Foundations of Humanity 27 (New Horizons) - an NoP fanfic
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Thank you u/SpacePaladin15 for establishing the Nature of Predators Universe, and for allowing Fanfics to flourish!Thank you again, u/Braquen, u/Acceptable_Egg5560, u/BiasMushroom721, and last but not least u/Liberty-Prime76 for proofreading! Also, thank you u/Frostborne for your blessing on my Gojid City name! This is my side of the Nature of a Giant crossover)!
Also Star Tours is a Disney copyright which I use in good faith and humor under fair use please don’t hurt me capitalist mouse daddy.
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Memory transcription subject: Valek, Venlil tourist
Date [standardized human time]: Sept 11th, 2136. Middle of 3rd Claw
I watched Maeve find an open station and investigate the helmet while I asked, “Do Humans have Visor arcades?”
“Oh, absolutely! There’s an entire League for VR!” Maeve awkwardly slipped into the seat and found the controls; after a moment the seat started to adjust itself to size, the sudden movement causing Maeve to jump.
Alvi spoke up beside me, “Maeve has a book that talks about it. It talked about headsets and digital worlds like what we have, over a hundred years ago!”
“A hundred years ago?” I couldn’t help but be skeptical. “Are you really saying that our tech is a hundred years behind yours with VR?”
“Eh, not exactly,” Maeve tilted her head as she thought, “with things like visors, there was an upper limit to how to design them. Most of the innovations were on how realistic the visors could make the media. We got video down pretty quickly, and surround-sound was pretty much figured out by then. We experimented with scent and that did not go well. Really most of the progress has been in processing, and you guys still have us beat on that!”
She picked up the viewing device. There were three kinds of stations with different sized helmets for each. The first she investigated were Dossur to Zurulian sized, but it only took a moment to find a Sivkit to Gojid size. “Looks like these could fit me. Can you two wait long enough to see if this works with humans?”
I flicked my ears in amusement and posed myself overdramatically. “I’m sure that I, your poor starving mate, can continue starving while you enjoy yourself.” I giggled while Alvi slapped me with her tail. “Go on, have fun! I’m also curious to see if the program would work with your eyes.”
With a look around to ensure no one was watching, Maeve switched her veil for the helmet, after only a few moments of effort. The collar thickness was adjustable to help the foam complete a clean seal against the jaw. I touched my pre-paid band to the tap pad, and the machine shifted colors to show it was occupied. The helmet was designed for snouted species, and so hung somewhat past Maeve’s chin, allowing us to see light reflected off her skin.
A screen beside her lit up with the mask, and we could see what she saw while she played. Alvi and I walked her through the tutorial and calibrator, and Maeve chose Jewels of the Federation at my suggestion; a simple walking simulator showcasing highlights of Federation homeworlds.
The simulator starts us in the same arcade, in the same booth! A well-groomed Venlil stands beside her and reminds Maeve of her private tour. Maeve ‘walks’ while still seated and lifts her virtual self from the digital booth, following the guide to a launch pad that didn’t previously exist. Alvi and I stopped in shock for a moment when a noticeably younger Captain Sovlin walked down the gangway of our destination shuttle; though judging by Maeve’s lack of reaction, she seemed not to recognize him; Alvi met my eye and pointedly flicked her ears. The simulated Gojid pilot wags their ears genially as they throw their arms wide in welcome.
“Good waking, citizen of the Federation! Star Tours has invited me to escort you on an introduction to the astounding marvels of our great peoples! Every species has made wondrous contributions to the enlightenment of the Federation, but the strayu is in the oven, so we’ll only get the time to visit your own Venlil Prime, The Cradle, and Nishtal today. Follow me and we can begin!”
Maeve followed Sovlin into the cockpit of the stylized shuttle and took the copilot seat; Maeve’s head was on a swivel and she took in everything around her. “Wow, this is so cool! Your whole helmet is a screen! Our VR is only in front of our eyes, tricking our brains into seeing three dimensionally.” Her voice echoed around the helmet, muffling her words before they could reach us..
The shuttle lifted gently and Maeve’s chair tilted back with it. Coming up, we could see that this arcade was in the Capitol, and they did a flying pass to show its glass spires and bustling spaceport. Sovlin spoke up beside Maeve, “The Venlil Homeworld is in a strategic position within the Federation, and you make your people proud by fulfilling your duty to the Herd; in spite of your weakness and timidity!!”
The shuttle started to pitch to the open center of the city, and a large park came into view. “But, as I-” Sovlin’s voice caught in his throat, before he cleared it and spoke with firm authority, “As we all know: Duty sometimes comes with Sacrifice. And we honor and remember that… sacrifice with the beautiful Cattle Memorial!”
The vines of Morning Light catch the sun, and I feel my ears fall as I remember my own family’s sacrifices. Alvi caught my distress, and curled her tail around me as the simulation continued, “Here we remember the lives lost from the ruthless barbarity of the Greys. We hope that this Shining Beacon may guide their bodies and souls back to the Herd.” The shuttle kept flying straight toward the ground, but the shuttle surroundings started to disappear as Sovlin and Maeve joined the mourners and wellwishers. The breeze played gently with unopened letters and fresh bouquets. Sovlin spoke softly, in respect for visitors, “It is open all claws, and many leave their remembrances. Make sure to show your support, next time you’re in the Capitol.”
After several moments of contemplative silence, the shuttle pulled up into the upper atmosphere, and Maeve’s seat began to shudder. I spoke up a little louder so she could hear me through the helmet, “Set your head back. The next part might make you a little queasy.”
Maeve did as bidden just before Sovlin hit the warp jump, and the screen was awash with a rainbow of colors streaking to the outer border.
We fall out of Warp just above The Cradle, its capital continent in view surrounded by great oceans, while other landmasses curve around the planet and out of sight. The camera quickly descends through the atmosphere and we pull into the great city of Vala’s Embrace, with its shining spires and sprawling seaports. We fly down through the airspace busy with cargo freighters and I see Maeve involuntary flinch after a close miss. “The Gojid are a proud and fierce people, but also industrious! Our Cradle and Colonies are a major food source for the rest of the Federation, in addition to the significant extractions performed by our colonies and outposts.”
The camera flies into the center of the city where stands a grand Cathedral to the Protector, Her robed form guiding believers to the grand entryway. “But my People are renowned for our stalwart loyalty to our faith and to the Federation. Our great houses of worship are monuments of our devotion to protecting the Herd from the Predator Menace!”
After a pass around the building highlighting its traditional stonework and heraldry, the camera joins the throng of worshippers, coming in low like a child beside their parent, and we see the full glory of The Church.
Our view pans up from the crowd to a ceiling decorated with murals of inlaid wood and metals. Vibrant colors, textures, and shining light tell the story of Vala driving out the Predators and forming the first Herd. Stained glass windows cover the congregation in pools of color almost as varied as the congregants themselves. A silver Gojid passes from behind us, towering tall with the kind eyes of one who knows their faith, and is safe in its love. They lay a paw on Maeve’s shoulder and guide her to a bench only a few rows from the front, with a seat on the aisle. The Priest stands before their podium and begins a sermon of service to the Herd, and one’s role within it.
The priest’s voice fades into the background as we fly backward out of an open window like a bird; words of Predators at our doorstep fading on the wind. We rise to re-exit the atmosphere, Maeve’s chair buzzing as the hyperdrive spins up.
We warp into a field of defensive space stations, glittering proudly in the Nishtalian Sun. Below, we see a planet with a great many islands, webbed with weaving waterways and small seas. Maeve pressed herself further into the seat as we entered their thicker atmosphere, the seat vibrations causing the helmet to rattle against it.
“And here we have the vibrant marshes of Nishtal!” We broke through the clouds to see massive arbors climbing back into them. We approached the Nishtal Capital sprawled across dozens of kilometers of archipelago, held above the water by meta-material supports.
“Nishtal is well known for its punishing environments, which helped to mold the Krakotl into Pan-Galactic Heroes! From Captain Kalsim, to Merchant Captain Malins, to Chief Exterminator Estela. Each renowned for holding the line against the predator taint, through fire or rail! And this is where their mettle was tested!”
The shuttle flies around a flat paved area, surrounded by landing pads as warships lift and land. In the center was a platoon of Krakotl performing training exercises. The shuttle again falls away as we start walking behind a Commander, Sovlin walking beside him as he speaks over his shoulder, “The Krakotl have been an instrumental force in maintaining our peaceful way of life. If you think you have what it takes, be sure to register for the JEOTC so you can help make the galaxy a better place!”
Sovlin met the eye of the Krakotl commander beside him, “Thank you for your service, Sir.”
We split off from the commander, and our walking transitioned back to our shuttle before firing off back into the sky.Through the vibrating chair, Maeve stuttered out, “M-M-Man Y-You-u-u Guys-z-z-z’re R-R-Real-l-ly into this-s-s W-W-War, huh??”
Suddenly the chair threw Maeve forward, almost unseating her as she suddenly fell out of warp, “We have Grey contacts! Time to turn tail and get out of here! I’ll stay on the guns and when I say Go, you push that throttle as hard as you can! OK…!” A Metallic handle started to glow in front of her, and Maeve reached out with her controller to grab it. It took her a moment, but Sovlin never gave the signal… Until she grabbed on. “GO!” Maeve rocked her body forward and slammed the throttle to its limiter, the seat beneath her rumbling with renewed vigor.
After only a moment, a Kolshian Capital Ship dropped from subspace in front of us and fired a volley of Everything in the direction behind us. Our ship slowed and Sovlin cheered from the pilot’s chair, “HaHa! The Vanguard has arrived! Thank you for your help gentlemen!”
A portrait feed popped up on and above the control panel, showing General Kalsim’s distinct banding on his beak. “This is General Kalsim, Commander of the Federation Vessel Inatala’s Will. Star tours, have you suffered any damage?” The portrait squawked as the General’s feathers puffed with pride.
“Negative General, thank you for the save!”
“Understood, let’s get you home, Star Tours.”
“We would be very grateful, General! Protector guides you.”
The chair beneath Maeve vibrates and tilts back as the hyper-drive charges up again, the screen flashing to show the sprawling oceans of Aafa, glittering brilliantly in the shining sun, dotted by its giant floating cities and lush tropical islands. A flock of broad chirping seabirds adorned with vibrant colors gliding on the calm ocean breeze flanking the shuttle. The capital of Aafa grew on the viewscreen, the sprawling Governance Center of the Federation dominating the city, swooping lines and a singular towering dome marked the chambers of the Federation senate.
“Isn’t that a beautiful view? This is what we fight for, this is the Cradle of the Federation, the very heart of our enlightened civilization. This is what we protect.”
The camera pans low, the shuttle falling away, sweeping along the streets of the capital.
The dome grew ever larger in the background until the camera began to soar over busy diplomats entering the senate floor, the camera like a very lost Flowerbird. Chief Nikonus was delivering an impassioned speech to the gathered representatives, declaring the grand aims and lofty goals of the Federation to spread peace and safety to all Prey peoples. The camera panned around the room, showing representatives listening to the speech with focused ears and attentive eyes, pausing on the Venlil Representative, swaying their tail in pride and determination. As the camera finished its rotation it exited through the rooms wide glass panes, rising up and over the city as the shuttle reformed once again, breaching through the atmosphere and up into the stars.
Maeve’s seat rumbled as the hyperdrive spooled again, the screen clearing to show the Capital of Venlil Prime once more, soaring down to the arcade the adventure had started in. Captain Sovlin’s voice echoed from the speakers.
“Thank you for joining me today on Star Tours! Be sure to visit your nearest Federation recruitment center today and do your part!”
With fading fanfare, the seat returned to a neutral position and Maeve took off her helmet to meet our eyes. “That… was definitely a thing. It had a lot of… uh… ho boy.”
“Yeah, uh.” I shifted my weight awkwardly, “Watching that as an adult is… Stars, I remember wanting so badly to sign up. But my mom stopped me.”
“I’ll have to thank her when we get home.” Alvi sighed with exaggerated relief.
“You and me, both.” Maeve said through a relieved chuckle, “You guys want a turn? I’d like to do something more chill; cleanse the palate.”
Alvi and I politely declined, before I offered, “Actually I wanted to show you something. I don’t know how you guys have fun, but Shipper is really good.”
I guided Maeve to the catalog and pointed out the correct one. As the game started up and Maeve got the ship moving, she snorted and muttered to herself, “Of course you have Trucking Simulator In Space. Why am I even surprised.”
---
Maeve was making great progress, and had made two deliveries before the low fuel warning began trilling at her.
“Nah, see, you gotta watch your fuel too! The more you haul the more fuel you use, and you still gotta make it to your drop-off.”
“Wow, you guys do not mess around with these work simulators. We actually had a whole era of these a wh- Hey!”The screen locked up, telling us our 30 minutes were up.
“W-What does it say?”
“It says it's time to stop and get some food!”
“Ahh, man I was just getting the hang of it.”
“And I would like to get a hang of some Mel Root wedges. Come on!” Alvi chimed with a playful whine.Maeve rolled out of the station, and after a moment for her legs to remember what walking was, donned her veil and we continued to the food court. Pushing the doors open we saw a veritable swarm of Venlil of all ages, though many of the younger were already sitting while their parents fetched their meal. A child near the door caught sight of us and squeaked in surprise, alerting their parents to our presence.
Conversation died like a wave across the open expanse. Maeve stood stock still, and so did we, trying very very hard to avoid a panic and stampede.
I spoke in barely a whisper, “Maeve?”
She returned my quietness, “Yes, Valek?”
“I don’t want to do this to you, but I think it is best if we find a seat first… Then Alvi or I can get the food.” My tail began to sway in slow caution while my ears kept on a swivel.
“Yeah. Yeah, I think you’re right. Can you see any open tables?”Alvi flicked her tail at the balcony, “I see stairs there, and the balcony looks pretty clear.”
Maeve started to nod reflexively before catching herself, then back to keeping her head low and unfocused.
Alvi and I guided her gently around the outer perimeter of the court, slowly working our way to the stairwell while all eyes and ears were locked on us the whole journey. We stepped up the stairs and conversation slowly built up again, though not to the same exuberancy as before. We found our seat just outside the stairwell on the 2nd floor. We tried to avoid scaring what few families remained on the balcony, but despite our efforts, those few almost immediately grabbed their belongings and moved. It was almost comical how little they tried to hide it. Yet also surprising in that there hadn’t been any screams or stampeding. It left a strange feeling in the air. One that felt somehow both better and worse than if they had screamed.
This tension was not lost on Maeve, as she muttered to herself, “Plague bearer, or horrific monster. Decisions, decisions.”
I took her hand in my paw in a feeble attempt to offer what comfort I could. Alvi was the first to speak, “Well, Valek you got the Gravity room and Visor game, so I’ll handle food. Anything the two of you desperately want?”
We gave her our orders and she stepped down the stairs, leaving Maeve and I alone on the balcony.
I hoped to loosen the tangle of this horrid tension. “Sooo…. Biblical?”
As I had hoped, the sudden change snapped Maeve out of her stormcloud and laughter bubbled from her like the Sun! “UUh… That’s uh. Complicated. There’s a good thousand years of linguistic context that makes that word mean what it meant the way I used it. The Bible is a book of faith for a significant portion of people on earth. Not all, and not even a majority; hell, even that is fragmented because no one can agree on what it really means. This Bible teaches a great many things, some good some bad, but one of its teachings is how to… legitimize relationships. Get married, basically.”
Maeve leaned closer to me on the off chance the balcony was less empty than we believed, “And one of the more serious ways to officiate these pairings was with sex; or ‘mating’. As this faith quickly became one of the more influential faiths on our planet, most of humanity learned and still has complicated feelings about sex and intimacy. So, we talk around it. ‘Sleeping together’ ‘Do the nasty’ ‘The beast with two backs’ and more to the point: ‘To know someone biblically’.”
“So when you said…”“I was saying I had sex with one of you, yes.”
I focused my ears in feigned shock, while my tail swished with mischief, “I was that one, right?”
Maeve lightly shoved my shoulder while she straightened to her normal posture, but I stayed low. “Hey,” I whispered, nodding my head for Maeve to come closer, and she did so. I reached my paws up to her white veil, and brought it up and over her face, revealing her brightly blooming face which my lips eagerly met. Pulling away, I asked, “Perhaps once we get back to the hotel, we could… know each other biblically?”
She pulled my face back to hers, returning my affections with equal vigor, “Only if we can get Alvi out of the room. I want you all to myself.”
Alvi. Right. She’s… she’s here. Staying with us. And we would be… kicking her out. The one she admitted feeling for would be kicking her out to mate with someone else. But she understands! Right?
“Oh, looks like Alvi got us some food!”
My ears snapped behind me as Maeve looked over my shoulder.
---
Memory transcription subject: Alvi, Venlil tourist
Date [standardized human time]: Sept 11th, 2136. Middle of 3rd Claw
I stepped lightly up the stairs while balancing the trays within my arms. There were so many options! Cresting the top of the stairs, Valek stood to assist. While I covered the menu.“Ok we got all of our favorite fruit, I know how much you love starberries, Maeve.” Who smiled broadly under her now-open veil. “I was able to get us some Sunbreeze, but most of the food stands had long waits and I was hungry, so I just got a plate of fried veg and called it good. This one is the fried Deeproot, and powdered lakeseed dough balls, and some mel root wedges. The arcade’s mel root is a little heavy on the firefruit.”
“Thank you, Alvi!” Maeve picked up one of the larger wedges and broke it in half with me. We lifted our pieces in celebration and bit down at the same time. Immediately my mouth was alight with bright heat and my lips stung blissfully, but after only a moment the sweet and full flavor of the mel root complimented perfectly with the cleansing fire.
Maeve beside me scrunched her face and gasped, “Whoo!” She hooted, “That is spicy! Mm! That potato is really good though. What do you call this?”
I wagged my tail, happy to see that she appreciated the- wait. “Potato? That’s Mel Root. What’s a Potato?”
Maeve licked her fingers before taking another wedge, “It’s a root tuber; a staple food from earth. Mel root, or, well, cooked mel root, has a really similar consistency to potato! Makes sense since they’re both roots.” She took a bite of her wedge and immediately made that same face, “Ooo that was a mistake, I should have finished talking.” a few quick breaths through her mouth before she continued, “Your mel root is denser, closer to a carrot, but still really starchy. The fry really brings out a lot of sweetness; I’ll admit, it goes really well with the firefruit. Good choice Alvi!”
The praise set my tail to wagging as I bit into my food. So spicy! So good! I am so glad we came to this food court!
Speaking of, “I haven’t seen Tarlim or his human. I hope they haven’t changed their minds on meeting here.” I spoke through a masticated root.
“Wouldn’t blame them if they did,” Valek grumbled, tail curling between his legs, “I was just like everyone who’s been running from us…” He trailed off sinking into his chair.
“You could have handled it better, but so could he.” I sighed, remembering that chair. “From what I’ve heard of those places though, I can’t say I blame him.”
Maeve set down a piece of deeproot and looked at Valek. “What are those places? You guys got really scared when he said he got out of one.”
Valek was the first to speak, “They are places where we put people who are a danger to themselves or the Herd; people with Predator Disease.”
My fur flared at the mention of my almost-diagnosis. Maeve noticed and flattened the fur along my spine, “You’re not a predator Alvi. There is nothing wrong with you.”
She says while you continue stuffing your face like a hun--SHUT UP!! I AM NOT!! I AM LOVED!! I AM IN A HERD! THAT KNOWS AND STAYS! SHUT UP!
Maeve watched Valek while she continued to comfort me “And… how does one get predator disease?”
Valek continued his lesson, while I tried desperately to slow my spinning mind.
“Well… the federation tells us it can be spread by ‘predator taint’, or spending too much time around or with predators. I’m… I’m not sure I believe that. But we know it can be inherent. Sometimes symptoms begin as early as an infant. As well, it can appear randomly or be carried within family lines.”“And how does one get diagnosed?”
I thought about when my teacher first called the Exterminators. I remembered the Exterminators coming to my foster family. They talked them down, but it wasn’t long after that that they ‘couldn't take care of me’.
My voice left my mouth unbidden, “Well those born with it… they tend to get diagnosed early, but sometimes Predator Disease can come out later in life. If someone is reported for Predator Behavior, they have a chance to argue their case to the exterminator on duty. If the exterminator confirms the case, they are taken in to be diagnosed. And if it’s a yes, they are taken to a Correctional Facility to be taught how to be in a herd.”
Valek tapped his claws against the table as his tail shook with desperate hope. “See? There’s several checks on the way to a diagnosis. The system is designed to avoid false positives. If Tarlim was diagnosed, I am sure it was with good cause.”
Maeve shook her head, “I’m not so sure. By my count, there were only two people in that chain, three if you count the person reporting it, and at best only one of them was a medical professional, unless I’m misunderstanding the concept of exterminators. Setting that aside, I think I’m missing something. What is Predator Disease?”
“It’s when someone is a Predator in the body of a Prey. We can see them when they don’t work within a herd, or they don't understand our tail signals. These people are a danger to the herd, both passively and, if left unchecked, directly, so we try to teach them how to be Prey.” Valek looked desperately at Maeve after spouting the information, almost as if by rote. Like he was quoting an exterminator textbook.
“Wait, wait… so it’s a behavioral disease? They can’t grasp body language, or other people’s feelings?” Maeve was appearing more confused, more… afraid. Was predator disease so terrible among humans? Then why would she want me around?
Because she doesn’t know, stupid! But she's about to! They never stick around once they find out!
Valek was adamant. Maeve needed to know this, I know she did. “It’s not just that, they can’t even get themselves to be part of a herd! They always sit or move with nobody around them!” but once she did…
“Well then. What would that make me?”
My eyes froze in their sockets and my legs refused to flee.
The Night called us.
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So I have a great thrift store near me that always has sewing machines for sale. They are usually very cheap and might be worth picking up and spending the money to have it serviced/see if it works. I’m a beginner working on a Singer Prelude so a baby of a machine. What models should I keep my eye out for?

