagus,” he said, “and then just threw it away?  That doesn’t make any sense.”

“No,” Natasha agreed.  “None of this makes sense.”  They had to have missed something important… but what?

[robert-c]

Thoughts on How We Became a Nation of Distrustful Conspiracy Theorists

I think it begins with President Johnson. LBJ was not the charismatic leader that JFK was. He would never command the popularity or loyalty of JFK. LBJ’s only real claim to fame (and likely reason he was chosen as VP) was his political dealing, his knowledge of how to work Congress. He was not a leader in the sense of inspiring others with ideas and ideals. He was more adept at finding pressure points, domestically, to force others to give him what he wanted.

When Kennedy was assassinated LBJ’s biggest fear was that the Soviets might be behind it, because that would mean he would be forced into a war that would certainly hijack any agenda he wanted for his presidency. So when LBJ, the backroom deal maker and manipulator, formed the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination with the intent that it find that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, things quickly got off the rails. Having a predetermined outcome at the beginning of an investigation, coupled with LBJ’s reputation, was an invitation to alternate conclusions.

Conspiracy theories about the assassination began almost immediately, with Mark Lane publishing an article a month after the assassination in December of 1963, and later a book (Rush to Judgment). Perhaps, as William Manchester speculated, people would have invented some more involved explanation to make it seem “balanced” because it seemed inconceivable that a vibrant and powerful man like the president could be taken down by a “loser loner”.

Nevertheless, it was LBJ and his administration that gave credence to the ideas that the government couldn’t be trusted. Add to this his failed attempt to sell the public that we were winning the Viet Nam war, when it was clear to everyone that was not the case, and the well of trust in good government was running dry fast. Add to this the fact, surmised at the time and now confirmed, that the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which was the excuse for escalating our role from “advisors” to combatants, was a huge mistake responding to misread radar signals which then was packaged as an attack.

The “establishment’s” resistance to obvious changes needed for social justice only further undermined a sense that the institutions of society could be relied upon to be responsive to the people, let alone to do the right things. Their resistance was made both more ridiculous and more frightening by the petty issues they also chose to focus on, e.g. hair and clothes. Follow this quickly with the assassinations of Rev. Dr. King, and Robert Kennedy and the lengths to which some would go to stop change was now clear. It was clear who had the money, power and desire to stop these changes and that no doubt helped inspire the next round of conspiracy theories, whether or not those people were involved.

No account of the decline of public trust in and decency of our leaders would be complete without mentioning Richard Nixon. His dirty tricks during the elections, and subsequent cover ups may not have been entirely new, but their exposure and his “ham-handed” way of handling them added another blemish on the highest office.

As the erosion of trust in public institutions, and other crises increase, it is sadly common for people to turn to simple (even simplistic) answers. Thus we have the rise of cults, and the extreme religious right. They offer simple, if not valid or provable, explanations that appeal to the biases and fears of their audiences.

This reaches a critical point when Ronald Reagan essentially gives the religious right a key seat at the Republican table to avoid the possibility of having independents split enough of the votes to leave him without a victory. Of course Reagan is independently an example of the erosion of the office of President as, by his own admission, he was playing a part, just like the actor he always was.

The incompetency and/or self-dealing associated with the high offices of our nation, and the electorate’s black or white thinking, insisting on simple answers to complex problems further undermine our institutions and our sense that there is some objective standard of truth. In fact, the rise of the Internet and social media turned everyone’s right to an opinion into every opinion is of equal value.

It would be another of those simple explanations to say that this is all the fault of greedy opportunists who found a way to make money publishing their conspiracy theories, or even that “loser nobodies” spread them for their moment of fame, even if only in the eyes of a handful of associates. There are surely some of the above involved, but I honestly think it has been a slow erosion over the last sixty years, and that worries me about how we can reconstruct a society that isn’t divided into camps that ignore the facts because they are unwilling to honestly examine them. We must get past this position where every rumor or piece of hearsay is taken as fact, but only if it supports our preconceived opinions.

Perhaps we could start with agreeing to validate and examine the actual facts of each issue, instead of presuming that they are lies if we don’t like them. Then maybe we could stop the “slippery slope” arguments. These have been overdone to the extreme. BTW the proper use of “slippery slope” is not what you think might happen next, but where there is no way to make a clearly definable limit between what is and isn’t to be permitted. Permitting abortion is not on a slippery slope with euthanasia because there is a well definable difference, the actual birth, the separation of one life from being hosted by another. Banning books, movies etc. because they are “offensive” is a slippery slope because there is no universal standard for what is offensive.

Maybe we could acknowledge that societies are very complex things and claiming to know exactly what will unravel one is at least potentially arrogant and wrong. Every restriction or regulation on gun ownership isn’t necessarily a step toward outlawing all gun ownership. Allowing people of color, gay and lesbian, transgender etc. to be free of discrimination in public society does NOT mandate your personal feelings. You can still think they are going to Hell, you just cannot try to make their life Hell here, any more than you would want someone to do the same to you for who you are and what you feel. (Isn’t there a “golden” rule about that somewhere?)

I am genuinely worried about those who embrace violence in the name of returning this country to what they think was its days of greatness. I will oppose them with violence if forced to, but I am still hopeful that there are enough sensible conservatives and progressives to work together to make a better world.

The conservatives often raise valid concerns about change and its destabilizing effect. We progressives should take some of that counsel and not leap so blindly. Conservatives need listen to progressives as they tell them of the way the world looks from the bottom side of our society of privilege and try to understand that everything bad or unfortunate is not someone’s own fault. Progressives need to acknowledge that sometimes some of the people we want to help are not doing enough to help themselves, that maybe some need a different sort of help from us. Both sides need to understand that there are dishonest players who will take advantage of either side’s programs and protections – and work together to end that abuse, instead of exaggerating it to criticize the other.

Most of all, we need to start and end these “debates” with an examination of all of the facts, the verified facts; not the gossipy hearsay of social media and opinion pieces masquerading as “news and information”.

[pianosamurai]

Asia Trip Part 3: Tu Lan + The Trip to Hanoi

Truth be told, we were on the fence about doing this second tour, even though it was just a 1-day trip. We were a little fuzzy on the specifics - would it be similar to Hang En? Too similar? Did we want to potentially tarnish the fun we had on the first tour, with a potentially mediocre experience the next day?

We overcame the over-thinking and went ahead with the tour, which ended up being (of course) the absolutely right thing to do. It was an even earlier pickup than the first tour, and we had the same breakfast we did the first morning at Ho Khanh’s Homestay - fried noodle with eggs, tea and some fresh mango. I realize now that I forgot to highlight our host Duc, who was the nephew of Ho Khanh and managed the entire homestay. He was a great and had an awesome energy (regardless of whatever time we saw him). I especially appreciated the conversation after we found the massive spider the first morning.

Amanda: “Good morning Duc! So we found a huge spider in our room.”

Duc (smiling): “Ooooooh...really? You okay?”

Amanda: “Oh yeah we’re fine, but I figured you should know.”

Duc (laughing nervously): “Hahahah...yeah....it’s okay! He friendly!”

And then 5 minutes later:

Duc: “Was the spider inside the room? Or outside the room?”

Amanda: “Inside the room, on the window.”

Duc: “Oooooh.....hahaha okay!”

We were picked up by another Oxalis tour guide that morning named Vu, in what I believe I was a nice Toyota RAV4. Expecting another small bus to show up with a bunch of other tourists, we were pleasantly surprised to find out that we were actually the only people on the tour that day. We were driving about an hour away, to a different cave system in a completely different area. Tu Lan is not a national park, but it was equally inspiring as the park in Phong Nha.

Along the drive, we took a highway that Vu told us was running along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and then he proceeded to dive into some Vietnam War trivia. That was one thing I was curious about, to hear their perspective and see how they react to foreigners, and Americans in particular. Granted, as tourists they were only going to give us so much information, but the way that Tha put it the day before, “For a while, the older Vietnamese generation was angry at Americans. But after a while, we decided to change our minds. And we said, okay, we should be friendly with Americans now.” In these smaller towns, tourism has actually been well-received, as it has provided lots of jobs and opportunities for the local people. I only hope that the goodwill that we experienced during our time there will remain, and grow into the future.

Just before we arrived at the headquarters in Tu Lan, we encountered a very muddy stretch of the road that had actually handicapped an Oxalis van, carrying a few tour guides (including Tha) who were going to the headquarters for a training session. Apparently a bridge had been in place previously, but over the years it had started to deteriorate until it was finally taken down to make way for a new bridge to be constructed. But at that moment, we were between bridges - bring on the mud. The van eventually managed to squirm its way up the little slope leading back to the main road. More on this mud zone later.

There was some light drizzle on and off throughout the day (hence the mud), but obviously not enough to deter the tour from happening. We made it to the headquarters, where we got situated and received an abbreviated safety briefing from Vu (”you guys know all this stuff already, so we’re good”). And then the three of us started trekking towards the caves.

For any cinephiles who are reading this, much of the recent King Kong movie “Skull Island” was filmed in this region. While that was generally used as a selling point on the Oxalis website, Vu seemed only mildly amused by the connection (”I haven’t even seen the movie!”). I actually did see the movie, and while I wasn’t nearly geeking out over being on location where they shot the film, it was pretty fun to imagine a huge gorilla and a huge dinosaur battling amongst the hills and rivers around us.