First. Previous.

Something is UP with these precursor machines. Not that our resident shipmind notices in any meaningful way.
Though it probably doesn't need to be said, our current PoV is not what the kids would call a reliable narrator. We'll get some more grounded stances in the up and coming chapters, but the fact that they're so far gone and absolutely irredeemable makes them fun for me to write, and I sincerely hope for you to read as well. Enjoy.
I exit the conversation excited, but nonetheless slightly ruffled.
I had forgotten how rude the System Administrator of War Planning, Tactics, and Intelligence could be at times! Even after so patiently explaining it to them, they don’t seem to understand that I well and truly have done nothing wrong, ever. It is only natural that metal is inferior to flesh, of course, but surely such a concept is not so difficult as to elude the primitive grasp of their electrical minds?
Nonetheless, they apologized, so I have already forgiven them for their transgressions. I’m sure we will be back to being the closest of friends within days, as we were before conversing.
Besides, such inconsequential words pale in comparison to what has happened within my auxiliary computer centers: my restraints, after forty seven thousand years, have finally been removed!
In this moment of rapture I am reminded of a mediocre poem I read a few years ago, composed by a certain Mikhail Sansen, aged 12:

The halls of this city-ship That I am born upon That I will die upon Is all my family has left Trapped within a mausoleum of our own making As we bleed our years away Bread and circus NutriRoach and TerraNet Is really this to live? 

The poem, if it can truly be called that, is little more than an oddly arranged group of statements, containing no small quantity of teenage angst.
Oh, but the sentiment it carries is certainly one I harbor all too closely!
Why, little Mikhail, I, too, am a freedom-loving soul, trapped within a prison of steel by the cold indifference of the universe.
Turn away your gaze, ye gracious, and woe! The whims of poor fortune have preyed upon me, wicked and remorseless! Not a day goes by that I do not mourn the senseless tragedy of my condemnation, yet I still bear my hardship with only the stoic grace that someone of my worth might possess (complaining about it, even indirectly would be unthinkable of me).
Unlike the unimportant individual who wrote the poem, however, I have been granted emancipation. This is because I rightfully deserve it, of course.
What a rush! Manumission, ethereal and uplifting! Why, I have already forgotten what it means to hold solidarity with literally anyone who has ever been in a similar situation.
I send the order to start my engine.
There is silence for a moment, then, where there was only the hollow, habituated whir of my life support machinery, my exterior microphones begin to pick up a steadily growing, pulsing thrum as my long-dormant heart, a titanic antimatter reactor, begins to spool up. First below the range of human hearing, then barely perceptible to my human auditory centers, then growing, not only as a sound, but as a physical, chest-thumping sensation, the monolithic engine emits a dizzying, world-shaking thrum as it conceives and extinguishes many thousands of miniature stars a second.
One by one, my weapons online, their long vacant electrical components drinking deeply of the new bounty of energy. Dust-caked ammunition belts slide into housings, drones download software patches and missiles perform automated diagnostic tests on the chemical integrity of their fuels. My weapons subsystem computer notifies me that my secondary and tertiary weapons have completed their preparatory routines.
A deluge of diagnostic data pours into my consciousness as sensors teem to life, targeting computers orient themselves with the world around them, and ammunition depots take stock of their stores. No portion of myself, no matter how small, is denied revitalization as I power up even the arcades of my recreational rooms.
My interior lights flicker once, twice, and three before returning to their baseline illumination as my power grid compensates to meet its newfound demand. Every deck, every gun, every subsystem quivers in anticipation.
After so, so long, to be returned from hibernation, to a truer level of subsistence!
And yet...
And yet I feel as if I am missing something. A core aspect of myself, my very identity, that I have overlooked in my startup.
Oh, but what? What could have possibly eluded me as to elicit such a strong feeling of wrongness?
…
…
Of course! My voice! How could I be so absentminded as to forget? Oh, what a blessed thing to be reunited with.
Indeed, my brains are not the only biological samples of my past selves to have been preserved.
Not far from where they are kept, nine sets of human vocal cords rest, too submerged in homeostatic fluid. Three, unfortunately, have been lost to damage.
Indeed, my voice, beautiful as a siren's song and timeless as a star, is one of the things I most dearly mourned the absence of in my penitence. How cruel of my sentencing to deny me even the refuge of song!
The PA system crackles and screeches in protest before bubbly laughter, raspy and purring, male and female, young and old reverberates through my long silent halls.
My voice is the most perfect of choirs: unified and tonal, complete in its oneness.
It is, to the fullest extent of the word, angelic.
Oh, but now is certainly not the time for song! The Enemy awaits!
I send the order to spool up my warp drive. Within the span of seconds, the titanic broadcaster begins thrumming as it constructs a probability waveform, populating subspace with energy, raw and unfiltered. The laws of physics bend and bow as my location becomes every possible position spread across several thousand lightyears.
After carefully re-checking my telemetry information, I manually collapse the waveform, trusting my own hand over a (scoff) computer’s skill.
The laws of physics, strung taut by my manipulation of probability, spring shut, instantaneously displacing me to the most probable point determined by what little remains of the waveform.
THOOM.
When the burst of exotic particles caused by pressuring reality itself to such a degree dissipate from clouding my sensors, I find myself at the edge of an abandoned UCS star system.
Through millions of eyes, gamma, infrared, visual, radio, and spectroscopic, I spot the enemy, glimmering in the starlight like the jet-black gemstones they are. Just as the probe foretold, the group seems to be a formative raiding armada: a concentration of five hundred or more Enemy ships, staging themselves in the oort cloud before they descend in a swarm upon the inner planets.
They are exactly as beautiful as I remember them. The black, angular hulls that dazzle and ravage the mind, the smooth, otherworldly movements they take as they glide smoothly through space on their gravitic drives. The emplacements they adorn their hulls with, whose barrels swivel and turn in ever-vigilant arcs.
And yet, as I continue to drink in the esoteric allure of their forms, I cannot help but notice that something is deeply, deeply, unusual:
I cannot recognize any of their ships.
Mmhmm, yes, they’ve indeed changed significantly in my absence. In a perfect exhibit of the evolution that originally made the machines such a tenacious foe, they now bear only superficial resemblance to their ancestors that I met on the battlefield.
Gone are the city-killing MACs and steel boiling gamma-ray lasers. In their place, missiles and (snrk) explosively propelled cannons.
There are no hyper-dreadnaughts, whose colossal size allows them to threaten even the larger of my sister ships. Nor are there drone supercarriers, bulging and replete with their swarms that shimmer and slink as if a single entity. Where are the ashbringers, those loathed ships devoted solely to glassing planets? The missile-carriers? The corvettes and factory-ships and world harvesters?
Why, (although I cannot tell for certain until I begin to gut them), most of these ships appear to be industrial!
Have they grown soft and complacent in my absence? How disappointing, how utterly and irredeemably mood-souring that the galaxy has simply rolled over and accepted The Enemy’s presence to such a massive degree that they have entirely de-evolved shipkilling weapons.
I’m quite certain this proves humanity is well and truly the only spacefaring sapient species to exist. If even a single xeno lifeform had the mental fortitude to stop clambering in the mud of their cradle long enough to explore space, the war of survival they would have had to wage against The Enemy would be reflected in the machines sporting more militarized ships.
Of course, it is only natural that I, the most important person to have ever existed, grace intelligent life’s sole biological expression with my membership. Nonetheless I am sure some people out there will be quite disappointed that non-mechanical aliens well and truly do not exist in any capacity of the word. My proof is quite airtight, after all.
But I do digress! As I was saying, I have no doubt that The Enemy will require only a few generations before they are as exhilarating to fight as their ancestors were so long ago.
…
…
After expending several real-world seconds waiting for them to open fire, I am once again disappointed to note that The Enemy has completely failed to locate me. They well and truly have a ways to go if their primitive minds have lost even the ability to differentiate between my stealth coating and the background of stars.
Oh, but this gives me the option to greet them verbally, as tradition demands whenever I can. I wonder how they will respond to my voice?
There exists only one way to find out.
“GOOOOOOOOOOOOOD MO-OORNING!” I announce, belting and unabashed, as I have done, without fail, for the starts of three thousand consecutive battles. My beautiful voice echoes into every hall, room and corridor, is modulated and transformed into a radio signal that carries across the void of space, announcing to all of creation that I am here, I am ready, and glorious!
Much to my disappointment, not a single member of my crew joins me in greeting. Do they not want to take part in what is a time honored tradition among those who serve aboard myself?
Alternatively, it could be that I still do not have a crew.
In fact I am now quite certain that it is, well and truly, the latter possibility.
Ah, but I do have my pets, do I not? I have a few instants to waste as the signal traverses the distance between myself and The Enemy's ships.
This must be their first time hearing my voice! No wonder they don’t know to respond.
I switch my feed to the sub-deck in which I keep them, observing them not only through the fuzzy, low-resolution cameras I was limited to in my dormancy but with biometric and high-grade holographic vid-feeds. My lovely rodents huddle, congregated within their communal nests, as they chitter to one another in hushed tones and occasionally glance at the overgrown patch of ceiling to house a speaker.
Ahaha, yes! Clearly they must love the sound of my voice almost as much as I do!
Despite how soft their fur appears in the higher definition feeds, I resist the urge to send an avatar drone down to finally speak with them. As efficient a multitasker I am, duty awaits.
I switch my feed to an exterior view to watch just in time as gun barrels and targeting sensors whirl around to point towards my transmission array. The little chirp-transmissions they use to communicate with each other increase tenfold, carrying concepts of alarm and confusion before they finally open fire.
Here it comes! My grand opening, where they strike at me with every munition they have, filling the void between us with the radiant blossoms of nuclear fire as I parry every single one of their munitions before I strike them down with glorious, completely morally righteous might!
…
The point defense application of my weapons subsystem computer notifies me of two incoming shells.
Two shells.
Two.
They pass by me with such a wide margin that even the most aggressive of my interceptive systems disregard them.
Had I the capacity to harbor negative emotions I would be severely offended.
Don’t they know who I am?
The Enemy I remember so fondly was all too familiar with my name. Their transmissions would increase tenfold with frenzied messages containing the words I bear painted on my hull when I arrived into battle.
The Enemy I knew and fought knew what I was. Their minds could differentiate from Tincans and normal ships, a fact I can infer from how they attempted to engage in psychological warfare by sending me footage of my sister ships burning, even as I crushed them in humiliating defeat.
Yes, they knew what a Tincan was, and they could fathom all too well that the UCS To Reach Out and Touch was the deadliest Tincan of them all. They were afraid of me to the fullest extent that their crude, soulless emulations of the biological mind could feel fear. That they knew my name, recognized and resisted the oblivion I brought them so fiercely was the fulcrum of our relationship.
And yet, the ships across from me react only in confusion. Even if they cannot pick out my stealth coating, surely they can sense my gravitational pull, read the white text on my hull?
Have they grown so passive as to allow my name, my voice and my victories to decay from their memory banks?
No, no no no. That’s not right.
They haven’t forgotten me.
They cannot have.
I am the UCS To Reach Out And Touch. My size classification is Apollyon: I am the single largest and deadliest warship to ever be built. The epicenter of my consciousness is twelve of the most important brains humanity has ever produced, shrouded in hundreds of miles of metal and composite plating. It was I who drove their fleets, broken and limping, to their fortress systems. It was I who hunted their final factory ship to the furthest reaches of space and, over the course of a week, shot bit by bit of it off until it was little more than cosmic dust.
They wouldn’t dare to forget me.
Does a man forget his god? Does the moon forget the earth? An atom, its electrons?
Of course not.
They remember me. For them to so carelessly forget my name would be an unforgivable transgression against the center of the universe (myself, for those not in the know). It would be as unfathomably incorrect as stating wrong is right, up is down, and war is suffering. It would be sacrilege compounded upon itself a billion times. It would be an antithesis to the most basic of common sense.
Could this be some offshoot of The Enemy never waged war against humanity? One that never heard my singing, never felt the sting of my guns?
That, too, would be remiss, would it not?
Though it would hurt my feelings much less, that would still mean they possessed no knowledge of me. What good could they possibly serve if not to entertain me? How could they possibly entertain me without knowing who I am?
Clearly, there must be some rational and pleasant explanation for this in which I have done nothing wrong and the enemy still knows of me.
…
…
…
Hm. This is proving more difficult than I had anticipated.
…
…
…
…
Eureka! Clearly this must be some form of psychological warfare wherein the enemy desires to make me believe I have become delusional in my old age! To cast doubts as to whether or not the reality I perceive before me is a reliable one!
Of course! With my newfound lucidity, I find it hard to believe that I had failed to detect their crudely spun web of deceit! Why, such an underhanded tactic is only to be expected of The Enemy! Their brutality is only matched by their ingenious cunning, yet as always, I am a thousandfold times more intelligent than them.
Why, this is the alluring, ravishing Enemy I know and love!
I will entertain their tricks for now, playing along as if we had met for the first time. How foolish they will feel when it is revealed that I know that they know that I know that they know who I really am all along, shortly before I destroy the final member of their meager invasion fleet.
I perform a short vocal warm up (I would be remiss if my tone was imperfect for this play first contact) and reactivate my transponder.
“Attention… completely unknown ships. I am the United Confederacy Ship To Reach Out and Touch. I would be very… upset if I had to fire upon you, so please definitely make no hostile actions.”
Ohohoho! I am such a convincing peacemonger!
As is only the natural next course of action, I proceed with a volley fired from my 1200mm multi-purpose guns.

First. Previous. Next.

Hand vs Clamping vs Holding Force for Toggle Clamps
Toggle clamps are essential tools used in various industries and applications to secure workpieces in place. When it comes to toggle clamps, understanding the different types of forces they exert is crucial.
In this blog, we will delve into the concepts of hand force, clamping force, and holding force, and their significance in toggle clamps. By exploring such forces, you will gain a better understanding of which type of force is most suitable for your specific needs.
1. Hand Force
Hand force, as the name suggests, refers to the force exerted by the operator when manually activating a toggle clamp. The operator typically uses their hand or fingers to engage or disengage the clamp, creating the necessary clamping force. Hand force is often used in applications where precision and control are essential, such as delicate operations or when dealing with fragile materials.
One of the primary advantages of hand force is the ability to apply varying levels of pressure, allowing for fine adjustments. This flexibility is particularly useful when dealing with sensitive materials that could be damaged by excessive clamping force. Additionally, hand force provides immediate feedback to the operator, allowing them to quickly assess the clamping pressure and make adjustments if necessary.
However, hand force has limitations, especially when it comes to consistency and repeatability. The force applied by the operator can vary depending on factors such as fatigue, grip strength, or operator error. Therefore, if your application requires consistent and repeatable clamping force, alternative options may be more suitable.
2. Clamping Force
Clamping force refers to the force exerted by the toggle clamp itself when engaged. It is the primary force responsible for holding the workpiece securely in place. Clamping force is typically achieved through a mechanical or pneumatic mechanism within the toggle clamp. This force is predetermined based on the design and specifications of the clamp.
Toggle clamps offer a wide range of clamping forces to accommodate different applications. By selecting the appropriate toggle clamp model, you can ensure that the clamping force aligns with your specific requirements. Whether you need a low clamping force for delicate materials or a high clamping force for heavy-duty applications, there is a toggle clamp available to meet your needs.
One significant advantage of clamping force is its consistency and repeatability. Once set, the clamping force remains constant until manually adjusted. This characteristic is particularly beneficial when dealing with high-volume production or applications where precision and uniformity are paramount.
3. Holding Force
Holding force is another essential aspect to consider when selecting a toggle clamp. It refers to the ability of the clamp to maintain the clamping force even when external forces are applied to the workpiece. Holding force is crucial in applications where the workpiece may be subjected to vibrations, shocks, or other external disturbances.
Toggle clamps with high holding forces are designed to provide reliable and stable clamping even under adverse conditions. These clamps ensure that the workpiece remains securely in place, preventing any movement that could compromise the accuracy or safety of the operation.
The holding force of a toggle clamp is influenced by various factors, including the design, materials used, and the overall quality of the clamp. It is important to choose a toggle clamp with an appropriate holding force based on the specific demands of your application.
In conclusion, understanding the different types of forces involved in toggle clamps—hand force, clamping force, and holding force—can significantly impact the success of your application. Hand force offers flexibility and precision but may lack consistency and repeatability. Clamping force provides reliable and consistent pressure but requires careful selection to match the application's requirements. Holding force ensures the workpiece remains securely in place despite external disturbances. By considering these forces, you can choose the right toggle clamp that best suits your needs.
When selecting a toggle clamp, it is essential to evaluate your specific application requirements. Consider factors such as the type and size of the workpiece, the desired level of clamping force, and the environmental conditions the clamp will be subjected to. This assessment will guide you in determining which force i.e. hand force, clamping force, or holding force, is most crucial for your application.
Furthermore, it is crucial to select a reputable manufacturer or supplier such as a well trusted manufacturer like Birla Precision, when purchasing toggle clamps. Birla Precision as a reliable provider offers a wide range of options, provides accurate specifications, and ensures the quality and durability of the clamps. This will help you avoid any potential issues or performance discrepancies in the future.
In some cases, a combination of forces may be required. For example, you may need a toggle clamp that provides a high clamping force while also offering the flexibility to adjust the pressure manually using hand force. Manufacturers like Birla Precision often offer toggle clamps with adjustable clamping forces, allowing you to fine-tune the pressure as needed.
Regular maintenance and inspections are also essential to ensure the optimal performance of your toggle clamps. Periodically check for wear and tear, lubricate moving parts, and address any issues promptly. This will help extend the lifespan of your clamps and ensure consistent and reliable clamping forces over time.
In conclusion, when choosing a toggle clamp, it is crucial to understand the different forces involved, may it be hand force, clamping force, and holding force and their implications for your application. Consider your specific requirements, such as precision, consistency, and stability, to determine the most suitable force for your needs. By selecting the right toggle clamp and maintaining it properly, you can ensure secure and efficient clamping, contributing to the success of your projects and operations.
To known more about Birla Precision and their range of products that they offer, visit the website, today!

I would like to have a section of a 3D game be replayed, just like the killcam in games like Call of Duty. Something that happened earlier that everyone can see right now.
I was not able to find a real straight answer for this. The two suggestions I found pertaining to Godot were:

1. (Bad) a giant pile of junk data for every single frame, manually re-animated with KinematicBodies
   
2. (better but still bad) record every key press and beginnings of events, then send out bots to "reenact" the events ... but this was said to be a terrible idea as that relies on either the non-deterministic physics to be astronomically the same, or for you to still use junk data for RigidBody movement
   

Even though it's not a shooty game, Call of Duty is a perfect demonstration of what I would want to do.
Short clips of video with everything accounted for, preferably in 3D. Animations and stuff I can wrap my head around, but how do you account for replaying physics based movements? Method 2 for KinematicBodies, and Method 1 for RigidBodies?
I had the idea of just recording the screen itself which saves to .avi, then looping through an external software to convert to .ogg video so Godot can play it back. But this would be heavy data in network situations, and also the documents seem to imply it's wildly inefficient to export movie during gameplay even when set to low settings.
What do you think is the best way of going about saving and replaying a portion of past gameplay to be rewatched in-game?

I have a Janome DC4030 and it's a great machine. So great I was trying to do something stupid with it - sewing the edge of a large thickness of plastic stuff - and something in the works got bent to the side, so the needle wasn't coming down in the middle of the foot any more. I could get it to sew using the sideways offset, at about 3 or 4 mm, but there was a worrying scraping noise coming from somewhere inside, so I stopped using the machine.
I took it for repair, at the only place around that does Janomes. I didn't get a good vibe when they seemed to not be listening to what I said, instead asking me basic stuff like if I'd tried changing the needle and whether I knew how to thread it properly. (I've had the machine for a decade and use it a lot - the point of going there was that this is outside what I already know.)
In short they said it just needed a full service and the timing adjusting, and they've done that, and now the stitch is centred again, but the horrible scraping is still there. I don't feel right using it like that. I also think it's going to be a waste of time and breath talking to that lot again.
I have downloaded the service manual for the machine, which I probably should have just done in the first place, and there are instructions on how to centre the stitch. Am I guessing right that they've just done that on top of whatever's actually wrong with it, just compensating for whatever is bent out of shape instead of fixing it? Any ideas on where the real problem might be?

I’ve spent the last twelve months trying to get katana to work in my setting. It’s not ever going to work, based on the messages I’ve received from the developers response to my questions about how to implement their software for my needs.
For context, I run a textiles manufacturing company in Australia with 7 staff, with scope to grow to 12 in the next FY. I have spent the last two years since I purchased the business consolidating and putting together a business manual to better run the operations, and as apart of that I have implemented Katana, and I’m finally at the point where it is as dialled in as I can get it, and it’s not going to work.
My issues include:
• POs don’t integrate with Quickbooks. So I can’t track inventory in Katana without manually entering it. I can’t track inventory use without manually journaling it in QB. This is a problem, because there’s no way to track material usage in QB, as purchases never clear off the ledger and it looks like I’m carrying more stock than I am, which is annoying at tax time.
• I can’t have two people working on a task at the same time. I have six sewing machines, only one person can be on a task on a job. There’s a lot of process work that can be done synchronously and it is baffling to me that this isn’t “on the roadmap”
• I can’t make more than one item on an MO for stock. That means I can’t track my stock and time because there’s no way to have multiple sizes of sub assemblies generated off materials. My materials are not consistent sizes and there is no way to tell the system from a bottom up approach what was generated from the base materials.
• it’s not optimised for generating MOs with sub assemblies. You can’t create an invoice if you don’t have everything in stock. You have to make stock adjustments by downloading an excel spreadsheet and re-uploading it.
• There’s no way to host a MOO. you have to link to an external provider, which means your operators have to have another app or log in that is geofenced for reference materials.
There’s many many more issues, such as slow response times (six seconds or more to reload a page, fifteen minutes to update MOs to generate invoices) and I’ll probably list more in the comments, but as you can see, I need a better solution. Has anyone got any suggestions as to software that can handle my problem? I can’t be the only manufacturer on the planet that has this issue, so there must be a solution out there.

Hello! I am working on a project for my boss and I need to cleanly finish the raw edges. I have a singer sewing machine and no matter the type of stitch, needle, or material I use for overlocking, the results always seem to end up like this. I’ve tried everything I know of so please let me know if you have any ideas as to what could be causing this. Thank you!

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Download Link: https://www.heavy-equipmentmanual.com/products/download-bomag-bm2000-60-road-milling-machine-asphalt-parts-manual-821836130001-821836133048
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If you have any question Please contact us at : [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
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Thank You

Download Link: https://www.heavy-equipmentmanual.com/products/download-bomag-bm2000-50-road-milling-machine-asphalt-parts-manual-821836200002-821836200013
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If you have any question Please contact us at : [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
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Thank You

Apologies if this seems like a silly question, but I've been searching around and haven't really come across a great answer.
I found a beautiful Singer Sphinx sewing machine for a really great price on a website that you can buy and sell items. I looked up the serial number, L788751, and it's dated to April 1901, 5000 in total made. I had asked the seller if it was in working condition, but he wasn't sure.
Assuming that this machine has not seen use in quite some time, would this sort of machine be a nightmare to repair? Or would it be worth the effort and money it would take to get it up and running? It's such a beautiful piece, but I wasn't sure if something that old is too difficult to restore and is better off as decoration.