But humongous creatures aside, it was clear why the filmmakers were attracted to this area. It had a sense of mystery and wonder that kept me intrigued the whole day. I’m sure the vibe would have been completely different in the summer, with blue skies and sun, but I’m happy that we experienced this place in the exact state that we found it.

A long, flat walk amongst rice and peanut fields (and a whole lot of water buffalo) led us to our first river and then eventually our first cave. The caves we explored on this day were nowhere near the magnitude or scope of Hang En, but they still had plenty to offer. If anything, it made me want to go watch the Planet Earth “Caves” episode again, which I’m sure I had not nearly appreciated enough the first time.

As the day went on, I grew more and more thankful that we hadn’t decided to pull the plug on the tour. This experience was so different than Hang En - not just the setting, or the caves. The fact that it was just me, Amanda and Vu (and an occasional porter or chef) gave us the chance to really appreciate the solitude and the majesty of the Tu Lan area. Rather than a handful of tour guides shepherding a group of random assorted tourists, it just felt like a few buddies taking a walk through the jungle, stopping at times to admire crazy stalactite formations, local cows that crept up to within a couple feet of our trail, or super dark cave ladders like this one:

(dub step analogy ahead): This small section of the trip could have been considered the Build, if our lunch campsite was the Drop (sorry). We had to climb down that (clearly) not well-lit ladder, which led to a dark cave within the river that we canoed down for a few minutes before being spit out at this beautiful little nook:

The campsite was at the far end of this little lake, and we relaxed for a bit while the sky tried to figure out if it wanted to rain, or just seem threatening. Again, lunch was a delicious combo of spring roll/bánh mì fixings (assembly required). Another highlight of this day was having an uninterrupted opportunity to talk with and learn about Vu, our guide. He was from the city of Hue, where his parents had owned a coffee shop. After school, he decided to move to Phong Nha to escape the hustle of the big city. Naturally, he said the instant coffee that was more easily found in these rural areas didn’t really get the job done for him (”I drink 6 cups a day, and feel nothing”). He told us about his first experiences with Oxalis, when he was the only applicant who didn’t speak English, but he was a good enough swimmer that they brought him on for training. The caving experts that train the guides are all based in the UK, which explained Vu’s fairly consistent British accent. When asked what country he would most like to visit (he had never left Vietnam), he replied “America” without too much hesitation. Why? “Because you can make money there.”

After lunch, we took a slightly more perilous route back down to the main trail, up and over a steep hill complete with spiky, slippery rocks. Thankfully nobody got themselves hurt - just very muddy. As we found flat ground again and reached our final river crossing (heading back to the headquarters), I paused for a few seconds, mid-river, letting the water wash the mud out of my shoes and feet. I tried to breathe slowly and let the moment sink in, and not just take this last wet river crossing for granted. People may wonder (especially the locals) why city dwellers from halfway around the world would pay money to walk around in the jungle, through the mud, over hills with sharp rocks, getting sweatier and dirtier by the minute. An easy answer would be “to feel alive”. But I think more than that, it was “to remember what life is, and what it can be”. In a place such as New York City, it’s very easy to get wrapped up in your day-to-day life, and oftentimes global happenings outside of the five boroughs only register as a blip on your News App. The day that I started to travel more frequently for music, my relationship to New York City - and the world as a whole - changed dramatically. To put oneself in a situation such as this river, this jungle trek - I looked at it as a self-inflicted reminder, to stay humble, and to always appreciate the lifestyles and customs of other people around the world. Just because they do things differently than us, doesn't mean that they aren’t as passionate about life and invested in what they do. And that’s something I can always respect.

A return to headquarters was capped off with a most-welcome hot shower at a stall that was set up about 50 yards from the main building. At this point, my trusty New Balance sneakers had, sadly, started to kick the bucket. The tread had started to peel off the bottoms of the shoes, and I could almost hear them yelling, “Come on man, give us a break!” So I donated them to Vietnam, and Vu said he would keep them at the headquarters, just in case somebody with huge feet showed up one day and needed to borrow a pair for their own excursion.

Although had I known what was coming up next, I might have held onto them a little while longer. Remember the muddy stretch of road that we passed in the morning? As we approached it on our return to Phong Nha, we were held up by a couple of people who were helping to guide a vehicle coming up from the opposite way. Turns out, that vehicle was a big tractor with BIG wheels. We all had the same thought instantly, fearing that the BIG wheels had left some DEEP grooves in the mud, and if our RAV4 managed to slip into those grooves, we might get stuck.

Well guess what - that’s exactly what happened. Despite our driver’s best efforts, we were squirming along the muddy decline, trying to drive in between those grooves without falling into them. But everyone knew the moment that the wheels slipped, and we were just stuck. Long story short, the Oxalis van that needed rescuing in the morning came to our aid, and a coalition of myself, Vu, Tha and the van driver managed to push the RAV4 from behind, eventually giving it enough leverage to snarl out of the grooves, nearly drive off the side of the road, and then finally clamber back up the incline on the other side. All the effects of the hot shower were completely erased by the splattering and the (slowly drying) mud cakes covering my feet and sandals. But after the initial discomfort, I thought - why not? I spent the whole day trekking through mud, so it only seemed appropriate (in hindsight) that I would re-muddy myself with a few Vietnamese dudes, shoving a car out of a ditch. It was like an added authentic bonus to the tour that Oxalis had been keeping a surprise. (Although I’m sure they aren’t trying to make a habit out of this.)

We eventually made it back to Phong Nha, where we gathered ourselves at a chic little restaurant on the main strip near our bus stop. In my scheduling madness, I had booked a sleeper bus from Phong Nha to Hanoi, which was an 8-9 hour drive. This way, we could get to our final destination by midday the following day, and also didn’t have to worry about a hotel for that evening. Dinner was surprisingly good (didn’t expect that I would be eating wood-fired pizza in Vietnam), and then when the bus finally showed up, we entered what would be one of the more hilarious nights of our trip - and maybe our lives?

Hilarious could be the wrong word - maybe strange, special, a little nerve-wracking? Some combination of all those things. I have no photos of this bus, but Amanda summed it up the best halfway through the drive, when she half mumbled to me, “If I just pretend like I’m on the Knight Bus from the Harry Potter movie, I’m good.”

Facing the back of the bus from the front, there were three rows of double-decker bunks. Not 180-degree flat bunks, but more like the passenger seat of a car, folded as far back as it can go. Add a little plastic case surrounding the bottom and sides of the chair (imagine the material from a Fisher-Price jungle gym), and that’s what the sleeping situation was like. They were most definitely one-shooters, so Amanda and I found neighboring bunks.

Once we got going, it became quickly apparent that the bus drivers (there were two that alternated during the drive) were not too interested in the notion that people were trying to sleep. Honking, speeding, swerving, revving, spitting out the window - all was fair game. In hindsight it was hilarious - I mean, what more was I expecting at $14 a ticket for an overnight bus ride? - but at the time, there were a few moments where I had to question whether or not I had made the right decision.

Regardless, we made it to Hanoi somewhat alive, and after a brief stop to gather our bearings at a nearby hostel, we embarked on Phase 2 of our journey that day - to Cat Ba Island!

[whatiswildness]

Trapped Alone Underground

A true story of spelunking (caving) in the Jedediah Smith Wilderness, Idaho, USA.

Some believe Wind Cave and Ice Cave a mile away are connected deep inside the mountain explaining the channelling of air through the narrow entrance. I entered the cave alone after strapping up with foam and duct tape to protect my knees and donning my old military waterproof, more to smooth my passage against sharp rocks than to keep off drops. I endeavoured to find out for myself where the wind came from.

The Tetons

View from the ridge

Entrance to the cave 

I was hurrying; excited, exhilarated. Adrenaline was coursing through me and I hardly noticed the sharpness of asthma as I drew thin, cold air at almost 9,000 feet. I slithered through to the point I had reached on my recce a week before. I was well beyond earshot of the entrance now, beyond earshot of anyone or anything. Then I continued into the unknown. After an hour, I reached a large cavern. The burbling sounds of underground rivers filled the space and I saw beneath me a significant drop of 18 feet or so. Someone had attached two ropes, one with knots.

‘Great’, I thought, I can rappel down and continue without losing too much time. A local had spoken of a need to wade through a pool after rappelling down, and further in, of an “impossible cliff”, at which point they said in no uncertain terms I would have to turn back. I wanted to make the most of my torch battery and reach the cliff with time to spare so that I might at least attempt it.

I found a flooded passage soon after rappelling down and began to ‘wade’ – this must have been what the local meant although it was only knee deep. I then searched each corner of the low, non-linear cavern beyond. Sediment formed a silt-sand substrate interspersed with rocky patches. Apart from one, very low and half-silted hole, I found no way through. I turned back, through the flooded passageway. The water sucked and popped at its overhung edges as I made wake. I passed the large cavern with the drop and made a painstaking search of a second low, silty cavern. Again, no way out, nothing except for a conspicuous shoe print which may have been there months since the last meltwater flood. As I compartmentalised later, these became forks ‘1′ and ‘2′.

I returned to the pothole with the drop and scaled the opposite rockface with the aid of a third knotted rope. I was sure this must be the way – what other reason could there be for the rope? Deeper still, ‘fork 3’ split into an upper and lower passage with a collapsed ceiling separating them. The upper passage was precarious. The crumbling stack of rock had collapsed more or less intact and become wedged with large gaps remaining each side opening into the lower passage 20 feet below. I followed the upper passage first and found only a tiny, child-size, aperture among rockfall at the end. The lower passage was yet more precipitous as it sloped downwards. Rocks fell beneath my feet and the hole seemed like an abyss. I made it to the bottom but only to find several more ominous descents with at least one leading towards a raging subterranean torrent of water. I could have carried on but was beginning to doubt myself. Could I find a route through? 