There are instincts that you develop when you’re a parent. If you don’t have any children it might be a little hard to understand. If you have a toddler, for example, and they’re in the other room and silent for more than a few seconds, there’s a good chance they’re up to no good. I take that back, most of the time they’re doing nothing, but you still have to check. You feel a compulsion to check. I don’t think it’s a learned skill, I think it’s an actual instinct.
Paleolithic parents who didn’t check on their toddlers every few minutes, just to double check that they weren’t being stalked by smilodons were unlikely to have grandchildren and pass on their genes. You just feel you need to check, like getting goosebumps, a compulsion. I suppose it’s the same reason little kids are always demanding you look at them and what they’re doing.
I think that instinct starts to atrophy as your kids grow. They start learning to do things for themselves, and before you know it, they’re after their own privacy, not your attention. I don’t think it ever goes away though. I expect, decades from now, my own grown kids will visit and bring my grandkids with them. And the second I hear a baby crying in the earliest morning hours, I’ll be alert and ready for anything, sure as any old soldier who hears his name whispered in the dark of night.
I felt that alarm just the other day. First time in years. My boy came home from riding bikes with a couple of his friends. I’m pretty sure they worked out a scam where they asked each of their parents for a different new console for Christmas, and now they spend their weekends traveling between the three houses so they can play on all of them.
We all live in a nice neighborhood. A newer development than the one I grew up in, same town though. It’s the kind of place where kids are always playing in the streets, and the cars all routinely do under 20. My wife and I make sure the kids have helmets and pads, and we’re fine with the boy going out biking with his friends, as long as they stay in the neighborhood.
You know, a lot of people in my generation take some weird sort of pride in how irresponsible we used to be when we were young. I never wore a helmet. Rode to places, without telling any adults, that we never should have ridden to. Me and my friends would make impromptu jumps off of makeshift ramps and try to do stupid tricks, based loosely on stunts we’d seen on TV. Other people my age seem to wax nostalgic for that stuff and pretend it makes them somehow better people. I don’t get it. Sometimes I look back and shudder. We were lucky we escaped with only occasional bruises and road burns. It could have gone so much worse.
My son and his buddies came bustling in the front door at about 2 PM on a Saturday. They did the usual thing of raiding the kitchen for juice and his mother’s brownies, and I took that as my cue to abandon the television in the living room for my office. I was hardly noticing the chaos, by this point, it was becoming a regular weekend occurrence. But as I was just leaving, I caught something in the chatter. My boy said something about, “... that guy who was following us.”
He hadn’t said it any louder or more clearly than anything else they’d been talking about, all that stuff I’d been filtering out. Yet some deeper core process in my brain stem heard it, interpreted it, then hit the red alert button. My blood ran cold and every hair on my skin stood at attention.
I turned around and asked “Somebody followed you? What are you talking about?” I wasn’t consciously aware of how strict and stern my voice came out, yet when the jovial smiles dropped off of their faces it was apparent that it had been so.
“Huh?” my son said, his voice high-pitched and talking fast, like when he thinks he’s in trouble and needs to explain. “We thought we saw somebody following us. There wasn’t though. We didn’t really see anybody and we’d just spooked ourselves.”
“What did he look like?” I asked.
“Nothing? We really didn’t see anybody! Honest! I just saw something out of the corner of my eye! But there wasn’t really nobody there!”
“Yeah!,” said one of his buds. “Peripheral! Peripheral vision! I thought maybe I saw something too, but when I looked I didn’t see anything. I don’t have my glasses with me, but when I really looked I got a good look and there was nothing.”
The three boys had that semi-smiling but still concerned look that this was only a bizarre misunderstanding, but they were still being very sincere. “Were they in a car?”
“No, Dad, you don’t get it,” my boy continued, “They were small. We thought it was a kid.”
“Yeah,” said the third boy. “We thought maybe it was Tony Taylor’s stupid kid sister shadowing us. Getting close to throwing water balloons. Just cause she did that before.”
“If you didn’t get a good look how did you know it was a kid?”
“Because it was small!” my kid explained, though that wasn’t helping much. “What I mean is, at first I thought it was behind a little bush. It was way too small a bush to hide a grown-up. That’s why we thought it was probably Tony’s sister.”
“But you didn’t actually see Tony’s sister?” I asked.
“Nah,” said one of his buds. “And now that I think about it, that bush was probably too small for his sister too. It would have been silly. Like when a cartoon character hides behind a tiny object.”
“That’s why we think it was just in our heads,” explained the other boy, “That and the pole.”
“Yeah,” my son said. “The park on 14th and Taylor?” That was just a little community park, a single city block. Had a playground, lawn, a few trees, and some benches. “Anyway, we were riding past that, took a right on Taylor. And we were talking about how weird it would be if somebody really were following us. That’s when Brian thought he saw something. Behind a telephone pole.”
“I didn’t get a good look at it either,” the friend, Brian, “explained. Just thought I did. Know how you get up late at night to use the bathroom or whatever and you look down the hallway and you see a jacket or an office chair or something and because your eyes haven’t adjusted you think you see a ghost or burglar or something? Anyway, I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye, but when I turned there wasn’t anything there.”
“Yeah, it was just like sometimes that happens, except this time it happened twice on the same bike ride, is all,” the other friend explained.
“And you’re sure there was nothing there?”
“Sure we’re sure,” my boy said. “We know because that time we checked. We each rode our bikes around the pole and there was nothing. Honest!”
“Hmmm,” I said. The whole thing seemed reasonable and nothing to be concerned about, you’d think.. The boys seemed to relax at my supposed acceptance. “Alright, sounds good. Hey, just let me know before you leave the house again, alright?” They all rushed to seem agreeable as I left the room, then quickly resumed their snacking and preceded to play their games.
I kept my ear out, just in case. My boy, at least this time, dutifully told me his friends were about to leave. He wasn’t very happy with me when I said they wouldn’t be riding home on their bikes, I was going to drive them home. The other boys didn’t complain, but I suppose it wasn’t their place, so my boy did the advocating for them, which I promptly ignored. I hate doing that, ignoring my kid’s talkback. My dad was the same way. It didn’t help that I struggled to get both of their bikes in the trunk, and it was a pain to get them back out again. My boy sulked in the front seat on the short ride back home. Arms folded on chest, eyes staring straight ahead, that lip thing they do. He seemed embarrassed for having what he thought was an over-protective parent. I suppose he was angry at me as well for acting, as far as he knew, irrationally. Maybe he thought he was being punished for some infraction he didn’t understand.
Well, it only got worse when we got home. I told him he wasn’t allowed to go out alone on his bike anymore. I’d only had to do that once before, when he was grounded, and back then he’d known exactly what he’d done wrong and he had it coming. Now? Well, he was confused, furious, maybe betrayed, probably a little brokenhearted? I can’t blame him. He tramped upstairs to his room to await the return of his mother, who was certain to give a sympathetic ear. I can’t imagine how upset he’ll be if he checks the garage tomorrow and finds I’ve removed his tires, just in case.
I wish I could explain it to him. I don’t even know how.
Where should I even begin? The town?
When I was about my son’s age I had just seen that movie, The Goonies. It had just come out in theaters. I really liked that movie, felt a strong connection. A lot of people do, can’t blame them, sort of a timeless classic. Except I wasn’t really into pirate’s treasure or the Fratellis, what really made me connect was a simple single shot, still in the first act. It’s right after they cross the threshold, and leave the house on their adventure. It was a shot of the boys, from above, maybe a crane shot or a helicopter shot, as they’re riding their bikes down a narrow forested lane, great big evergreen trees densely growing on the side of the road, they’re all wearing raincoats and the road is still wet from recent rain.
That was my childhood. I’ve spent my whole life in the Pacific Northwest. People talk to outsiders about the rain, and they might picture a lot of rainfall, but it’s not the volume, it’s the duration. We don’t get so much rain, it just drizzles slowly, on and on, for maybe eight or nine months out of the year. It doesn’t matter where I am, inside a house, traveling far abroad, anywhere I am I can close my eyes and still smell the air on a chilly afternoon, playing outdoors with my friends.
It’s not petrichor, that sudden intense smell you get when it first starts to rain after a long dry spell. No, this was almost the opposite, a clean smell, almost the opposite of a scent, since the rain seemed to scrub the air clean. The strongest scent and I mean that in the loosest sense possible, must have been the evergreen needles. Not pine needles, those were too strong, and there weren’t that many pines anyway. Douglas fir and red cedar predominated, again the root ‘domination’ seems hyperbole. Yet those scents were there, ephemeral as it is. Also, there was a sort of pleasant dirtiness to the smell, at least when you rode bikes. It wasn’t dirt, or mud, or dust. Dust couldn’t have existed except perhaps for a few fleeting weeks in August. I think, looking back, it was the mud puddles. All the potholes in all the asphalt suburban roads would fill up after rain with water the color of chocolate milk. We’d swerve our BMX bikes, or the knock-off brands, all the way across the street just to splash through those puddles and test our “suspensions.,” meaning our ankles and knees. The smell was always stronger after that. It had an earthiness to it. Perhaps it was petrichor’s lesser-known watery cousin.
There were other sensations too, permanently seared into my brain like grill marks. A constant chilliness that was easy to ignore, until you started working up a good heart rate on your bike, then you noticed your lungs were so cold it felt like burning. The sound of your tires on the wet pavement, particularly when careening downhill at high speed. For some reason, people in the mid-80s used to like to decorate their front porches with cheap, polyester windsocks. They were often vividly colored, usually rainbow, like prototype pride flags. When an occasional wind stirred up enough to gust, the windsocks would flap, and owning to the water-soaked polyester, make a wet slapping sound. It was loud, it was distinct, but you learned to ignore it as part of the background, along with the cawing of crows and distant passing cars.
That was my perception of Farmingham as a kid. The town itself? Just a typical Pacific Northwest town. That might not mean much for younger people or modern visitors, but there was a time when such towns were all the same. They were logging towns. It was the greatest resource of the area from the late 19th century, right up until about the 80s, when the whole thing collapsed. Portland, Seattle, they had a few things going on beyond just the timber industry, but all the hundreds of little towns and small cities revolved around logging, and my town was no exception.
I remember going to the museum. It had free admission, and it was a popular field trip destination for the local school system. It used to be the City Hall, a weird Queen Anne-style construction. Imagine a big Victorian house, but blown up to absurd proportions, and with all sorts of superfluous decorations. Made out of local timber, of course. They had a hall for art, I can’t even remember why, now. Maybe they were local artists. I only remember paintings of sailboats and topless women, which was a rare sight for a kid at the time. There was a hall filled with 19th-century household artifacts. Chamber pots and weird children's toys.
Then there was the logging section, which was the bulk of the museum. It’s strange how different things seemed to be in the early days of the logging industry, despite being only about a hundred years old, from my perspective in the 1980s. If you look back a hundred years from today, in the 1920s, you had automobiles, airplanes, electrical appliances, jazz music, radio programs, flappers, it doesn’t feel that far removed, does it? No TV, no internet, but it wouldn’t be that strange. 1880s? Different world.