It was all starting to seem a little unfeasible. I could no longer feel the wind and couldn’t bring myself to descend yet further; it seemed counter-intuitive as an exit strategy. As well-traversed as the cave system seemed – the footprint, the ropes - it dawned on me that it might still be possible to get lost. I had three conflicting pieces of evidence: The pond of ‘fork 1’ bore a resemblance to the local’s ‘wading’ route description; the footprint found in ‘fork 2’ indicated someone had been there since it last flooded; and the old rope leading to ‘fork 3’ ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ supported the third possible route. I opted to turn back and call it a day. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t found the other cave entrance or the source of the wind. I was elated by the whole experience. 

I arrived back to the large pothole with the drop. The rope I had used to rappel down was hanging helpfully where I had left it. I confidently ‘backwards rappelled’ up the rock face; knot by knot, stride by stride – my torch between my teeth where it had been much of the time. I felt strong, grasping for the final knot and planning my ‘caterpillar shuffle’ onto the level top from whence I had come.

But I missed the final knot.

The smooth, wet rope slithered between my palm and fingers at an accelerating pace. The next knot arrived and jolted through my burning hands, then the next and the next until I was in near free-fall towards the jagged rock floor. I stumbled, turned my left ankle over and fell hard onto my back.

“Damn, how did that happen?!”

I tried again, planning my hand and foot placement more carefully but I just couldn’t get foot purchase on the slippery rock or the thin nylon rope. My arms didn’t have the strength to do the job alone. After a second hard landing, I noticed that the ropes were hanging limply a foot and a half from the rock face at head level. I was battling an overhang.

Over the next hour or so I tried everything I could think of. My attempts became less and less successful as the cold and the muscle ache began to bite. Some routes, to the left of the rope, may have been possible, just, if I was fresh and the rock warm and dry, but my fingers were cold and cramped – unused to climbing. I crossed-off route after route and fell several times, the pain would only be felt later. Attempts to loop the rope to provide a rest stop at a higher level ended with my slipping through the noose and hanging upside down by one knee. Eventually wriggling out, I left the wall and searched lower ‘fork 3’ again, but again lost confidence during the decent and returned. Surely, where there was a will there was a way? 

The time was 4.17pm.

Nothing was working and at that moment my torch gave out. I still had my phone but the battery was at 32%. I used it for one final search of ‘fork 3’, and to record a short video diary. 

Short video diary

The phone was only useful for climbing upwards or downwards, not traversing as I could only carry it edge-ways in my teeth. I didn’t dare strap it on letting it out of my grip – I couldn’t stand the thought of losing my only light down a dark hole. I figured I’d save my remaining battery for a later, more desperate, stage. Perhaps in the ‘morning’ I’d be so cold and hungry that it would be worth my while trying to squeeze through the back of ‘fork 2’ or upper ‘fork 3’ in search of an escape. 

It was some time before I found that the torch had regained a few seconds of power having been warmed in my pocket. Further attempts at the problem rock face required these precious seconds of torchlight.  Between attempts I jogged lightly on the spot and swung my arms vigorously in the bitter air, singing and talking to myself in the pitch black.

With the strain of each rushed attempt at the rock wall, my front teeth were beginning to chip on the steel torch. I began to wedge some dirty knee foam in first. My mouth tasted of the fine mineral sediment. I was, by this time, using the second rope hanging near to the knotted rope as a safety line. I made a small rock pile to one side and stood on it, tying the safety rope under my arms. Each stage of this process required long, frustrating periods of torch and finger warming. The added height of the rock pile, and thus shortness of the safety rope, allowed me to fall more safely from the rock face without hitting the ground. It reduced the risk considerably and allowed me to take more chances, but to no avail.

After 8 hours underground, the torch was totally dead and no amount of warming would resurrect it. I gave up trying to climb out. 

I was in total darkness. 

Sometimes I would doze, rousing myself regularly to jog on the spot for warmth or call for help which, although futile, helped me feel like I was doing everything I could. 

The trickling echo of the stream below began to sound so much like the chatter of women and children that I couldn’t help but shout out and remove my hood in anticipation of a distant response. A slab was pivoting back and forth rhythmically somewhere deep beneath me as water rushed over it sounding for all the world like the deliberate movements of a person. My mind began to create images, grainy at first, but becoming progressively more detailed as the hours passed. I saw the cave around me, every detail of the rock. The effect was of dim starlight and I began, against all the odds, to feel at peace. I knew the images were wildly inaccurate but they felt real, and strangely comforting. I began to move around and even climb without light, not the impossible face, just to and from my perch at the entrance to ‘fork 3’ where I could avoid the water seeping through the roof of the main cavern. It became easy, a routine effort to stay warm. My hope for scaling the rock face fizzled out with the torch but the space was nonetheless becoming my own.

I was determined not to use the phone light and battery until I became hypothermic and starving – a scenario which crossed my mind in which I’d need to take more desperate measures. I settled into another routine minus the efforts to escape – this was the waiting game. I climbed to keep warm, I jogged, I talked to myself, I sang, I dozed, and I thought. All without the interruption of light or life of any kind. The darkness became so normal that it didn’t elicit fear at all.

The only fear which lingered was of falling asleep in the freezing temperatures.

Dan (who ‘might’ have called in a rescue the next day)

I had told a friend where I was going that day. I felt the probability of ‘Dan’ reporting my disappearance and a rescue mission being mounted in the morning at the latest was strong. I came to believe it absolutely. It became doctrine and I forced myself to block out any doubt. I knew I could survive the night at least. Besides, I was glad to be safe from the grizzly bears outside. There was no way any large carnivore could squeeze into my private chamber. I ran through the plan for the morning. If no rescue arrived by 9.30am, I would leave notes at regular intervals – and try to squeeze through the ‘fork 2’ or lower or upper ‘fork 3’ openings and hope they offered a way out. I would search for air movement with my lighter as I went.

Then a miracle happened. I heard an unusual knock. I dozed on, having learnt to curb my enthusiasm at such noises hours previously. A minute later I began to hear low voices in stark contrast to the chatter of women and children down by the stream. Almost at the same moment I saw a glimmer of light across the pothole and up the passage beyond the impossible rock face. Finally, mountain rescue had arrived, I thought. I shouted out with an enormous sense of relief.

Three white lights approached. 

But something was off, I couldn’t understand why my rescuers were so unsure of themselves. Surely, they had expected to find me here and had a plan ready to execute. They should be responding to my garbled words of thanks and pronouncements that I wasn’t injured. They should be readying harnesses to haul me up the rock face. Where were the calm reassurances and the witty jibes I had imagined all mountain rescuers provide in such circumstances?

I asked whether Dan had alerted them and somewhere behind the torches a voice hesitantly replied, “Nah”. 

It was getting a little awkward. 

Then it dawned on me that this was all a complete coincidence. Three young guys from a town thirty miles away had just decided that evening to hike up into the Tetons at midnight, crawl half a mile back into a cave and there they were, wondering whether they should run or hide from this strange creature peering out of the darkness. One was wearing shorts, none had gloves. The youngest, eighteen, had a handgun on his hip but no equipment. As the eldest asked cautiously whether I was trying to get out and if I needed help, I was struck dumb by the serendipity of it all.

I learnt later that they had almost given up and turned back twice but for some spirit of adventure which willed them deeper into the mountain. Perhaps they were searching for the same, strange, dark, wilderness that had led me there.

I rappelled down the opposite rock face and tied the safety rope under my arms. I threw every last ounce of strength into hauling myself up the knotted rope which had become my nemesis. The three heroes did the rest and pulled me over the overhang without much fuss. I hugged the nearest dark space beneath a head torch and we beat a hasty retreat, shuffling on our stomachs and crabbing where space permitted. By the time we emerged under a crisp starry sky, I had been underground for almost 12 hours.

The three-mile trip down to the track was cheerful and I fetched them a bag of road beers from the river chiller back at camp. After a brief chat with Dan – who had been asleep and generally rather less concerned than I’d hoped – I wolfed down a can of kidney beans in the back of my SUV and curled up, bruised and reeking, on my 2-inch foam mattress. It felt remarkably thin as I began to notice each cut, bruise and sprain.

The ‘river chiller’

The SUV

I was both stupid and lucky. I could have become pretty chilly waiting for a rescue, I could have knocked myself out trying to scale the rock face, or maybe if I’d made it over and out, and hiked down in the dark, I would have tripped and fallen, or surprised a grizzly bear. In retrospect, however, I have been in much worse mental states of panic worrying about work, school or those I love. I was stuck deep underground, alone, shivering in the dark, but deep down I felt… fine. More than that it felt wild, a rare and unlikely satisfaction.

[thehikingviking]

Ka’ala, the High Point of Oahu

I planned a New Year vacation to Oahu for 2019. I took too long to plan a trip back since our last visit to Maui and Kona back in 2016, and Asaka was sure to frequently remind me of my past promise to return quickly. Due to visa and green card complications, Asaka was not allowed to leave the country if she wanted to come back, so visiting Honolulu would be as close as she could get to experiencing Japan once again. The obvious hiking objective for the trip was Ka’ala, the high point of the island with over 4,000 ft of prominence. My biggest fear was the break-ins at the trailhead, so I left all my luggage at the Airbnb and parked my rental with all the windows rolled down, hoping that would leave no doubt that there was nothing of value in the car, and eliminate any potential smashed windows. The only thing I left in the Jeep were my dirty old Sperry Top Siders. If a thief were to steal those then I was okay with it because they must have really needed them.

We started up a paved road which leads to a hunting cabin and the start of the dirt trail. From the very beginning a stray dog began to follow us. At first I was annoyed at the dog but she slowly grew on me. To the west was Kamaile’unu Ridge.

We passed by some building (maybe a water facility) and shortly after we arrived at the hunting cabin, which was simply a picnic table with a tin roof. 

Here we met the dirt trail and continued into the forest. Surprisingly the dog continued to follow us.

There are a couple of forks in the trail, but the key is to follow the purple bottle caps (or your GPS track). 

The fungus in the area grew on trees like in my childhood video games and cartoons. 

Parts of the jungle were so thick that I felt like I was in a tunnel.

The trail steepened as we approached the main ridge. Steps were held together from the exposed roots of the many trees. I used the trees alongside the trail to help aid me up the arduous section.

At the ridge we were greeted with a view of the ocean. 

From here we followed a pig fence east.

Pu’u Kepau’ula and Pu’u Kawiwi were visible to the southwest. 

To the west was the Makua Kea’au Forest Reserve, looking like something out of Jurassic Park, although the movie was actually filmed on Kauai.

We continued along the pig fence which followed the steep ridgeline higher up the mountain.

Soon we reached some unexpected class 3 rocks. I must admit I didn’t prepare much for this hike aside from loading the GPS track onto my phone, and the difficulty of the climbing was a pleasant surprise.

There were a series of ropes dangling from above, however I tried not to trust my whole weight on them and used them more for balance.

The stray dog could not climb the class 3 boulders so we left her behind. The ropes and ladders made things much easier than they would have been, and without them the climb would have been impossible when wet.

I was taken aback by the exposure on the route considering it is a very popular trail. It was one thing for seasoned hikers like me and Asaka to do this, but would be another thing for some out of shape tourist from Oklahoma. 

As we passed the crux of the climbing we encountered slippery and muddy slopes which were even more difficult. At first I tried to avoid the mud but this became impossible. We slowly sloshed up the soggy trail, pulling on the rope more and more frequently.

As we neared the top of the ridge we entered the Ka’ala Natural Area Reserve.

We passed through the pig fence at a gate and the trail continued beyond.

We finally reached the edge of the plateau and the top of the ridge. The views were spectacular. The summit remained a half mile further, but we still had to pass through a bog before reaching the high point.

We were happy to find a series a planks which kept us above the bog.

We came across a couple of environmentalists attempting to remove invasive plant species from the bog. It seemed like a tough job with all the dense vegetation and large area to cover.

We emerged from the forest to an area covered with communication towers.

There were a couple trucks parked outside. While it may be possible to drive to the top if you are someone associated with the reserve or the towers, the trail was the best part of the hike.

We circled the communications towers to get views of the surroundings. We passed by some unknown lizard along the way.

The Pacific Ocean was visible in almost every direction. To the north was Haleiwa.

To the east were the Schofield Barracks.

To the southeast was Honolulu.

To the south was the summit plateau we just crossed.

After circling the communication towers we sat down and had lunch. The hike took much longer than I anticipated, but we still had plenty of time left in the day. It felt good to get the primary objective of the trip out of the way on the first day. This would help me relax the rest of the week. We retraced our steps and reentered the bog on our descent.

Going down the ridge was harder than climbing up. We had to be mindful of our footing and take our time. I was very happy the weather was sunny because even a light sprinkle would make things more slippery, adding to the difficulty. 

We passed by another couple climbing up the ridge. They asked if that was our dog at the base of the climb. Apparently she was barking and appeared very worried. I was surprised the stray dog had cared so much about us, but she was gone by the time we reached the bottom of the climb.

When we returned to the trailhead my rental car was how I left it. We drove back to the Airbnb, picked up our stuff, then spent the rest of the day at the beach.

[tombloodyfelton]

I simply needed to write this to stop my heart from shattering every time i thought about Julian's silent suffering. Someone HAD to come back to comfort him. I chose HR.

They force him into giving up control, to let his mind be violated in the most terrifying way possible. They leave him shattered to pick up the pieces after himself. Only one comes back to see if he needs any help. He doesn’t. He won’t make the same mistake again.

“Hey, James.” 

Julian stiffens at hearing the voice and the approaching footsteps and pushes his face off the wall to turn around. The godawful nausea doesn’t just subside and the throbbing pain behind his eyes and at the back of his skull is testing his patience. He wishes he could just go home and throw up into the toilet until he could breathe properly again, past the rising bile in his throat and the crushing weight against his chest that feels like it has punctured his lungs. But he feels too weak and dizzy to be able to drive himself home tonight.

He needs to be away from humanity for a while. 

He needs time to readjust.

But HR cannot know about the turmoil coiling around Julian’s heart, the urge to throw up, to shut down, to curl into a ball and scream his throat sore. Julian bites his lip and digs his nails into the softness of his palms to stop himself from breaking down. The pain inside is suffocating him, like his veins have been replaced by barbed tendrils of anguish dripping the deadliest poison into his heart. He needs to bring the pain and the poison outside, somehow.

But not in front of prying eyes.

“I brew you that tea I promised you earlier,” HR offers him a mug with steam and a rich aroma rising from the dark liquid, looking at him with soft blue eyes and a softer smile. “Go on, take it. See if it tastes anything like the tea back home.”

“Uh…” He doesn’t know what to say, or just can’t bring himself to say it right now. He isn’t feeling grateful at all. What he feels is an ugly mess of betrayal, violation, distress, loneliness and...revulsion; at himself, for letting others take advantage of him when he should have known better, at Barry for being the one to take advantage of him when he promised he would never, at Caitlin for having played with his feelings in such a selfish, careless way, for siding with Barry and trying to manipulate him into giving up his last shred of pride and dignity to be violated by Savitar; and at Savitar, for using him as a mere puppet, a mouthpiece, a pawn.

He is no one’s pawn, wasn’t that what he told himself when he left home all those years ago?

And yet here he is now, at the mercy of some phony god, letting the people he had begun to trust as friends pressure him into doing their dirty work for them and not even being slightly apologetic for the way they have abused that trust.

He is still a pawn. His eyes sting with a slap of hot tears welling up inside the sockets, but he forces down the lump in his throat along with the scream that wants to tear its way out of his skull. Hiding his feelings and retreating into his private shell away from everyone, oh how he has become a professional at this game in which he wins by defeating himself every time.

He almost laughs at the irony of it all.

“Please, try it, I promise it’ll be to your liking. I had a friend back on my own earth who was from London. She taught me how to brew a proper cup of tea. Said I was so good at it I should open my own specialized tea shop.”

There is kindness on his face, in the calming lilt of his voice, in the hand that reaches out to softly graze the edge of Julian’s tense shoulder. Julian brings the mug to his mouth and lets the hot steam brush against the dryness of his lips in a seductive swirl. He takes a small sip with his eyes still trained on HR, seeing how his expression blooms into a wide, pleased smile.

“So, how is it? You like it?” He is grinning from ear to ear, all straight white teeth and sparkling eyes. There is something about his enthusiasm that feels almost childlike. Innocent. Without any malicious intent. Or selfish motive.

God but is he sick of the selfishness of humankind.

“Yeah, it’s fine.” and as an afterthought, “thank you.”

He keeps sipping his tea as he moves to sit on a chair, feeling the gripping pain around his heart slightly give way. He puts the now empty mug away on the desk and leans back in his chair, tilting his head upward and closing his eyes.

He needs some strong sleeping pills right now. The thoughts in his head are damaging his mind.

“Julian.”

He calls his name in a strange tone, somehow naked, vulnerable and pained. And it is his actual name that he has used, not a silly nickname. Julian turns his head toward him, raising a brow. He has never seen HR looking like this at anyone. It leaves him with a disorienting feeling in the pit of his stomach, like he has just dropped down into a parallel universe or a different timeline where everything looks the same but doesn’t feel the same at all; like he is missing something vital.

“I know they hurt you. What Barry asked you to do was uncalled for, completely immoral. I...I’m sorry. I should’ve stopped him from going for that option. Especially the second time. I tried but I’m just a silly man. I don’t know how to do the right thing the right way.”

Of all the people Julian was expecting, almost hoping, to apologize for what they forced him into doing, HR was not even on the list. He may not be the genius that he once claimed to be, but he was not a bad person. He had never used Julian, or asked anything of him. He was just there giving people the encouragement they needed to do what they wanted to get done. This was the first time he was offering it to Julian. And Julian didn’t know what to do with it.

“It’s alright. You don’t need to apologize.”

HR shakes his head furiously at this, “oh no, no, no it’s definitely not alright. I don't have to be a scientist to know what you just went through, and twice at that, was the worst kind of torture one could be subjected to. They shouldn’t have asked you to do this, they should’ve respected your choice for not wanting to be abused like that. That’s...that’s anybody’s right to decline to be subjected to violation.”