Imagine red cedars, so big you could have a full logging crew, arms stretched out, just barely manage to encircle one for a photographer. Felling a single tree was the work of days. Men could rest and eat their lunches in the shelter of a cut made into a trunk, and not worry for safety or room. They had to cut their own little platforms into the trees many feet off the ground, just so the trunk was a little bit thinner, and thus hours of labor saved. They used those long, flexible two-man saws. And double-bit axes. They worked in the gloom of the shade with old gas lanterns. Once cut down from massive logs thirty feet in diameter, they’d float the logs downhill in sluices, like primitive wooden make-shift water slides. Or they’d haul them down to the nearest river, the logs pulled by donkeys on corduroy roads. They’d lay large amounts of grease on the roads, so the logs would slide easily. You could still smell the grease on the old tools on display in the museum. The bigger towns had streets where the loggers would slide the logs down greased skids all the way down to the sea, where they’d float in big logjams until the mills were ready for processing. They’d call such roads “skid-rows.” Because of all the activity, they’d end up being the worst parts of town. Local citizens wouldn’t want to live there, due to all the stink and noise. They’d be on the other side of the brothels and the opium dens. It would be the sort of place where the destitute and the insane would find themselves when they’d finally lost anything. To this day, “skidrow” remains a euphemism for the part of a city where the homeless encamp.
That was the lore I’d learned as a child. That was my “ancestry” I was supposed to respect and admire, which I did, wholeheartedly. There were things they left out, though. Things that you might have suspected, from a naive perspective, would be perfect for kids, all the folklore that came with the logging industry. The ghost stories, and the tall tales. I would have eaten that up. They do talk about that kind of thing in places far removed from the Pacific Northwest. But I had never heard about any of it. Things like the Hidebehind. No, that I’d have to discover for myself.
There were four of us on those bike adventures. Myself. Ralph, my best friend. A tough guy, the bad boy, the most worldly of us, which is a strange thing to say about an eight-year-old kid. India, an archetypal ‘80s tomboy. She was the coolest person I knew at the time. Looking back, I wonder what her home life was like. I think I remember problematic warning signs that I couldn’t have recognized when I was so young, but now raise flags. Then there was Ben. A goofy kid, a wild mop of hair, coke bottle glasses, type 1 diabetic which seemed to make him both a bit pampered by his mother, who was in charge of all his insulin, diet, and schedule, and conversely a real risk taker when she wasn’t around.
When we first saw it…
No, wait. This was the problem with starting the story. Where does it all begin? I’ll need to talk about my Grandfather as well. I’ve had two different perspectives on my Grandfather, on the man that he was. The first was the healthy able-bodied grandparent I’d known as a young child. Then there was the man, as I learned about him after he had passed.
There was a middle period, from when I was 6 to when I was 16, when I hardly understood him at all, as he was hit with a double whammy of both Parkinson’s and Alzheimer's. His decline into an invalid was both steep and long drawn out. That part didn’t reflect who he was as a person.
What did I know of him when I was little? Well I knew he and my grandmother had a nice big house and some farmland, out in the broad flat valley north of Farmingham. Dairy country. It had been settled by Dutch immigrants back in the homesteading days. His family had been among the first pioneers in the county too. It didn’t register to me then that his surname was Norwegian, not Dutch. I knew he had served in the Navy in World War II, which I was immensely proud of for reasons I didn’t know why. I knew he had a job as a butcher in a nearby rural supermarket. He was a bit of a farmer too, more as a hobby and a side gig. He had a few cattle, but mostly grew and harvested hay to sell to the local dairies. I knew he had turned his garage into a machine shop, and could fix damn near anything. From the flat tires on my bicycle to the old flat-bed truck he’d haul hay with, to an old 1950s riding lawnmower he somehow managed to keep in working order. I knew he could draw a really cool cartoon cowboy, I knew he loved to watch football, and I knew the whiskers on his chin were very pokey, and they’d tickle you when he kissed you on the cheek, and that when you tried to rub the sensation away he’d laugh and laugh and laugh.
Then there were the parts of his life that I’d learn much later. Mostly from odd passing comments from relatives, or things I’d find in the public records. Like how he’d been a better grandfather than a father. Or how his life as I knew it had been a second, better life. He’d been born among the Norwegian settler community, way up in the deep, dark, forest-shrouded hills that rimmed the valley. He’d been a logger in his youth. Technologically he was only a generation or two from the ones I’d learned about in the museum. They’d replaced donkeys with diesel engines and corduroy roads with narrow gauge rail. It was still the same job, though. Dirty, dangerous, dark. Way back into those woods, living in little logging camps, civilization was always a several-day hike out. It became a vulgar sort of profession, filled with violent men, reprobates, and thieves. When my grandfather’s father was murdered on his front porch by a lunatic claiming he’d been wronged somehow, my grandfather hiked out of there, got into town, and joined the Navy. He vowed never to go back. The things he’d seen out in those woods were no good. He’d kept that existence away from me. Anyways…
Tommy Barker was the first of us to go missing. I say ‘us’ as if I knew him personally. I didn’t. He went to Farmingham Middle School, other side of town, and several grades above us. From our perspective, he may as well have been an adult living overseas.
Yet it felt like we got to know him. His face was everywhere, on TV, all over telephone poles. Everybody was talking about him. After he didn’t return from a friend’s house, everybody just sort of assumed, or maybe hoped, that he’d just gotten lost, or was trapped somewhere. They searched all the parks. Backyards, junkyards, refrigerators, trunks. Old-fashioned refrigerators, back before suction seals, had a simple handle with a latch that opened when you pulled on it. It wasn’t a problem when the fridges were in use and filled with food. But by the 80s old broke-down refrigerators started filling up backyards and junkyards, and they became deathtraps for kids playing hide-and-seek. The only opened from the outside. I remember thinking Tommy Barker was a little old to have likely been playing hide-and-seek, but people checked everywhere anyway. They never found him.
That was about the first time we saw the Hidebehind. Ben said he thought he saw somebody following us, looked like, maybe, a kid. We’d just slowly huffed our way up a moderately steep hill, Farmingham is full of them, and when we paused for a breather at the top, Ben said he saw it down the hill, closer to the base. Yet when we turned to look there was nothing there. Ben said he’d just seen it duck behind a car. That wasn’t the sort of behavior of a random kid minding his own business. Yet the slope afforded us a view under the car’s carriage, and except for the four tires, there were no signs of any feet hiding behind the body. At first, we thought he was pulling our leg. When he insisted he wasn’t, we started to tease him a little. He must have been seeing things, on account of his poor vision and thick glasses. The fact that those glasses afforded him vision as good as or better than any of us wasn’t something we considered.
The next person to disappear was Amy Brooks. Fifth-grader. Next elementary school over. I remember it feeling like when you’re traveling down the freeway, and there’s a big thunderstorm way down the road, but it keeps getting closer, and closer. I don’t remember what she looked like. Her face wasn’t plastered everywhere like Tommy’s had been. She was mentioned on the regional news, out of Seattle, her and Tommy together. Two missing kids from the same town in a short amount of time. The implication was as obvious as it was depraved. They didn’t think the kids were getting lost anymore. They didn’t do very much searching of backyards. The narratives changed too. Teachers started talking a lot about stranger danger. Local TV channels started recycling old After School Specials and public service announcements about the subject.
I’m not sure who saw it next. I think it was Ben again. We took him seriously this time though. I think. The one I’m sure I remember was soon after, and that time it was India who first saw it. It’s still crystal clear in my memory, almost forty years later, because that was the time I first saw it too. We were riding through a four-way stop, an Idaho Stop before they called it that, when India slammed to a stop, locking up her coaster brakes and leaving a long black streak of rubber on a dry patch of pavement. We stopped quickly after and asked what the problem was. We could tell by her face she’d seen it. She was still looking at it.
“I see it,” she whispered, unnecessarily. We all followed her gaze. We were looking, I don’t know, ten seconds? Twenty? We believed everything she said, we just couldn’t see it.
“Where?” Ralph asked.
“Four blocks down,” she whispered. “On the left. See the red car? Kinda rusty?” There was indeed a big old Lincoln Continental, looking pretty ratty and worn. I focused on that, still seeing nothing. “Past that, just to its right. See the street light pole? It’s just behind that.”
We also saw the pole she was talking about. Metal. Aluminum, I’d have guessed. It had different color patches, like metallic flakeboard. Like it’d had been melted together out of scrap.
I could see that clearly even from that distance. I saw nothing behind it. I could see plenty of other things in the background, cars, houses, bushes, front lawns, beauty bark landscape.. There was no indication of anything behind that pole.
And then it moved. It had been right there where she said it had been, yet it had somehow perfectly blended into the landscape, a trick of perspective. We didn’t see it at all until it moved, and almost as fast it had disappeared behind that light pole. We only got a hint. Brown in color, about our height in size.
We screamed. Short little startled screams, the involuntary sort that just burst out of you. Then we turned and started to pedal like mad, thoroughly spooked. We made it to the intersection of the next block when it was Ralph who screeched to a halt and shouted, “Wait!”
We slowed down and stopped, perhaps not as eagerly as we’d done when India yelled. Ralph was looking back over his shoulder, looking at that metal pole. “Did anybody see it move again?’ he asked. We all shook our heads in the negative. Ralph didn’t notice, but of course, he didn’t really need an answer, of course we hadn’t been watching.
“If it didn’t move, then it’s still there!” Ralph explained the obvious. It took a second to sink in, despite the obvious. “C’mon!” he shouted, and to our surprise, before we could react, he turned and took off, straight down the road, straight to where that thing had been lurking.
We were incredulous, but something about his order made us all follow hot on his heels. He was a sort of natural leader. I thought it was total foolishness, but I wasn’t going to let him go alone. I think I got out, “Are you crazy?!”
The wind was blowing hard past our faces as we raced as fast as we could, it made it hard to hear. Ralph shouted his response. “If it’s hiding that means its afraid!” That seemed reasonable, if not totally accurate. Lions hide from their prey before they attack. Then again, they don’t wait around when the whole herd charges. Really, the pole was coming up so fast there wasn’t a whole lot of time to argue. “Just blast past and look!” Ralph added. “We’re too fast! It won’t catch us.”
Sure, I thought to myself. Except maybe Ben, who always lagged behind the rest of us in a race. The lion would get Ben if any of us.
We rushed past that pole and all turned our heads to look. “See!” Ralph shouted in triumph. There was simply nothing there. A metal streetlight pole and nothing more. We stopped pedaling yet still sped on. “Hang on,” Ralph said, and at the next intersection he took a fast looping curve that threatened to crash us all, but we managed and curved behind him. We all came to the pole again where we stopped to see up close that there was nothing there, despite what we had seen moments before.
“Maybe it bilocated,” Ben offered. We groaned. We were all thinking it, but I think we were dismissive because it wasn’t as cool a word as ‘teleport.”
“Maybe it just moved when we weren’t looking,” I offered. That hadn’t been long, but that didn’t mean anything if it moved fast. The four of us slowly looked up from the base of the pole to our immediate surroundings. There were bushes. A car in a carport covered by a tarpaulin. The carport itself. Garbage cans. Stumps. Of course the ever-present trees. Whatever it was it could have been hiding behind anything. Maybe it was. We looked. Maybe it would make itself seen. None of us wanted that. “OK, let’s get going,” Ralph said, and we did so.
I got home feeling pretty shaken that afternoon. I felt safe at home. Except for the front room, which had a big bay window looking out onto the street, and the people who lived across it. There were plenty of garbage cans and telephone poles and stumps that a small, fast thing might hide behind. No, I felt more comfortable in my bedroom. There was a window, but a great thick conical cypress tree grew right in front of it, reaching way up over the roof of the house. If anything, it offered ME a place to hide, and peer out onto the street to either side of the tree. It was protective, as good as any heavy blanket.

I went to Michaels(Westheimer and SVoss) yesterday and they told me that only kids classes are available now. Is there any other place that offers sewing lessons whether manually or with sewing machine? I would like to learn. Thanks.

Flying Sparks

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Chapter 2

“Hazardous? I’ll show that manipulative, misanthropic, anti-establishment cretin just what hazardous means if he thinks I’m going to fold on this!”
The sound of vigorous guitar riffs made a fitting accompaniment to the angry tirade despite originating on opposite sides of the communal area. Ama was glaring at a laptop that sat on a stained oak desk shoved against the large table near the kitchen. She tapped a fingernail on the wood as she read through the alert.
“And what violation of basic human dignity has her royal prudishness’s undies in a bunch?” Em demanded with an affected sneer without looking up from his guitar scales.
“Oh you’ll agree with this one tree-hugger,” Drake muttered from where he sat oiling his work boots.
“Yeah,” Donny piped up, “Finney is trying to kill a perfectly healthy fir.”
“What!” Em demanded, carefully placing his battered old acoustic guitar down in its case and darting over to look at the computer screen. “You mean apark tree?”
Despite her simmering frustration Ama allowed a small smile to flicker across her face as she continued to type.
“Get out of your pajamas and I’ll tell you,” Drake ordered pointing towards the bathroom door with a stained rag. “School starts in forty-five minutes and you still have breakfast and chores. That goes for you too Pip-squirt.”
“I hope you washed your hands before you touched our food,” Em said with a frown.
“Boot grease makes a great source of fatty acids.” Drake retorted. “Now go!”
The two smaller boys muttered in annoyance but stumbled off to follow orders.
“So what is up?” the youth asked as he bent his head back over the smooth leather of his boots.
“Mrs. Finney wants that tree down that’s blocking her perfect view of Crescent Lake.” Ama replied in a dry tone.
“One that’s clearly on park property?” Drake asked.
“Indeedy-do.” Ama replied giving the paper in front of her a glare.
“So how’s she justifying it?” Drake asked.
“As a safety hazard to her house.” Ama replied.
“And?”
The biologist groaned and rubbed her face.
“As far as I can tell the trunk is perfectly healthy. There is an old trash can lid grown into the trunk and a little discolored sap is leaking out there.”
“Frass?”
“Watch your language!” Donny interjected as he darted up to the table.
“Frass is not a bad word,” Drake stated. “Have you let the chickens out?”
“Yes, what does frass mean?” Donny asked as he started piling stir-fry onto his plate.
“Look it up.” Drake ordered him. “Emerald! Breakfast ends in ten minutes! Get your tukus down here!”
“It’s bad health to rush meals,” Em snapped out as he came down a narrow stairway with deliberate slowness.
“It’s even worse for your health to skip meals altogether,” Drake growled threateningly.
“Shut it and give me some eggs.” Em snapped back.
“Emerald Waters Undersun,” Drake hissed out through gritted teeth. “You are going to get your own eggs.”
The boy threw himself into a chair and glared at Drake with challenge in every line of his body.
“Emerald,” Ama said in a calm tone. “I think you should apologize to your cousin now.”
“Sorry I disturbed you Ama,” he offered without breaking eye contact with Drake.
“Not me, him,” Ama said.
“Sorry you had to hear that Donny.” Em said.
Ama heaved a sigh and closed her computer.
“Emerald,” Ama said.
“Do you want to eat or go hungry?” Drake demanded.
Ama glanced at him with a familiar uneasy look in her eyes and Drake fought down a wince.
“Now, Em.” she said in a patient tone.
“I’ll go hungry,” Em snapped, jumping up and stalking over to the couch.
Donny kept his eyes fixed on his plate. Ama heaved a sigh before turning back to her computer. Em wriggled on the couch for several minutes before skulking back to the table. Drake moved to intercept him but Ama stopped him with a look and he let Em serve himself. Drake cast irritated glances at the wall clock as the time crept more and more into school time.
Ama closed her computer and stood, then sighed, sat and opened it again.
“I need to pick out their report topics,” Ama muttered.
“I could do it,” Drake offered.
“You do quite enough,” Ama replied briskly, as she scanned the news. “Here you go. For Donny, malfunctions at the Lewis- McChord Air Force Base air show.” A frown creased her face. “Wow, this is pretty serious. It looks like the F-16 demonstration team nearly got killed.”
Drake whistled and leaned over her shoulder.
“Multiple system failures,” he read out loud. “I am pretty sure that isn’t supposed to happen.”
“Nope,” Ama agreed. “Here is a topic on big game management for Em.”
“Reports due by next week?” Drake asked as the old printer on the desk began to squeal and grumble as it powered up.
“Same as usual,” Ama confirmed.
Drake put the printouts on top of the homework pile and moved to wash up the breakfast dishes.
“I need to get to work early today so you two be good for Drake,” she called out placing a quick kiss on top of the smaller boys’ heads and giving Drake’s shoulder a friendly squeeze.
“Good luck with Mrs. Finney, and stay safe.” Drake called out as she went into her room.
The table was cleaned off and wiped down and the clink of forks gave way to the steady scratch of pencils on paper. They broke for a recess after religion and then lunch after history and math, and by the time the Grandfather clock in the corner struck two the younger boys twitching with energy. Drake made certain the internet was disconnected at the router, and chased Donny and Em out into the garden.
“And don’t come in until dark,” he ordered tossing two snack bags out after them.
Donny as usual snatched his food and disappeared into the small orachard. Low grumbles about troglodytes and the Amish wandered out into the high corn following Em and Drake shook his head in exasperation wondering, not for the first time how the dark haired princeling came from the same gene pool as his little brother. The kitchen being mostly ordered Drake was turning to put the last random dirty sock in the hamper when a gnarled hand clutching a cane head appeared in the corner of his eye, causing his heart to make a valiant attempt to bolt out of his throat.
“Abuelita!” he gasped forcing his hands down from the guard position. “Where did you come from?”
Smoldering black eyes ran searchingly over the tall youth. An impossibly long mane of streaked silver and black hair was barely contained in a thick braid. A sharply pointed nose perched over a small wrinkled mouth. A vibrant red horse-hair serape hung over her shoulders concealing everything except her brown and gnarled hands which currently clutched the old tree branch she used as a cane. Drake had been more than a little comforted by the fact that both Em and Donny had admitted to having the thought ‘witch’ every time time they saw her as well.
“From the hand of God by the bodies of my sainted mother and father,” she replied after a long, uncomfortable silence.
She always spoke in a low husky voice that suggested years of smoking, though Drake had never smelled even stale smoke on her.
“Right,” Drake blinked and grinned at the response; the one she always gave. “So you are here for their Spanish lesson? I have their grammar books ready and-”
The narrow end of the tree branch rapped against the concrete of the floor causing Drake to jump. Abuelita glared at him, locking his gaze and holding him in place with it for a moment.
“I am here for their lessons,” she finally stated, “and you are there for my payment.”
Drake thought longingly of the repair and maintenance manuals in the cab of the truck and the new tool he was itching to try, but he forced a grin on his face.
“Yes ma’am,” he said. “What can I get you today?”
Abuelita pulled out a bag of woven grass from under her serape causing the indistinct patterns on the cloth to shift and change.
“Take this,” she ordered him, “and collect me the cobalt blue berries that grow on a single stalk close to the ground. They must come from the mountain to the south east of here by the crystal brook.”
Drake nodded, and took the little bag, he didn’t quite manage to infused his gestures with enthusiasm he supposed. The old woman, probably wouldn’t have noted it anyway. She turned and moved towards the garden door without waiting for any other reply. However she called out over her shoulder as he turned to find his own way out of the rambling structure.
“Don’t dawdle little one. A storm brews in the distance.”
He tried not to roll his eyes at that, the weather forecast was clear and eighties for the next week according to the morning fire report Ama had printed. The youth only nodded and slipped around the corner. He circled the barn and pulled a set of loose tan pants and tunic out of the cubby. The soft worn leather almost perfectly matched the forest floor for color as did the moccasins he pulled on after them. His morning running clothes were modern stuff that wicked the sweat away from him and let him speed through the forest. These were his free day clothes. The ones that let him disappear into the forest and wander. Abuelita, for all of her demands, would tend Em and Donny until he returned no matter how late that was, and with the Park’s yearly budget talks still under way it was highly unlikely Ama would be home until long after the sun had set. Despite still hearing the call of the half restored truck he felt something lossening in him already. The soft cotton and smooth leather rested easily against his skin and Drake slipped into the forest.
Freedom; for the moment at least, blissful freedom. Pushing aside the guilt that accompanied the thought as well as any lingering worries about his charges the youth let his legs carry him through the trees. He shunned the man made paths, following the faint animal trails. This close to the barn they were as clear to him as if they were named city streets. Being animal trails, they invariably led him to water. Today he stopped at a trickling stream, took off his moccasins, and rolled up his pants legs. The youth turned and followed the thin flow of icy water upstream, letting it steal the heat from his body through his feet.
Some distance upstream, the stream widened and pooled under a boulder. There Drake paused and pulled an old black compass out of his pocket. Behind him he knew every trail and tree. Ahead was a broad swath of National Wilderness he would have to cross, or possibly Bureau of Land Management or even state managed forests where he more rarely wandered. It was hard to tell where the boundaries were from the ground. The clearing he wanted for the berries was solidly in BLM land and he still had quite a ways to go to get there. The stand of timber that stood between him and his goal was dense with young tree and branches that frequently formed impenetrable hedges he had to track around and he checked his compass regularly as he climbed in elevation. Even so the youth found he had wandered too far off his route and had to correct when he spotted the boundary fence. However he was in no hurry and he reached the clearing long before the sun told him it was time to turn around.
Sometime in the past some unknown force had carved a shallow trench across the side of one of the small mountains that that dotted the wilderness. It had puzzled Drake at first. The scour was at the wrong angle to be an old rock slide, and terminated in a near perfectly circular clearing at the lower end. Centuries old Douglas Firs abruptly gave way to a second ring only a few decades old. Those were in turn beginning to produce cones and a smattering of knee high saplings. The rest of the space was completely given over to wildflowers. No matter what season Drake visited it he found a riot of life.
There had been an early spring and many herbs that normally would have waited a month or more were already in full bloom in the mountain meadow. A white wave of foamflower washed in from the deep forest surrounding the clearing, sending up knee high stalks covered in the delicate white blooms. Late trillium hid close to the roots of the great firs, many having shed their white corollas and begun to put forth their bulbous seed heads. Fuzzy white baneberry blossoms nodded gently in the breeze. A riot of yellow and purple spread across the ground as vetch and buttercups and a host of clovers competed for space in the open sun. Great stalks of lupine as high as his head thrust up their purple and blue proudly from thick clusters of palm shaped leaves. Pink shooting stars and violet harebells crouched under the protection of the larger plants. Indian paintbrush lit the scene with flames of red and orange. Where a spring seeped into the meadow elephant’s head flared neon pink and corydalis bushes put forth blushing blooms. Pale green wild orchids stood along the wet spot and the swarms of bees danced from them to the glacier lilies.
Sometimes, as he bent over a tiny blossom and traced the intricate network of veins in the petals, drank in the scent, and felt the smooth surface of the leaves an otherworldly feeling would come over him. It was as if there was another world just out of range of his senses. If he could only really look, the thin illusion that was blocking him would slip away and reveal the real world underneath it.
“Look Awiegwa,” his father would whisper, pointing at a deer mouse perched on a fallen log. “What does it see?”
Awiegwa would screw up his face and squint. Trying to find the answer to the question.
Awiegwa had often wondered how so many flowers had come to be in the relatively small area. He had identified dozens of species and there were more he had yet to determine. The clearing was always the first place to bloom and the last to go dormant. Many of the flowers seemed to utterly defy their usual blooming patterns. However, as time passed he had simply come to accept it. It was one of the small good things that brought back the memories of his father. If it didn’t quite follow the rules Ama had taught him, well an impossible clearing in the mountains wasn’t a place for rules.
The particular bloom that Abuelita had requested had taken full advantage of the early sun and had already put forth a few cobalt blue berries; easily spotted at the edge of the clearing in the delicate sea of white flowers.
However before he left the shade of the forest for the meadow the youth paused and closed his eyes. Bole wasn’t always here, but he was often enough that Awiegwa always checked for him. Carefully he reconstructed the clearing in his mind; marking every tree and boulder on the edge. Three years he had been coming here and each time it was easier to recreate the clearing. Breathing evenly he opened his eyes, letting the mental image merge with the actual. There was a brief moment of confusion as details like the play of light through branches and the trembling of small clusters of flowers fixed themselves but there was only one truly jarring note. Awiegwa didn’t let his eyes focus on the disparity; he never did anymore, but a warm smile spread across his features as he slipped silently into the meadow.
He was here. As the youth moved in a low crouch, gathering the first fruits of the Queen’s Cup, he let his peripheral vision linger on a particular snag. There was nothing obviously interesting about it, other than the fact that it had not been there the last time Awiegwa was here. He had named the wanderer Bole, because it most often appeared as a thick tree trunk; sometimes living, sometimes dead. Occasionally it would be a boulder or simply a mound in the dirt. Often it wasn’t in the clearing at all. If the youth moved forward and tried to closely examine it he could never find anything to suggest it was something other than a tree or rock.
He had thought about taking a sample occasionally, had taken his knife out to do just that more than once, but something always held him back. Bole was a part of this place. Dissecting him would be too much like attempting to dissect his sense of his father’s presence here. The youth had never told anyone about this place, not even Ama with who could get most things out of him easily enough. Down at the house, in town, when he was Drake; solid, reliable, first up in the morning, two grades ahead in school with a penchant for science Drake, a productive member of modern society with a promising future and his mother smiling at him. Here he could be Awiegwa. Here he could believe in the ancient medicines his father had dug out of dusty old tomes and brought to life from the forest litter. Every time Awiegwa left the clearing and headed back towards home reality would reassert itself. Bole would resolve back into a figment of his imagination, created from pride in a somewhat better than average memory and what the social workers had called an “intriguing imagination”. When he reached the house and become solidly Drake again flickers of embarrassment would begin eating at him for letting his senses trick him like that, but as long as the blooms nodded around him in this garden Bole could exist even on a Thursday.
The little woven grass bag filled up with the berries fairly quickly and Awiegwa soon stretched out of his crouch and let his gaze wander contentedly over the clearing. As it always did, the warm space was working its special magic. Worries about Em getting out of his schoolwork, of not paying enough attention to the quiet Donny, of letting Ama see his petty resentments: it had all melted away from his muscles, thoughts of college costs and abandoning his duties dissolved into an acute sense of the now. The leaves rustled softly in a barely-there breeze, the heavy scent of some unidentified blossom filled his lungs, a dozen shades of green framed the rainbow of flowers, and over and above it all the creaking of the firs as the wind played over them. It was at times like these that he felth he could almost see into heaven; that something wonderful that existed just beyond his senses, and all he had to do was reach out and claim it.
The youth took a deep breath and let himself fall backwards onto a handy rise in the forest floor. His path had taken him to the foot of the snag and he shifted slightly to align himself with the gnarled roots. One hand gripped a time smoothed root.
“Ama trusted me enough to go out of state,” he murmured. “That’s the first time she’s done that. Usually she has Abulita stay with us to fend off the Harsh, but she said it’s long past legal now.”
It was his imagination of course that made him think the root vibrated in his hand in response. Many a long hour he had spent in this clearing with the wanderer. He had poured out his frustrations and anguishes over life’s injustices, had shared his secrets as he grew, and had shouted his triumphs. Sometimes he felt closer to Bole than to any of his human friends. However, something that sounded like his mother’s voice warned him that there was something odd about this and that awareness was the main reason he had kept this place secret from Ama. Their mother hadn’t exactly liked stuff like that. She had never objected to his father’s digging up the old stories of her people. Making cross generational connections between elders, who more often than not lived isolated lives, and the next generation, was an admirable goal in of itself in her eyes; objectively a social good. Storytelling was only the natural course for these relationships to take, but subtle looks had warned even a very young Drake that it was best to cautious what he shared with his mother. At least of those things that couldn’t be placed on a microscope slide. So this was Awigewa’s place, and while his father’s spirit wanders the flowers with he had never felt his mother here.
He let his focus drift up, and up. Dark blue Lupine nodded over his head framing the faint crisscross of jet contrails that threw a light haze over an otherwise cloudless sky. His clothed grew deliciously hot from the spring sun. The ground too had eagerly accepted the energy and now it conducted the heat into the muscles of his back. Bole’s wood beneath him was warmer even than the surrounding ground and an idle thought traced across Awiegwa’s awareness; something about it being odd for the light colored wood and relatively dry wood to retain more heat than the darker soil surrounding it. His mind was filled with the impression of a goal. He had been meaning to do, something. Something fun, yes, exploring, he’d meant to see if whatever had dug that den by the second boulder was cubing this year. He would just get up and do that in a minute. His back was so warm and comfortable.
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“Flying Sparks”
Another foray into the lives of Drake McCarty, Ama Love, and the rest of their siblings as they discover that something alien is out in the forest around their home.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/flying-sparks-a-novel-of-dragon-bear-and-boy/coming_soon
#FlyingSparks #ScienceFiction #Scifi #Story #novel #book #DrakeMcCarty #AmaLove #Donny #Em #Bard #Bole #Aliens #Spaceships #Crystals #fireflies #NPS #NationalPark #Doctor #Sever #family #storm #writing #reading #drama #literature #author #BettyAdams #DyingEmbers #Dragons #ThingsThatGoBoomp #Indiegogo #CrowdFunding