The nausea is back, pushing its way stubbornly out of his throat. And the urge to break down and cry, right in front of HR. Oh no, he won’t sink that low. He will fight for his dignity if it’s the last thing he’ll do. He will not break down. He is strong enough to move past this trauma. He will not let anyone see him as weak and pathetic as he once was. He has left that part of his life way behind, and he is not going back to it. Not now, not ever.

“I...I appreciate your concern, but it’s not necessary. I’m not...I’m not going to fall apart and I’m not holding anyone responsible for what I had to do,” such pretty lies. Better than the ugly truths he is keeping under lock and key inside. Julian can’t deal with them right now. “I do everything on my own terms, I don’t let anyone bully me into doing their dirty work for them.” But didn’t they just do that, Julian ignores the thought with a stubbornness that has always been the envy of all.

HR sighs and rubs his hand across his face in a show of defeat. He takes several steps toward Julian’s seated form to stand right before him. Julian looks up with questioning eyes. Before he even knows what is happening, he feels HR’s hand against the left side of his face and the soft pressure of lips against his own. Too shocked to react, he allows HR’s lingering touch as he gets a waft of his scent, coffee beans and aftershave. He had fantasized many times about how kissing Barry Allen would feel like. He gave Caitlin a quick peck on the lips today but she didn’t return the kiss at all. He had no memory of being kissed by anyone. Until now.

He couldn’t believe HR has just given him his first kiss. Of all the people on earth-1 that could have done that for Julian, it had to be the one who didn’t even belong to this earth at all.

“Julian, please, you need to leave.”

He touches Julian’s lower lip with the pad of his fingers as Julian keeps staring up at him with widened eyes.

“Why?” He’s not asking why he needs to leave, but why HR has kissed him.

“Because Barry, he’s a good boy, he really is, but he’s preoccupied with saving Iris right now and he can’t think clearly with all this fear of losing his love clouding his mind. He will hurt you and he won’t even notice that he’s doing it, so he won’t apologize. I know you like him, Julian.  I’ve seen the way you look at him at times. And this isn’t how you should be treated by someone you like.”

Julian pushes himself off the chair to stand up. He refuses to discuss his unrequited, stupid love story with someone like HR. Or any other person for that matter. “No, why did you kiss me?”

HR looks away, worrying his bottom lip in a nervous fashion. “I...I don’t know. You looked like you needed comfort, and kissing is a comforting act, isn’t it? At least on my earth, it is.”

He isn’t giving him the truthful answer, but Julian isn’t about to confront him with this right now. He just wants this day to end. Exhaustion has soaked right through his bones, about to cripple him any minute now.

“I don’t need comfort, HR.” He says in a firm, steady voice, in contrast to how he is really feeling inside. “I don’t need anything from anyone. Stop trying to fix me, I’m not...I’m not someone’s broken toy thrown aside.”

He takes a deep breath as HR nods his head slowly in confirmation of his words, although he looks anything but convinced.

“I had Savitar inside my head for almost two years, what’s another trip down the slippery slope, ha?” He doesn’t even care that he is using sarcasm now, possibly working against his own case.

“You’re strong, Julian, and I know you can take this, but that doesn’t mean that you should. You don’t deserve to be treated like this.”

Julian snorts and runs his hand through his hair. “It doesn’t matter, HR. I’m just doing my part. It was my own folly to think that I matter to these people. I’ve never really fitted in this family, I’m just an outsider with some fucked-up benefits. I get that. It’s you who don’t. You don’t belong here either. You and I...we only have ourselves to fall back on. And it’s ok. We don’t need them. We don’t need anybody but ourselves to get through this hell.”

He places a hand on HR’s shoulder and gives it a firm squeeze. Then he walks out of the workshop with long, quick strides. He doesn’t stop when HR calls his name one last time. He meant it when he said he didn’t need anyone at all.

He has always been fighting his battles on his own. Why should he let things change now? He is strong. He doesn’t need Barry’s soft smiles, or Caitlin’s comforting advice. He doesn't even need HR’s misplaced concern for his wellbeing.

He has a god in his head and that should be enough.

[cyclinginaskirt-uk]

Acrophobia; the irrational fear of heights or Basophobia; the fear of falling; both both genuine phobias and both the current personal experience between which I’m shuffling frantically.

It’s a mental shuffle of course as I’m actually frozen to the spot, extreme terror rendering me immobile, plastered against the back of the cable car with my eyes shut, whimpering and clinging on for dear life.

I should probably point out that this is no life-threatening situation, the lift bubble, in fully functioning order, is just swaying languidly up its final ascent of the mountain summit. I on the other hand am a complete wreck and this is only day one. Not liking the idea of extreme heights, or falling from them, I have to fight long and hard with my natural reaction to run screaming from any of the very flimsy looking ski lifts that flow up and down the mountain area of Tignes.

The trade-off however for enduring the humiliation of having to be scraped out of the cable car like a lump of jelly is that my bike and I get a gloriously quick ride to the summit, after which, I can scare myself nearly as much by riding the trails back down the mountain.

Welcome to fear 101 and the joy of mountain biking in the Alps.

Following on from a baptism of fire last year in the bike parks of Les Gets and Morzine, I’ve chosen (yep, it was an actual choice) to return to the Alps this summer, this time to the French resort of Tignes (pronounced ‘Teen‘), a purpose built ski resort/Olympic venue in winter and mountain bike paradise in summer. This year it was also meant to be the finishing point for one of the final Tour De France stages until freak hail storms and mudslides dramatically stopped the race.

Comprising of 5 villages (I know this from the hotel quiz) Tignes sprawls up the mountainside between an elevation of 1,440 and 2100 metres. I’m staying near the upper end in Tignes Le Lac and the day after arriving I’m really feeling the altitude.

As I puff and gasp my way up the road to the bike hire shop I can only hope that this altitude training will have spectacular gains when I return to sea level as right now even carrying a cup of coffee is making me gasp for breath. I’d expected the trails to cause my heart rate rise of course I just hadn’t foreseen it to be quite so elevated before getting on the bike!

Day one and I’ve discovered that in Tignes, bikes and suspension forks are big….and hire prices are even bigger.

As there’s a definite difference in the ratio of male to female riders (a quick straw poll would say 75-80% male), frames are also geared to the larger biker, presumably why the hire shop offer me a child’s bike at first! Having declined my only remaining option is a Kona Stinky which, with 200mm of fork travel both front and back, is ridiculously over-sprung for what I need. Add to this the set of body armour and full face helmet I’ve been strapped in to and I feel I should be taking on Red Bull rampage, not the lowly green trails on which we’re starting.

M, whom I’m with, has of course lucked out and managed to hire a reasonably priced, perfectly sized Kona Process 153 for the week. Grrr.

Decked out like robocop, the first stop is the Palafour lift, dead centre of town. Unlike Les Gets this lift is free and has lovely assistants who lift your bike on and off, so all terrified first timers like me need to concentrate on is getting themselves in situ – easier said than done.

It’s a chilly 10 minute ride up to the frigid heights of the mountain to 2564 metres. The view of snow drifts and gambolling marmots offers some distraction at least from both the altitude and the distance from which one would crash to earth.

As in the UK, French MTB trails are generally graded green (easiest), blue, red and black although as I learned last year, a French green trail and a UK one bear little in common indeed French green is UK green on steroids.

Being early in the season (the lifts only opening the previous week) there’s still snow on some of the trails and as we start off down the green trail we are immediately skidding everywhere on icy drifts, it’s an exhilarating start. The trails are in good condition though, free mostly from the annoying washboard effect of braking bumps and immediately enjoyable!

They’re still surprisingly technical but after our initiation in Morzine last year maybe we’ve revised our expectations, or just got a little better. Whichever, the swoopy descents and hairpins make a technical but satisfying first run.

The runs may be better than expected but the bike certainly isn’t, the big front end making it heavy and hard to steer. The saddle is also set at its lowest point meaning you can’t sit and pedal unless you have your knees up by your elbows like a toddler. This kind of arrangement is fine if you’re shredding down the black runs but exhausting if you have to pedal the flatter sections and my leg muscles are already on fire.

That morning we give the Palafour lift a work out covering all the green and blue runs. The blues, surprisingly, differ little from the greens, a bit steeper, looser, rockier but great to ride albeit with shakier and shakier legs.

A quick coffee stop and we tackle Le Lac’s opposing mountain via the next scary ski lift.

The Toviere bubble (enclosed car) takes you up to 2704 meters to intersect with the chair lift from Val Claret. From here there’s the option of a multitude of green, blue and red runs either back down to Le Lac or to Val D’Isere on the other side of the mountain.

The day’s adrenaline is catching up both from biking and from surviving the lifts but for some reason we opt to return to Le Lac down Gunpowder, 4.5km of fast blue trail and a full on 600 metre rapid descent of steeply sloping berms (banked corners) which just keep on coming. Already fatigued, legs wobbling we hit the downward trail after which there’s little stopping. By the time we reach the bottom my fingers are like claws, frozen to the brakes and my legs are shaking so much I can hardly pedal, but we’re down, in one piece and you might say it was nearly fun. Nearly.

The next day the stinky and I have gone our separate ways and I’ve managed to find a brand new Mondraker Stealth, 170mm of travel both ends and mercifully, a dropper seat post, in Tignes this is classed as an enduro (cross country) bike but it’s more than sufficient for my needs and skills.

Happier already we have a quick warm up via the Palafour trails before heading up Toviere as today we’re intent on exploring the trails down to Val d’Isere.