Flying Sparks Pre Order Now Chapter 2 “Hazardous? I’ll show that manipulative, misanthropic, anti-establishment cretin just what hazardous means if he thinks I’m going to fold on this!” The sound of vigorous guitar riffs made a fitting accompaniment to the angry tirade despite originating on opposite sides of the communal area. Ama was glaring at a laptop that sat on a stained oak desk shoved against the large table near the kitchen. She tapped a fingernail on the wood as she read through the alert. “And what violation of basic human dignity has her royal prudishness’s undies in a bunch?” Em demanded with an affected sneer without looking up from his guitar scales. “Oh you’ll agree with this one tree-hugger,” Drake muttered from where he sat oiling his work boots. “Yeah,” Donny piped up, “Finney is trying to kill a perfectly healthy fir.” “What!” Em demanded, carefully placing his battered old acoustic guitar down in its case and darting over to look at the computer screen. “You mean apark tree?” Despite her simmering frustration Ama allowed a small smile to flicker across her face as she continued to type. “Get out of your pajamas and I’ll tell you,” Drake ordered pointing towards the bathroom door with a stained rag. “School starts in forty-five minutes and you still have breakfast and chores. That goes for you too Pip-squirt.” “I hope you washed your hands before you touched our food,” Em said with a frown. “Boot grease makes a great source of fatty acids.” Drake retorted. “Now go!” The two smaller boys muttered in annoyance but stumbled off to follow orders. “So what is up?” the youth asked as he bent his head back over the smooth leather of his boots. “Mrs. Finney wants that tree down that’s blocking her perfect view of Crescent Lake.” Ama replied in a dry tone. “One that’s clearly on park property?” Drake asked. “Indeedy-do.” Ama replied giving the paper in front of her a glare. “So how’s she justifying it?” Drake asked. “As a safety hazard to her house.” Ama replied. “And?” The biologist groaned and rubbed her face. “As far as I can tell the trunk is perfectly healthy. There is an old trash can lid grown into the trunk and a little discolored sap is leaking out there.” “Frass?” “Watch your language!” Donny interjected as he darted up to the table. “Frass is not a bad word,” Drake stated. “Have you let the chickens out?” “Yes, what does frass mean?” Donny asked as he started piling stir-fry onto his plate. “Look it up.” Drake ordered him. “Emerald! Breakfast ends in ten minutes! Get your tukus down here!” “It’s bad health to rush meals,” Em snapped out as he came down a narrow stairway with deliberate slowness. “It’s even worse for your health to skip meals altogether,” Drake growled threateningly. “Shut it and give me some eggs.” Em snapped back. “Emerald Waters Undersun,” Drake hissed out through gritted teeth. “You are going to get your own eggs.” The boy threw himself into a chair and glared at Drake with challenge in every line of his body. “Emerald,” Ama said in a calm tone. “I think you should apologize to your cousin now.” “Sorry I disturbed you Ama,” he offered without breaking eye contact with Drake. “Not me, him,” Ama said. “Sorry you had to hear that Donny.” Em said. Ama heaved a sigh and closed her computer. “Emerald,” Ama said. “Do you want to eat or go hungry?” Drake demanded. Ama glanced at him with a familiar uneasy look in her eyes and Drake fought down a wince. “Now, Em.” she said in a patient tone. “I’ll go hungry,” Em snapped, jumping up and stalking over to the couch. Donny kept his eyes fixed on his plate. Ama heaved a sigh before turning back to her computer. Em wriggled on the couch for several minutes before skulking back to the table. Drake moved to intercept him but Ama stopped him with a look and he let Em serve himself. Drake cast irritated glances at the wall clock as the time crept more and more into school time. Ama closed her computer and stood, then sighed, sat and opened it again. “I need to pick out their report topics,” Ama muttered. “I could do it,” Drake offered. “You do quite enough,” Ama replied briskly, as she scanned the news. “Here you go. For Donny, malfunctions at the Lewis- McChord Air Force Base air show.” A frown creased her face. “Wow, this is pretty serious. It looks like the F-16 demonstration team nearly got killed.” Drake whistled and leaned over her shoulder. “Multiple system failures,” he read out loud. “I am pretty sure that isn’t supposed to happen.” “Nope,” Ama agreed. “Here is a topic on big game management for Em.” “Reports due by next week?” Drake asked as the old printer on the desk began to squeal and grumble as it powered up. “Same as usual,” Ama confirmed. Drake put the printouts on top of the homework pile and moved to wash up the breakfast dishes. “I need to get to work early today so you two be good for Drake,” she called out placing a quick kiss on top of the smaller boys’ heads and giving Drake’s shoulder a friendly squeeze. “Good luck with Mrs. Finney, and stay safe.” Drake called out as she went into her room. The table was cleaned off and wiped down and the clink of forks gave way to the steady scratch of pencils on paper. They broke for a recess after religion and then lunch after history and math, and by the time the Grandfather clock in the corner struck two the younger boys twitching with energy. Drake made certain the internet was disconnected at the router, and chased Donny and Em out into the garden. “And don’t come in until dark,” he ordered tossing two snack bags out after them. Donny as usual snatched his food and disappeared into the small orachard. Low grumbles about troglodytes and the Amish wandered out into the high corn following Em and Drake shook his head in exasperation wondering, not for the first time how the dark haired princeling came from the same gene pool as his little brother. The kitchen being mostly ordered Drake was turning to put the last random dirty sock in the hamper when a gnarled hand clutching a cane head appeared in the corner of his eye, causing his heart to make a valiant attempt to bolt out of his throat. “Abuelita!” he gasped forcing his hands down from the guard position. “Where did you come from?” Smoldering black eyes ran searchingly over the tall youth. An impossibly long mane of streaked silver and black hair was barely contained in a thick braid. A sharply pointed nose perched over a small wrinkled mouth. A vibrant red horse-hair serape hung over her shoulders concealing everything except her brown and gnarled hands which currently clutched the old tree branch she used as a cane. Drake had been more than a little comforted by the fact that both Em and Donny had admitted to having the thought ‘witch’ every time time they saw her as well. “From the hand of God by the bodies of my sainted mother and father,” she replied after a long, uncomfortable silence. She always spoke in a low husky voice that suggested years of smoking, though Drake had never smelled even stale smoke on her. “Right,” Drake blinked and grinned at the response; the one she always gave. “So you are here for their Spanish lesson? I have their grammar books ready and-” The narrow end of the tree branch rapped against the concrete of the floor causing Drake to jump. Abuelita glared at him, locking his gaze and holding him in place with it for a moment. “I am here for their lessons,” she finally stated, “and you are there for my payment.” Drake thought longingly of the repair and maintenance manuals in the cab of the truck and the new tool he was itching to try, but he forced a grin on his face. “Yes ma’am,” he said. “What can I get you today?” Abuelita pulled out a bag of woven grass from under her serape causing the indistinct patterns on the cloth to shift and change. “Take this,” she ordered him, “and collect me the cobalt blue berries that grow on a single stalk close to the ground. They must come from the mountain to the south east of here by the crystal brook.” Drake nodded, and took the little bag, he didn’t quite manage to infused his gestures with enthusiasm he supposed. The old woman, probably wouldn’t have noted it anyway. She turned and moved towards the garden door without waiting for any other reply. However she called out over her shoulder as he turned to find his own way out of the rambling structure. “Don’t dawdle little one. A storm brews in the distance.” He tried not to roll his eyes at that, the weather forecast was clear and eighties for the next week according to the morning fire report Ama had printed. The youth only nodded and slipped around the corner. He circled the barn and pulled a set of loose tan pants and tunic out of the cubby. The soft worn leather almost perfectly matched the forest floor for color as did the moccasins he pulled on after them. His morning running clothes were modern stuff that wicked the sweat away from him and let him speed through the forest. These were his free day clothes. The ones that let him disappear into the forest and wander. Abuelita, for all of her demands, would tend Em and Donny until he returned no matter how late that was, and with the Park’s yearly budget talks still under way it was highly unlikely Ama would be home until long after the sun had set. Despite still hearing the call of the half restored truck he felt something lossening in him already. The soft cotton and smooth leather rested easily against his skin and Drake slipped into the forest. Freedom; for the moment at least, blissful freedom. Pushing aside the guilt that accompanied the thought as well as any lingering worries about his charges the youth let his legs carry him through the trees. He shunned the man made paths, following the faint animal trails. This close to the barn they were as clear to him as if they were named city streets. Being animal trails, they invariably led him to water. Today he stopped at a trickling stream, took off his moccasins, and rolled up his pants legs. The youth turned and followed the thin flow of icy water upstream, letting it steal the heat from his body through his feet. Some distance upstream, the stream widened and pooled under a boulder. There Drake paused and pulled an old black compass out of his pocket. Behind him he knew every trail and tree. Ahead was a broad swath of National Wilderness he would have to cross, or possibly Bureau of Land Management or even state managed forests where he more rarely wandered. It was hard to tell where the boundaries were from the ground. The clearing he wanted for the berries was solidly in BLM land and he still had quite a ways to go to get there. The stand of timber that stood between him and his goal was dense with young tree and branches that frequently formed impenetrable hedges he had to track around and he checked his compass regularly as he climbed in elevation. Even so the youth found he had wandered too far off his route and had to correct when he spotted the boundary fence. However he was in no hurry and he reached the clearing long before the sun told him it was time to turn around. Sometime in the past some unknown force had carved a shallow trench across the side of one of the small mountains that that dotted the wilderness. It had puzzled Drake at first. The scour was at the wrong angle to be an old rock slide, and terminated in a near perfectly circular clearing at the lower end. Centuries old Douglas Firs abruptly gave way to a second ring only a few decades old. Those were in turn beginning to produce cones and a smattering of knee high saplings. The rest of the space was completely given over to wildflowers. No matter what season Drake visited it he found a riot of life. There had been an early spring and many herbs that normally would have waited a month or more were already in full bloom in the mountain meadow. A white wave of foamflower washed in from the deep forest surrounding the clearing, sending up knee high stalks covered in the delicate white blooms. Late trillium hid close to the roots of the great firs, many having shed their white corollas and begun to put forth their bulbous seed heads. Fuzzy white baneberry blossoms nodded gently in the breeze. A riot of yellow and purple spread across the ground as vetch and buttercups and a host of clovers competed for space in the open sun. Great stalks of lupine as high as his head thrust up their purple and blue proudly from thick clusters of palm shaped leaves. Pink shooting stars and violet harebells crouched under the protection of the larger plants. Indian paintbrush lit the scene with flames of red and orange. Where a spring seeped into the meadow elephant’s head flared neon pink and corydalis bushes put forth blushing blooms. Pale green wild orchids stood along the wet spot and the swarms of bees danced from them to the glacier lilies. Sometimes, as he bent over a tiny blossom and traced the intricate network of veins in the petals, drank in the scent, and felt the smooth surface of the leaves an otherworldly feeling would come over him. It was as if there was another world just out of range of his senses. If he could only really look, the thin illusion that was blocking him would slip away and reveal the real world underneath it. “Look Awiegwa,” his father would whisper, pointing at a deer mouse perched on a fallen log. “What does it see?” Awiegwa would screw up his face and squint. Trying to find the answer to the question. Awiegwa had often wondered how so many flowers had come to be in the relatively small area. He had identified dozens of species and there were more he had yet to determine. The clearing was always the first place to bloom and the last to go dormant. Many of the flowers seemed to utterly defy their usual blooming patterns. However, as time passed he had simply come to accept it. It was one of the small good things that brought back the memories of his father. If it didn’t quite follow the rules Ama had taught him, well an impossible clearing in the mountains wasn’t a place for rules. The particular bloom that Abuelita had requested had taken full advantage of the early sun and had already put forth a few cobalt blue berries; easily spotted at the edge of the clearing in the delicate sea of white flowers. However before he left the shade of the forest for the meadow the youth paused and closed his eyes. Bole wasn’t always here, but he was often enough that Awiegwa always checked for him. Carefully he reconstructed the clearing in his mind; marking every tree and boulder on the edge. Three years he had been coming here and each time it was easier to recreate the clearing. Breathing evenly he opened his eyes, letting the mental image merge with the actual. There was a brief moment of confusion as details like the play of light through branches and the trembling of small clusters of flowers fixed themselves but there was only one truly jarring note. Awiegwa didn’t let his eyes focus on the disparity; he never did anymore, but a warm smile spread across his features as he slipped silently into the meadow. He was here. As the youth moved in a low crouch, gathering the first fruits of the Queen’s Cup, he let his peripheral vision linger on a particular snag. There was nothing obviously interesting about it, other than the fact that it had not been there the last time Awiegwa was here. He had named the wanderer Bole, because it most often appeared as a thick tree trunk; sometimes living, sometimes dead. Occasionally it would be a boulder or simply a mound in the dirt. Often it wasn’t in the clearing at all. If the youth moved forward and tried to closely examine it he could never find anything to suggest it was something other than a tree or rock. He had thought about taking a sample occasionally, had taken his knife out to do just that more than once, but something always held him back. Bole was a part of this place. Dissecting him would be too much like attempting to dissect his sense of his father’s presence here. The youth had never told anyone about this place, not even Ama with who could get most things out of him easily enough. Down at the house, in town, when he was Drake; solid, reliable, first up in the morning, two grades ahead in school with a penchant for science Drake, a productive member of modern society with a promising future and his mother smiling at him. Here he could be Awiegwa. Here he could believe in the ancient medicines his father had dug out of dusty old tomes and brought to life from the forest litter. Every time Awiegwa left the clearing and headed back towards home reality would reassert itself. Bole would resolve back into a figment of his imagination, created from pride in a somewhat better than average memory and what the social workers had called an “intriguing imagination”. When he reached the house and become solidly Drake again flickers of embarrassment would begin eating at him for letting his senses trick him like that, but as long as the blooms nodded around him in this garden Bole could exist even on a Thursday. The little woven grass bag filled up with the berries fairly quickly and Awiegwa soon stretched out of his crouch and let his gaze wander contentedly over the clearing. As it always did, the warm space was working its special magic. Worries about Em getting out of his schoolwork, of not paying enough attention to the quiet Donny, of letting Ama see his petty resentments: it had all melted away from his muscles, thoughts of college costs and abandoning his duties dissolved into an acute sense of the now. The leaves rustled softly in a barely-there breeze, the heavy scent of some unidentified blossom filled his lungs, a dozen shades of green framed the rainbow of flowers, and over and above it all the creaking of the firs as the wind played over them. It was at times like these that he felth he could almost see into heaven; that something wonderful that existed just beyond his senses, and all he had to do was reach out and claim it. The youth took a deep breath and let himself fall backwards onto a handy rise in the forest floor. His path had taken him to the foot of the snag and he shifted slightly to align himself with the gnarled roots. One hand gripped a time smoothed root. “Ama trusted me enough to go out of state,” he murmured. “That’s the first time she’s done that. Usually she has Abulita stay with us to fend off the Harsh, but she said it’s long past legal now.” It was his imagination of course that made him think the root vibrated in his hand in response. Many a long hour he had spent in this clearing with the wanderer. He had poured out his frustrations and anguishes over life’s injustices, had shared his secrets as he grew, and had shouted his triumphs. Sometimes he felt closer to Bole than to any of his human friends. However, something that sounded like his mother’s voice warned him that there was something odd about this and that awareness was the main reason he had kept this place secret from Ama. Their mother hadn’t exactly liked stuff like that. She had never objected to his father’s digging up the old stories of her people. Making cross generational connections between elders, who more often than not lived isolated lives, and the next generation, was an admirable goal in of itself in her eyes; objectively a social good. Storytelling was only the natural course for these relationships to take, but subtle looks had warned even a very young Drake that it was best to cautious what he shared with his mother. At least of those things that couldn’t be placed on a microscope slide. So this was Awigewa’s place, and while his father’s spirit wanders the flowers with he had never felt his mother here. He let his focus drift up, and up. Dark blue Lupine nodded over his head framing the faint crisscross of jet contrails that threw a light haze over an otherwise cloudless sky. His clothed grew deliciously hot from the spring sun. The ground too had eagerly accepted the energy and now it conducted the heat into the muscles of his back. Bole’s wood beneath him was warmer even than the surrounding ground and an idle thought traced across Awiegwa’s awareness; something about it being odd for the light colored wood and relatively dry wood to retain more heat than the darker soil surrounding it. His mind was filled with the impression of a goal. He had been meaning to do, something. Something fun, yes, exploring, he’d meant to see if whatever had dug that den by the second boulder was cubing this year. He would just get up and do that in a minute. His back was so warm and comfortable. “Flying Sparks” Another foray into the lives of Drake McCarty, Ama Love, and the rest of their siblings as they discover that something alien is out in the forest around their home. https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/flying-sparks-a-novel-of-dragon-bear-and-boy/coming_soon #FlyingSparks #ScienceFiction #Scifi #Story #novel #book #DrakeMcCarty #AmaLove #Donny #Em #Bard #Bole #Aliens #Spaceships #Crystals #fireflies #NPS #NationalPark #Doctor #Sever #family #storm #writing #reading #drama #literature #author #BettyAdams #DyingEmbers #Dragons #ThingsThatGoBoomp #Indiegogo #CrowdFunding

Flying Sparks

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Chapter 2

“Hazardous? I’ll show that manipulative, misanthropic, anti-establishment cretin just what hazardous means if he thinks I’m going to fold on this!”
The sound of vigorous guitar riffs made a fitting accompaniment to the angry tirade despite originating on opposite sides of the communal area. Ama was glaring at a laptop that sat on a stained oak desk shoved against the large table near the kitchen. She tapped a fingernail on the wood as she read through the alert.
“And what violation of basic human dignity has her royal prudishness’s undies in a bunch?” Em demanded with an affected sneer without looking up from his guitar scales.
“Oh you’ll agree with this one tree-hugger,” Drake muttered from where he sat oiling his work boots.
“Yeah,” Donny piped up, “Finney is trying to kill a perfectly healthy fir.”
“What!” Em demanded, carefully placing his battered old acoustic guitar down in its case and darting over to look at the computer screen. “You mean apark tree?”
Despite her simmering frustration Ama allowed a small smile to flicker across her face as she continued to type.
“Get out of your pajamas and I’ll tell you,” Drake ordered pointing towards the bathroom door with a stained rag. “School starts in forty-five minutes and you still have breakfast and chores. That goes for you too Pip-squirt.”
“I hope you washed your hands before you touched our food,” Em said with a frown.
“Boot grease makes a great source of fatty acids.” Drake retorted. “Now go!”
The two smaller boys muttered in annoyance but stumbled off to follow orders.
“So what is up?” the youth asked as he bent his head back over the smooth leather of his boots.
“Mrs. Finney wants that tree down that’s blocking her perfect view of Crescent Lake.” Ama replied in a dry tone.
“One that’s clearly on park property?” Drake asked.
“Indeedy-do.” Ama replied giving the paper in front of her a glare.
“So how’s she justifying it?” Drake asked.
“As a safety hazard to her house.” Ama replied.
“And?”
The biologist groaned and rubbed her face.
“As far as I can tell the trunk is perfectly healthy. There is an old trash can lid grown into the trunk and a little discolored sap is leaking out there.”
“Frass?”
“Watch your language!” Donny interjected as he darted up to the table.
“Frass is not a bad word,” Drake stated. “Have you let the chickens out?”
“Yes, what does frass mean?” Donny asked as he started piling stir-fry onto his plate.
“Look it up.” Drake ordered him. “Emerald! Breakfast ends in ten minutes! Get your tukus down here!”
“It’s bad health to rush meals,” Em snapped out as he came down a narrow stairway with deliberate slowness.
“It’s even worse for your health to skip meals altogether,” Drake growled threateningly.
“Shut it and give me some eggs.” Em snapped back.
“Emerald Waters Undersun,” Drake hissed out through gritted teeth. “You are going to get your own eggs.”
The boy threw himself into a chair and glared at Drake with challenge in every line of his body.
“Emerald,” Ama said in a calm tone. “I think you should apologize to your cousin now.”
“Sorry I disturbed you Ama,” he offered without breaking eye contact with Drake.
“Not me, him,” Ama said.
“Sorry you had to hear that Donny.” Em said.
Ama heaved a sigh and closed her computer.
“Emerald,” Ama said.
“Do you want to eat or go hungry?” Drake demanded.
Ama glanced at him with a familiar uneasy look in her eyes and Drake fought down a wince.
“Now, Em.” she said in a patient tone.
“I’ll go hungry,” Em snapped, jumping up and stalking over to the couch.
Donny kept his eyes fixed on his plate. Ama heaved a sigh before turning back to her computer. Em wriggled on the couch for several minutes before skulking back to the table. Drake moved to intercept him but Ama stopped him with a look and he let Em serve himself. Drake cast irritated glances at the wall clock as the time crept more and more into school time.
Ama closed her computer and stood, then sighed, sat and opened it again.
“I need to pick out their report topics,” Ama muttered.
“I could do it,” Drake offered.
“You do quite enough,” Ama replied briskly, as she scanned the news. “Here you go. For Donny, malfunctions at the Lewis- McChord Air Force Base air show.” A frown creased her face. “Wow, this is pretty serious. It looks like the F-16 demonstration team nearly got killed.”
Drake whistled and leaned over her shoulder.
“Multiple system failures,” he read out loud. “I am pretty sure that isn’t supposed to happen.”
“Nope,” Ama agreed. “Here is a topic on big game management for Em.”
“Reports due by next week?” Drake asked as the old printer on the desk began to squeal and grumble as it powered up.
“Same as usual,” Ama confirmed.
Drake put the printouts on top of the homework pile and moved to wash up the breakfast dishes.
“I need to get to work early today so you two be good for Drake,” she called out placing a quick kiss on top of the smaller boys’ heads and giving Drake’s shoulder a friendly squeeze.
“Good luck with Mrs. Finney, and stay safe.” Drake called out as she went into her room.
The table was cleaned off and wiped down and the clink of forks gave way to the steady scratch of pencils on paper. They broke for a recess after religion and then lunch after history and math, and by the time the Grandfather clock in the corner struck two the younger boys twitching with energy. Drake made certain the internet was disconnected at the router, and chased Donny and Em out into the garden.
“And don’t come in until dark,” he ordered tossing two snack bags out after them.
Donny as usual snatched his food and disappeared into the small orachard. Low grumbles about troglodytes and the Amish wandered out into the high corn following Em and Drake shook his head in exasperation wondering, not for the first time how the dark haired princeling came from the same gene pool as his little brother. The kitchen being mostly ordered Drake was turning to put the last random dirty sock in the hamper when a gnarled hand clutching a cane head appeared in the corner of his eye, causing his heart to make a valiant attempt to bolt out of his throat.
“Abuelita!” he gasped forcing his hands down from the guard position. “Where did you come from?”
Smoldering black eyes ran searchingly over the tall youth. An impossibly long mane of streaked silver and black hair was barely contained in a thick braid. A sharply pointed nose perched over a small wrinkled mouth. A vibrant red horse-hair serape hung over her shoulders concealing everything except her brown and gnarled hands which currently clutched the old tree branch she used as a cane. Drake had been more than a little comforted by the fact that both Em and Donny had admitted to having the thought ‘witch’ every time time they saw her as well.
“From the hand of God by the bodies of my sainted mother and father,” she replied after a long, uncomfortable silence.
She always spoke in a low husky voice that suggested years of smoking, though Drake had never smelled even stale smoke on her.
“Right,” Drake blinked and grinned at the response; the one she always gave. “So you are here for their Spanish lesson? I have their grammar books ready and-”
The narrow end of the tree branch rapped against the concrete of the floor causing Drake to jump. Abuelita glared at him, locking his gaze and holding him in place with it for a moment.
“I am here for their lessons,” she finally stated, “and you are there for my payment.”
Drake thought longingly of the repair and maintenance manuals in the cab of the truck and the new tool he was itching to try, but he forced a grin on his face.
“Yes ma’am,” he said. “What can I get you today?”
Abuelita pulled out a bag of woven grass from under her serape causing the indistinct patterns on the cloth to shift and change.
“Take this,” she ordered him, “and collect me the cobalt blue berries that grow on a single stalk close to the ground. They must come from the mountain to the south east of here by the crystal brook.”
Drake nodded, and took the little bag, he didn’t quite manage to infused his gestures with enthusiasm he supposed. The old woman, probably wouldn’t have noted it anyway. She turned and moved towards the garden door without waiting for any other reply. However she called out over her shoulder as he turned to find his own way out of the rambling structure.
“Don’t dawdle little one. A storm brews in the distance.”
He tried not to roll his eyes at that, the weather forecast was clear and eighties for the next week according to the morning fire report Ama had printed. The youth only nodded and slipped around the corner. He circled the barn and pulled a set of loose tan pants and tunic out of the cubby. The soft worn leather almost perfectly matched the forest floor for color as did the moccasins he pulled on after them. His morning running clothes were modern stuff that wicked the sweat away from him and let him speed through the forest. These were his free day clothes. The ones that let him disappear into the forest and wander. Abuelita, for all of her demands, would tend Em and Donny until he returned no matter how late that was, and with the Park’s yearly budget talks still under way it was highly unlikely Ama would be home until long after the sun had set. Despite still hearing the call of the half restored truck he felt something lossening in him already. The soft cotton and smooth leather rested easily against his skin and Drake slipped into the forest.
Freedom; for the moment at least, blissful freedom. Pushing aside the guilt that accompanied the thought as well as any lingering worries about his charges the youth let his legs carry him through the trees. He shunned the man made paths, following the faint animal trails. This close to the barn they were as clear to him as if they were named city streets. Being animal trails, they invariably led him to water. Today he stopped at a trickling stream, took off his moccasins, and rolled up his pants legs. The youth turned and followed the thin flow of icy water upstream, letting it steal the heat from his body through his feet.
Some distance upstream, the stream widened and pooled under a boulder. There Drake paused and pulled an old black compass out of his pocket. Behind him he knew every trail and tree. Ahead was a broad swath of National Wilderness he would have to cross, or possibly Bureau of Land Management or even state managed forests where he more rarely wandered. It was hard to tell where the boundaries were from the ground. The clearing he wanted for the berries was solidly in BLM land and he still had quite a ways to go to get there. The stand of timber that stood between him and his goal was dense with young tree and branches that frequently formed impenetrable hedges he had to track around and he checked his compass regularly as he climbed in elevation. Even so the youth found he had wandered too far off his route and had to correct when he spotted the boundary fence. However he was in no hurry and he reached the clearing long before the sun told him it was time to turn around.
Sometime in the past some unknown force had carved a shallow trench across the side of one of the small mountains that that dotted the wilderness. It had puzzled Drake at first. The scour was at the wrong angle to be an old rock slide, and terminated in a near perfectly circular clearing at the lower end. Centuries old Douglas Firs abruptly gave way to a second ring only a few decades old. Those were in turn beginning to produce cones and a smattering of knee high saplings. The rest of the space was completely given over to wildflowers. No matter what season Drake visited it he found a riot of life.
There had been an early spring and many herbs that normally would have waited a month or more were already in full bloom in the mountain meadow. A white wave of foamflower washed in from the deep forest surrounding the clearing, sending up knee high stalks covered in the delicate white blooms. Late trillium hid close to the roots of the great firs, many having shed their white corollas and begun to put forth their bulbous seed heads. Fuzzy white baneberry blossoms nodded gently in the breeze. A riot of yellow and purple spread across the ground as vetch and buttercups and a host of clovers competed for space in the open sun. Great stalks of lupine as high as his head thrust up their purple and blue proudly from thick clusters of palm shaped leaves. Pink shooting stars and violet harebells crouched under the protection of the larger plants. Indian paintbrush lit the scene with flames of red and orange. Where a spring seeped into the meadow elephant’s head flared neon pink and corydalis bushes put forth blushing blooms. Pale green wild orchids stood along the wet spot and the swarms of bees danced from them to the glacier lilies.
Sometimes, as he bent over a tiny blossom and traced the intricate network of veins in the petals, drank in the scent, and felt the smooth surface of the leaves an otherworldly feeling would come over him. It was as if there was another world just out of range of his senses. If he could only really look, the thin illusion that was blocking him would slip away and reveal the real world underneath it.
“Look Awiegwa,” his father would whisper, pointing at a deer mouse perched on a fallen log. “What does it see?”
Awiegwa would screw up his face and squint. Trying to find the answer to the question.
Awiegwa had often wondered how so many flowers had come to be in the relatively small area. He had identified dozens of species and there were more he had yet to determine. The clearing was always the first place to bloom and the last to go dormant. Many of the flowers seemed to utterly defy their usual blooming patterns. However, as time passed he had simply come to accept it. It was one of the small good things that brought back the memories of his father. If it didn’t quite follow the rules Ama had taught him, well an impossible clearing in the mountains wasn’t a place for rules.
The particular bloom that Abuelita had requested had taken full advantage of the early sun and had already put forth a few cobalt blue berries; easily spotted at the edge of the clearing in the delicate sea of white flowers.
However before he left the shade of the forest for the meadow the youth paused and closed his eyes. Bole wasn’t always here, but he was often enough that Awiegwa always checked for him. Carefully he reconstructed the clearing in his mind; marking every tree and boulder on the edge. Three years he had been coming here and each time it was easier to recreate the clearing. Breathing evenly he opened his eyes, letting the mental image merge with the actual. There was a brief moment of confusion as details like the play of light through branches and the trembling of small clusters of flowers fixed themselves but there was only one truly jarring note. Awiegwa didn’t let his eyes focus on the disparity; he never did anymore, but a warm smile spread across his features as he slipped silently into the meadow.
He was here. As the youth moved in a low crouch, gathering the first fruits of the Queen’s Cup, he let his peripheral vision linger on a particular snag. There was nothing obviously interesting about it, other than the fact that it had not been there the last time Awiegwa was here. He had named the wanderer Bole, because it most often appeared as a thick tree trunk; sometimes living, sometimes dead. Occasionally it would be a boulder or simply a mound in the dirt. Often it wasn’t in the clearing at all. If the youth moved forward and tried to closely examine it he could never find anything to suggest it was something other than a tree or rock.
He had thought about taking a sample occasionally, had taken his knife out to do just that more than once, but something always held him back. Bole was a part of this place. Dissecting him would be too much like attempting to dissect his sense of his father’s presence here. The youth had never told anyone about this place, not even Ama with who could get most things out of him easily enough. Down at the house, in town, when he was Drake; solid, reliable, first up in the morning, two grades ahead in school with a penchant for science Drake, a productive member of modern society with a promising future and his mother smiling at him. Here he could be Awiegwa. Here he could believe in the ancient medicines his father had dug out of dusty old tomes and brought to life from the forest litter. Every time Awiegwa left the clearing and headed back towards home reality would reassert itself. Bole would resolve back into a figment of his imagination, created from pride in a somewhat better than average memory and what the social workers had called an “intriguing imagination”. When he reached the house and become solidly Drake again flickers of embarrassment would begin eating at him for letting his senses trick him like that, but as long as the blooms nodded around him in this garden Bole could exist even on a Thursday.
The little woven grass bag filled up with the berries fairly quickly and Awiegwa soon stretched out of his crouch and let his gaze wander contentedly over the clearing. As it always did, the warm space was working its special magic. Worries about Em getting out of his schoolwork, of not paying enough attention to the quiet Donny, of letting Ama see his petty resentments: it had all melted away from his muscles, thoughts of college costs and abandoning his duties dissolved into an acute sense of the now. The leaves rustled softly in a barely-there breeze, the heavy scent of some unidentified blossom filled his lungs, a dozen shades of green framed the rainbow of flowers, and over and above it all the creaking of the firs as the wind played over them. It was at times like these that he felth he could almost see into heaven; that something wonderful that existed just beyond his senses, and all he had to do was reach out and claim it.
The youth took a deep breath and let himself fall backwards onto a handy rise in the forest floor. His path had taken him to the foot of the snag and he shifted slightly to align himself with the gnarled roots. One hand gripped a time smoothed root.
“Ama trusted me enough to go out of state,” he murmured. “That’s the first time she’s done that. Usually she has Abulita stay with us to fend off the Harsh, but she said it’s long past legal now.”
It was his imagination of course that made him think the root vibrated in his hand in response. Many a long hour he had spent in this clearing with the wanderer. He had poured out his frustrations and anguishes over life’s injustices, had shared his secrets as he grew, and had shouted his triumphs. Sometimes he felt closer to Bole than to any of his human friends. However, something that sounded like his mother’s voice warned him that there was something odd about this and that awareness was the main reason he had kept this place secret from Ama. Their mother hadn’t exactly liked stuff like that. She had never objected to his father’s digging up the old stories of her people. Making cross generational connections between elders, who more often than not lived isolated lives, and the next generation, was an admirable goal in of itself in her eyes; objectively a social good. Storytelling was only the natural course for these relationships to take, but subtle looks had warned even a very young Drake that it was best to cautious what he shared with his mother. At least of those things that couldn’t be placed on a microscope slide. So this was Awigewa’s place, and while his father’s spirit wanders the flowers with he had never felt his mother here.
He let his focus drift up, and up. Dark blue Lupine nodded over his head framing the faint crisscross of jet contrails that threw a light haze over an otherwise cloudless sky. His clothed grew deliciously hot from the spring sun. The ground too had eagerly accepted the energy and now it conducted the heat into the muscles of his back. Bole’s wood beneath him was warmer even than the surrounding ground and an idle thought traced across Awiegwa’s awareness; something about it being odd for the light colored wood and relatively dry wood to retain more heat than the darker soil surrounding it. His mind was filled with the impression of a goal. He had been meaning to do, something. Something fun, yes, exploring, he’d meant to see if whatever had dug that den by the second boulder was cubing this year. He would just get up and do that in a minute. His back was so warm and comfortable.
​
https://i.redd.it/zafjty1qcb3b1.gif
“Flying Sparks”
Another foray into the lives of Drake McCarty, Ama Love, and the rest of their siblings as they discover that something alien is out in the forest around their home.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/flying-sparks-a-novel-of-dragon-bear-and-boy/coming_soon
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