At around 13km in length from the furthest lifts station these are some of the longest trails in the Alps and oh so worthwhile. The creatively named Borsattack, Val Bleue and Popeye are beautifully built and are a joy to ride. Twisty, flowy tracks that wind sinuously ever downwards they are packed with table top jumps which you can dispatch or avoid as required, rock gardens and boarded bridges as you descend down the stark upper slopes into lush green alpine meadows and pine forests on blue grade (or green if preferred) trail until you’re finally spat out, breathless, exhausted in the pretty (and ruinously expensive) resort of Val D’Isere for a much needed rest and recovery stop.

After lunch we headed back up via the Olympique/Bellevarde bubble lift, a staggeringly steep 1000 metre ascent that seems to go on forever before disgorging into a large, chilly station 2827 metres above sea level.

Again more descending on the fantastic bermy Val Bleue (blue) trail, winding past lakes and snow, through the middle of the mountain before reaching the final Borsat lift. Here there’s the option to return directly to Val d’Isere on the same Val Bleue trail or to ride it from its highest mountain source (Blue Lagoon) via the lift.

It had to be done! The chairlift takes nearly 15 minutes to ponderously dangle you over a range of frightening drops and ice fields before looking like it’s going to smash you directly into the bleak grey mountain, only cresting a ridge at the final moment before impact. When you reach the top station at 2800 metres, unlike the other lifts, this chair doesn’t really lose speed, meaning a hasty leap off at the top and a mad scramble to clear the cornering chair and grab your bike before the lift kneecaps you on the way round.

The top of the Blue Lagoon trail is stark but worth it just for the completeness of going as high as you can. Heading down quickly (as it’s freezing at this height) steep, loose shale tracks descend for a km or two before giving you a final choice, carry on down back to Val D’Isere or return to the Val Claret resort. As it’s begun to rain we opt to head back via Val Claret.

Gone are the pleasant trails which cut across the mountain, you’re now riding down the side again, steep, zig zaggy loose paths with a long, long drop on either side are amazing for focusing the mind.

Trusting the bike probably as much or more than my skills we plummet downwards, the ground getting slippery with the falling rain. After the initial plunge the trail does level out for the next km or so for some smoother, enjoyable cross country riding before finally linking up with the Val Claret descents from yesterday, Gun Powder and Kangooride. We took the latter of these not having experienced it and in the falling drizzle continued the final 3.5km of downhill on a roller-coaster of a trail carved into the steep face of the mountain.

It was certainly a relief to be spat out, intact, shaky, and happy at the foot of the Val Claret lift leaving only the last, calming pedal around the lake to complete the day’s riding before a well-earned cup of tea and cake back at the hotel.

A day off for some road biking and an ascent of the col De L’Iseran before the final day on the bikes. By now I’m adding in some bits of the red trails although I’m cautious. Most of them give a chicken run around larger obstacles and jumps but occasionally no such opt out is offered which leaves an embarrassing and difficult heaving of bikes down the trail to bypass these features.

The last thing that we want to tackle is some of the All-Mountain trails, these having a more cross-country focus i.e. you have to pedal up as well as down, but we’ve been warned, this being Tignes, they tend towards the extreme and the technical. Because of this we’ve chosen WonderBoisses, graded as ‘Improver’, the only other options being advanced and expert!

We should have been forewarned when even the start was gruelling. Heading directly up under the Palafour lift, the innocuous gravel trail doesn’t look much but it’s a lung buster given the altitude and not helped by the fact we’re still wearing all our robo-cop body armour and full face helmets. With sweat dripping copiously the trail veers across a field of disinterested cows, necessitating climbing under various electric fences, before heading up the side of the mountain.

We wind steadily upwards for the next km or so along ledges that are barely wider than the bike, a precipitous drop on or right hand side. In places the trail rounds a bend and seems to disappear in to nowhere. Not nowhere, just plunging downwards, keeping you on your toes. I’m walking bits of it too where landslips have covered the trail leaving you to haul the bike over slippery humps of rubble. It’s actually good to be pedalling again too, even if it is upwards. Eventually the climb tops out and the descent begins, still on the narrow-ledged trails before heading inland fractionally and beginning a highly technical downhill on dusty forest trails covered in boulders and drop offs down which the bike slithers and bounces, throw in the odd hairpin and it’s blood-pumping stuff.

The trail emerges briefly on the grassy roof of one of the road tunnels, carved into the mountain which you pass under on the drive up to Le Lac, before rising and falling in a delightful series of forest trails, not quite so demanding but still requiring focus before disgorging you in the lower village of Tignes Le Boisses. Here a handy and much appreciated free Navette bus service drags you and the bike back up the mountain where, if you like, you can do it all again!

Having learned to quit on a high we do just that and, after saying goodbye to the lovely Mondraker and not so lovely body armour, we head gratefully for the nearest bar and a well-earned beer.

Tignes is certainly a full on experience which I’d heartily recommend to those with a little mountain biking knowledge. I’m no Rachel Atherton but with a few years of riding, quite a few lessons and countless falls under my belt this was technical, demanding riding, for which I had just enough skill/luck to be able to enjoy it.

I chose not to fly my bike out as I was concerned it wouldn’t stand up to the trails and, despite the hire cost – 70-85 euro per day – I think that was a wise decision. In addition all hire bikes tend to come with full face helmets, body armour, pads and optional insurance, with the added benefit of wearing out someone else’s bike parts.

It was without doubt a spectacular place to ride and despite the week of full-on adrenaline I leave with a definite sense of that peace and contentment which comes from spending time in the mountains doing what you love and the happy knowledge that I won’t have to brave another ski lift for at least the foreseeable future.

If it scares you, it might be a good thing to try.... Acrophobia; the irrational fear of heights or Basophobia; the fear of falling; both both genuine phobias and both the current personal experience between which I’m shuffling frantically.

[cleancutpage]

How to Determine Where We Are in the Real Estate Market Cycle

This post originally appeared on Doug Marshall's Blog Marshall Commercial Funding Blog and is republished with permission. Find out how to syndicate your content with theBrokerList.

I often get asked, “Is this the right time to invest in real estate?” It’s a legitimate question. As capitalization rates have steadily declined and property values have rapidly increased, this question becomes ever more important to answer. Other insightful questions asked are: “When will the real estate market turn?” and “Has the market peaked?” All good questions.

Before we can answer these, we need to determine where we are on the real estate market cycle. You may be aware that the real estate market cycle is cyclical with four distinct phases: Recovery, Expansion, Hyper-Supply, and Recession. The chart below shows these four phases and how each one impacts new construction and vacancy rates.

Before I explain the four phases of the real estate market cycle, let’s discuss the basics of the chart. The X axis (horizontal line at the bottom) represents Time and the Y axis (vertical line on the left) represents Occupancy. The horizontal dotted line in the middle represents the long-term average occupancy for the market. The vertical dotted line toward the middle represents when supply and demand are perfectly in balance. The black solid line that travels through all four quadrants represents the change in occupancy over time.

Now let’s discuss the four quadrants.

Phase I – Recovery

The Recovery quadrant of the real estate market cycle (shown in the lower left-hand corner of the chart) is characterized by high vacancy and no new construction. Though it’s not shown on this graph, generally rents are flat or declining during this phase. Owners offer rent concessions to avoid their property’s occupancy rate from further declining.

The mood of investors in this quadrant begins with panic: Oh, my, am I going to survive? (recall market conditions in 2009). As the occupancy rate improves to the market’s long-term average occupancy rate, investor attitude slowly turns to one of relief: Whew, I made it through the worst of the market.

Phase II – Expansion

The Expansion quadrant (shown in the upper left-hand corner of the chart) is characterized by declining vacancy and the start of new construction. As occupancy improves, concessions are eliminated and rent growth begins.

The mood of investors turns from relief—I dodged a bullet—to giddiness as vacancy rates decline and rents increase dramatically. Life is extremely good for investors at this point in the real estate cycle.

Phase III – Hyper-Supply

The Hyper-Supply quadrant (shown in the upper right-hand corner of the chart) is characterized by more new construction, and for the first time in a long time, vacancy rates begin to rise. Rent growth, though still positive, grows at a slower pace. And some neighborhoods start to experience rent concessions as new product that has recently come on line becomes increasingly more difficult to lease.

The investor mood turns from giddiness to one of caution and then denial that there is a problem brewing. The glass half full type of investors are still confident everything is going to work out just fine. They are thinking, The slow rent up is only a bump in the road that will self-correct as long as I don’t panic.

Phase IV – Recession

The Recession quadrant (see the lower right-hand corner of the chart) is characterized by the completion of more and more product, which results in a substantial decline in occupancy rates. Newly completed product is sitting there unoccupied so developers begin running “blue light specials” to get them rented up. Concessions are abundant. Even investors with established properties are forced to offer concessions to avoid wholesale move outs.

In this phase, investor mood goes from denial to one of outright panic. Developers begin to wonder, Am I going to make it? The truth is, some will not. Also, some investors who recently bought properties at premium prices and then loaded them with lots of debt realize their mistake. Because they are leveraged to the hilt, a small drop in vacancy results in properties that no longer generate positive cash flow.

Which real estate market phase are we in?

These are the four phases of the real estate market cycle. Understanding where the real estate market is on the cycle is critical to successful investing. Is the market climbing closer to a market peak or is it starting down the slippery slope to recession? How we answer this question may determine the difference between a successful investment or an albatross hanging around our necks.

So where are we today in the real estate market cycle? For the past several years (2013–2018), most real estate pundits have described the real estate market as being in Phase II, the Expansion Phase, which is characterized by high rent growth in a tight rental market. This time period can be best described by a quote from former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. He called it “irrational exuberance” when describing a euphoric stock market. I use a highly technical term to describe this part of the real estate cycle. I call it “The Silly-Stupid Phase.”

What Is the Cycle of Market Emotions?

Describing the real estate market as being in the Expansion Phase is kind of a Mr. Spock approach to evaluating market trends—all logic and no emotion. But emotions play a huge role in the real estate cycle. A useful tool called the Cycle of Market Emotions helps us understand how market phases are interconnected with prevailing moods, such as optimism, excitement, fear, panic, and hope. Imagine an emotional rollercoaster, and you’ll get the idea.

When the real estate market is at the very top of the incline, the predominant emotions are thrill and then euphoria. This happened in 2015-2017. And when it does occur, you can almost hear a big brass band playing “Happy Days Are Here Again.” During times such as these, investors in the real estate market usually have good justification for euphoria. Rents typically increase, sometimes dramatically, interest rates may hit new lows and remain there for some time, and developers may be slow to meet the demand. These conditions are great for investor return, both in appreciation of property values and increases of cash-on-cash returns. So why do I call this phase in the market the Silly-Stupid Phase?

Two Factors Fuel the Silly-Stupid Phase

The Silly-Stupid Phase is characterized by two factors:

The first factor is cap rate compression.

Cap rate compression happens when a real estate market gets stronger (i.e., investors are more confident) and the perceived risk of owning a rental property declines. Ken Griggs, president of the Real Estate Research Corporation, has talked about the precarious balance of value versus price in real estate. When assessing a most recent market condition, he said, “Our analysis showed upward pressure on pricing without a corresponding increase in value.” That’s a little scary. Now why does this happen? I believe buyers get caught up in the euphoria. They act as if this particular phase in the real estate cycle will continue forever. So they justify their price hikes, assuming rents will continue to rise and that their unrealistic pro forma projections will come to pass. But eventually, rents top out and vacancies start to rise.

The second factor associated with the Silly-Stupid Phase is lender aggressiveness.

What I have observed and my lending peers confirm is that outlier lending institutions provide rates and terms that are significantly better than what is typically offered by most lenders. They aren’t just competing for the business. In some instances, they outright buy it. And the larger financial institutions start offering rates and terms that are reminiscent of the years prior to the Great Recession—namely, interest-only loans, higher loan-to-value ratios, lower debt coverage ratios, and compressing of their spreads on interest rates. They hope that offering these “blue light specials” will help them hit their loan quotas.

You may be thinking, Why should I care if lenders are bending over backwards for my business? Let them. I don’t have to accept what they are offering. You’re right. You don’t. My advice is for you to take advantage of all these very favorable loan terms as long as you don’t overleverage your properties. When the market turns— and it inevitably will—make sure that your rental property can support the mortgage payment when vacancy rates rise to levels associated with the bottom of the real estate cycle. This way you can protect yourself and your property investment.

Are We in the Hyper-Supply Phase of the Real Estate Market?

So where are we today in the real estate cycle? Since I’m most knowledgeable about commercial real estate in the Pacific Northwest, I’ll speak to this question using the world I know best. As I have explained, the real estate cycle moves in definable phases, and while timing is a bit unpredictable, I believe the evidence suggests that in 2018 we started the beginning of Phase III, the Hyper-Supply Phase. Here’s why:

After double-digit rent increases the past couple of years, rents are beginning to level off. They are still rising but much more modestly.

As of this writing, construction is booming throughout the Pacific Northwest. Seattle and Portland are experiencing record amounts of construction. Seattle has more cranes dotting the skyline than any other city in the country. Portland has $2.5 billion worth of new development under construction.

For the first time in a long time, rent concessions are being offered on new product.

These three factors are all classic indicators that the market is in Phase III, the Hyper-Supply Phase.

Should we still be investing?

So for the moment, let’s assume that the real estate market is, in fact, in this quadrant of the real estate market cycle. Does this mean that investors should stop buying real estate right now? Heck no. I’m currently in the process of buying a mixed use property with a group of investors so I strongly believe you can find good investments regardless of what phase of the real estate market cycle you are currently in.

If you know of future development that will have a positive influence on the property’s neighborhood that the seller is not aware of, or you have a vision for how to turn a property from a loser to a winner, it makes little difference what phase of the market cycle we are currently in. You can still make a good investment.

Even so, it’s still important to understand that some phases of the real estate cycle are more difficult for profitable investing than others. If we truly are in the beginning of the downward real estate market cycle, then I advise that you proceed with caution. Don’t be one of the Pollyanna investors who throws caution to the wind. Be prudent. Be alert for sudden changes in the market. If you do, you’ll increase your chances for success.

Those are my thoughts.  I welcome yours.  Where do you think we are in the real estate market cycle?

Want more CRE investing tips?  Check out my book!

RSS Feed provided by theBrokerList Blog - theBrokerList for commercial real estate brokers (cre) and How to Determine Where We Are in the Real Estate Market Cycle was written by Doug Marshall, Marshall Commercial Funding.

How to Determine Where We Are in the Real Estate Market Cycle published first on https://greatlivinghomespage.tumblr.com/

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What do you need to know to start investing in real estate?

What do you need to know to start investing in real estate? The answer is dependent on whether you are merely looking to purchase or sale one house or if you are trying to make your career in real estate. Whatever you do, don’t try to learn everything about real estate in an instance, instead focus on a specific segment of real estate (commercial/residential/multi-family) and learn as much as you can about that portion of the market. Too many folks don’t get involved in real estate because of fear or not believing they have the funds to invest. Don’t let this hold you back as there is always money out there for a profitable deal. With that being said, make sure to focus on one segment as real estate because if you try to dabble in all areas, you’ll never be able to recognize a great deal and will always find yourself behind your competition.

While it is true that some people have made quick riches from real estate, most folks do their homework and due diligence before committing their finance. Real estate can be extremely profitable when people have the knowledge to make astute investments. Calculating the amount of money you can expect to make on an investment property is never as simple as a difference between money in and money out. While keeping a record of total buying costs, renovation costs, time for turnover, monthly mortgage payments, and staff overhead is essential to reaching a general idea of which investment property will get you the most profit, there are a number of other more subtle considerations to keep in mind.

The calculation of a net operating income for a property is essentially the income coming in minus the operating costs for holding onto and/or managing the property. If this number ends up being negative it is called a net operating loss, a clear signal of a poor investment property. Net operating income is a great tool to use when determining whether to invest in a property. Personally, I rely on net operating income more than any other figure.

One way that your investment property can add to your income flow is by saving you some money come tax day. Real estate investments are full of instances where your investments are completely tax-deductible. From property taxes, to interest on loans, to even the amount of money you save from refinancing; all of these costs can be filed as deductible expenses. Another way that real estate provides a tax shelter is through depreciation of your property. While your land will never depreciate, you can progressively depreciate a home and write off a fraction of that property cost at a steady rate each year until it is fully depreciated.

Capital appreciation entails a rise in the market value price of your property over time. Whatever the reason, whether the neighborhood that your property is in becomes more desirable, or if the public schools in the area improve, a rise in market price is a good thing for you, especially when you decide to sell. Capital appreciation is a figure that property flippers pay close attention to in particular since the guiding principle behind flipping a home is buying a property at rock bottom and putting just enough money in to get to it market value for the most profit.

Typically, prospective investors visit the properties, research neighborhoods and pay close attention to the data provided in a comparative marketing analysis. You will want to calculate the after repair value of the home and what you can expect to get for the property. Remember, time of the year will also play a factor in what price you can expect for a home; spring and summer are the best seasons to sell a home.

Buying property with little or no down payment is an appealing prospect, but there are major pitfalls to this strategy. Put simply, leverage is cash that the investor does not have on hand, but has access to, in order to acquire an asset. Mortgages and home equity loans are ways investors can acquire investment properties with little or no cash. Some real estate investors use non-bank financing as leverage to buy property. Though leverage can increase the amount of property an investor can purchase – for example, leverage might help an investor buy two properties instead of one – savvy investors don’t use it without understanding the risks. You must understand the risk before jumping into a deal, if you don’t understand the risk than don’t even think about doing the deal. Many investors went bankrupt in the crash of 2008 because they borrowed too much money and were not able to pay the loans back when they came due, so make sure you are aware of the risks.

Understanding the types of mortgages available and the benefits of each as well as the risks is also critical to your success in this business. Investors typically must have 20 percent of a property’s sale price to qualify for an investor mortgage. Investors should shop around to find mortgages that offer favorable interest rates and proceed with caution when it comes to zero down, adjustable rate and balloon investment mortgage types. In addition, investors can take out rehab loans, but be aware interest rates on these will be much higher than most so be sure that you are able to complete the renovation quickly so you can sell the property without having to pay too much interest on your loan.

You will obviously want to decide if you want to flip properties or if you want to buy and hold properties. You will want to assess your skills and temperament to decide if you’re cut out to be a landlord or a flipper. If you want to be a landlord, you will need to keep your investment properties occupied, you’ll need to be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to address problems as they arise. Of course, you also have the option of hiring a property manager to handle the day-to-day business operations. Holding properties can build wealth but there is also quite a bit of stress that comes along with rental properties, that is not to say flipping properties is stress free, quite the opposite.

With the real estate market on the upswing and properties moving quickly, the present time seems like the perfect time to dip your feet into the market. Before you dive into flipping or buying and renting houses, make sure you understand the risks, rewards, ins and outs of real estate investing. Remember, you always make your money on the buy side so do all you can to buy properties at the lowest possible price possible. My recommendation is to find those motivated sellers and when you find those folks, don’t hesitate as those properties will not last very long.

Every investment you make comes with a set of risks, this is as true for real estate as anything else, anyone who promises you an investment without any risk is lying and you should run for the hills. The real estate market is volatile; your money can be tied up in a property for a long while. Due to this inherent risk in the market, it is not advisable to engage in risky lending processes, which can lead you down a very slippery slope. Even if you secure proper financing, be aware of the risks and pitfalls that may occur.

Doing your homework on your first property is a long and arduous process, but it is a critical and unavoidable step if you plan on making money off of your investment. Miscalculating your net operating income can saddle you with a property that loses capital, in other words will cost you money. Connect with reliable contractors and professionals to get accurate estimates on rehabilitation costs, and factor in unforeseen funds for those costs that are bound to turn up in the process, I recommend factoring in a 5 to 10% contingency reserve.

While the professionals make renovations look painfully effortless on TV, if you’ve ever been involved in a renovation at your own place, you know these things can be quite expensive and almost always don’t go as planned. Picking a complete fixer upper as your first project with minimal experience can tie up your time and money for a long time which would hinder you from growing your business as quickly as you may like.

Buying a turn-key property may not be the best route for maximizing your profit either. While many renovations do end up being quite costly, a number of smart projects on the other hand can drastically increase the market price and rental price of your property. At the end of the day, the most important part of property investment is to be prepared, do your calculations and don’t skip any steps. If the numbers don’t work than walk away! If you have your priorities and finances in order, the process will be far less of an uphill battle. Investing in real estate is a business and if you are serious about being successful you need to put in the effort and do your homework. Don’t take this business lightly and think it will be easy as nothing worthwhile ever is, at the same token, if you put in the time and do your research and make fiscally responsible decisions than you have a great opportunity to have a great deal of success.

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H.P. Lovecraft’s Dagon

One of H.P. Lovecraft’s most well known works of fiction is Dagon, in which the narrator is a suicidal man addicted to morphine. The story starts off with his final testament about what has happened to him throughout his life that lead him to this point of desperation.

The story is set during World War one, and although we do not know the narrator’s name (For simplicity’s sake, we shall refer to him as ‘N’), we do know his story starts as his cargo ship is captured by a German raider in the pacific, we do not know the contents of the ship or where it was headed to either.

N manages to escape the siege of his ship on a life boat and begins to drift and paddle with no clear direction in mind-- as he doesn’t know exactly where he is within the Pacific ocean. He goes roughly south of the equator. He drifts for endless days with no land insight, wih only the food and water he took from the cargo ship to sustain him (this is why we can assume his recount of the future events was not due to starvation or dehydration). Until one day he falls asleep. While he sleeps horrific nightmares plague him and his boat drifts towards land at last.

When he awakens he discovers “... Myself half sucked into a slimy expanse of hellish black mire which extended about me in monotonous undulations as far as I could see, and in which my boat lay grounded some distance away...” [Source] He has managed to wash up and be thrown from his boat and into a swamp on the shores of some unknown land, as he says the swamp is dark and black and extends as far as his vision allows him to see. 

Despite how fortunate his discovery of land might be viewed, instead of wonderment N is struck by horror at the sight of it all. He finds the scenery sinister from the described ‘rotting soil’ and the air. Dead and decaying fish (along with other creatures) litter the mire. He seems unable to describe the creatures that he sees along side the fish, giving the presumption that these are creatures he has never seen before and are too horrific to convey the appearance of. Typical of the creatures Lovecraft tends to write. He says nothing of trees during this time and so it can be assumed that the land, thus far, is barren of them and the mire he has landed himself in is a particularly soggy plain of land. Black slime coats the area, he is nauseated with his fear. 

Curiously he also describes the sky as black, or dark in colour, as well despite the sun that appears in the cloudless sky. 

As he crawls towards his boat, he begins to theorise as to why the new land he has come upon looks the way he does, and he puts it down to volcanic activity throwing some of the ocean floor onto the surface. though he could not hear anything from the ocean, or spy any sea-birds to prey upon the easy, though rotting, food on the beach.

After three days, unwilling to move far from his boat, he packs some supplies for a trip overland to find the mysteriously absent ocean and for possible civilisation or chance of a rescue.

He travels as far as he can following in the direction of a large mound in the distance, unsure as to what it was among the rather even or flat plains. It takes him four days to reach the base of he mound, which seems to be far higher and larger than he originally expected, as it stands within a large valley. He sleeps by the hill and has dream and nightmare after dream and nightmare-- though he doesn’t know why, it is easy to guess it is due to his close proximity to this large figure. 

There is a reference to Paradise Lost within the text, the originator of the “Sexy Satan” trope, which can be summarised over here: [Link]

He begins to climb down the slope of the valley, though he knows not why he does so. His attention gets captured by the sight of the moon and a large piece of stone. While he is comforted by the fact it merely seems to be stone, he describes it as being “ I was conscious of a distinct impression that its contour and position were not altogether the work of Nature. A closer scrutiny filled me with sensations I cannot express; for despite its enormous magnitude, and its position in an abyss which had yawned at the bottom of the sea since the world was young, I perceived beyond a doubt that the strange object was a well-shaped monolith whose massive bulk had known the workmanship and perhaps the worship of living and thinking creatures.”

Although he is frightened, he considers himself curious and examines the area around him. The moon appears to inhabit the sky in a different manner than it normally would, but true to Lovecraft’s style he does not specify how. He looks again at the monolith and sees that there are runes carved into it, and that the writing was more like a hieroglyphs than it was individual letters forming words. While there were creatures he recognised, there were others that did not have a place in that world or age. Among the carvings were images he believed to have of supposed to depict human beings, or at least some similar humanoid creatures. Once again, Lovecraft declines to describe these creatures in great detail and only mentions that there were some form of grotesque mixture of both humanoid features and those of marine life. He also believes them to be proportioned, for he does not think that one of these creatures could be as large as a whale it is depicted hunting.

Until, of course, he sees one of these creatures and proceeds to go insane. “Of my frantic ascent of the slope and cliff, and of my delirious journey back to the stranded boat, I remember little. I believe I sang a great deal, and laughed oddly when I was unable to sing. I have indistinct recollections of a great storm some time after I reached the boat; at any rate, I know that I heard peals of thunder and other tones which Nature utters only in her wildest moods.”

The next thing he knows he has been brought to a hospital in San Francisco. He apparently had spoken of his experiences but no one had believed him, so he did not insist upon the existence of the things he had seen. He consults an ethnologist about his ordeals and the monolith, but finds nothing he wanted to search for.

He ceases to speak of his past ordeals and talks of his morphine addiction again, and how it is to cope with the things he had seen and his temporary-- or permanent-- madness. He believes he sees the creature from before during the night, it having of hunted it down and is now haunting him.

The story ends with him committing suicide, unwilling to let the creature get to him first.

When it comes to Dagon, the product of an unreliable narrator can make all the difference as to how believable this story is. Especially when considering this as merely a standalone narrative, rather than a product of Lovecraft’s larger universe.

Whether or not one can believe the things that N has described can be put down to potentially three theories.

Theory number one, would be that he is telling the entire truth and all these things did happen. Despite there being no other witnesses, it is unknown by anyone else where N was or what happened to him during the time he was lost at sea. It wouldn’t be unusual for Lovecraft to have a narrator who was not believed about things that were true and thus had the story kept to themselves and their sanity questioned. Lovecraft’s tendency to link his stories together can also play a part, and it is known within his stories that unusual and supernatural things can happen. Such as in The Cats of Ulthar [Link]. 

However, if that is unsatisfactory to the reader, then the next two theories may be more applicable.

N has described himself as having gone mad, singing songs and laughing. Say that the ocean, for a time, had disappeared (Often actually a sign of a tsunami), then the constant sun and lack of provisions may have of driven him to madness or given him hallucinations. These hallucinations may explain why he was unable to describe so much of the story, having of found it too hard or painful to recall. Because he hallucinated it and it never occurred in the first place. Due to this madness, starvation, and sun poisoning, he was hallucinated the experience with the monolith and any events previous and after.

Alternatively: It was the morphine.  N had an addiction to morphine that he claims came from the ordeals he experienced. However, the only times we can confirm his experiences are true is when he is with other people. We can confirm the experience on his ship, for other people were present, and we can confirm him being in the hospital. But anything in between has no other witnesses.  As he is given morphine when rescued in the hospital, it is possible that before he woke up he hallucinated his experiences due to the morphine he was given, and afterwards continued to take morphine to deal with the trauma his mind created to explain the lack of memories between the pirates and the hospital.

His continued use of morphine, and hence hallucinations, may also explain the end of the story. Which says: “The end is near. I hear a noise at the door, as of some immense slippery body lumbering against it. It shall not find me. God, that hand! The window! The window!” He claims to hear something at the door, as he is a morphine addict, and it is known for drugs of a recreational use to activate Schizophrenia if one has the gene, then his auditory and visual hallucinations are easily explained by the drug having of caused him to believe that unnatural beings were coming to potentially end his life.

Of course, We can never know for sure.