District Forest 2

We worked 40 days to get a day off. Actually we lived 40 days of getting paid. I still believe that none of us considered those days as work. We were either waiting to fight forest fires or really out there fighting them.

The beauty of learning something new is that the new people are all untarnished. Sharing moments of absolute wonder. Sparky and I watched a thunder storm roll in first thing in the morning. He really woke me up out of bed to get me to watch the thunderstorm come rolling in over Watt Mountain.

That wonderous joy of niavete and innocence where people are able to see the best in you when you are new to them and they to you is amazing. Joyfulness. I would like to share that joy with my children. The mess of living in a small town is a quagmire that can drag emotions down, but a real muskeg is a site of wonder that is teeming with microorganisms and a food site for moose, waterfowl.

Then the contrast comes of dealing with the next progression of looking for more. People who have goals and agendas to further their career. This is not unusual. The numbers of the people who are helpful is still out weighing the few who are pencil necks.

And I find that the quality of people who are not pencil necks at heart, is a step above the rest. They can be a part of a team. They can understand and live the quality of self-less-ness.
But the line of self-preservation keeps the team builders alive and kicking.

Characters such as these are harder to find in the long end of life. Faithfulness is tough in the long haul. But some of us alive are lucky to search and find ways back to the moments of wonder. The moments of wonder that can be found on a floating dock at 5:30 am in a June morning watch a thunderstorm roll in. Knowing that a beautiful pure busy day is now set out for you. Anticipation rewarded is a fine, fine emotion. Rewarded trust is another. Sharing the smell of the electricity before the storm, and then sharing the damp smell in the air as the storm moves off.

An important goal is to stay open to moments like that when serendipity arrives. Be ready. Make your own luck. Bank the odds in your favour.

Search for the wonder in the day.

The Settlers

When our family got home was when we realized that something was not right.

Our neighbors were in our kitchen. Well, the oldest boy, Sonny, and his little brother were there. Sonny saw us and quietly stood to put on his sheepskin lined jacket. He glanced at us a couple of times, then paused. He told us he didn't know that we were going to be back. We told him we thought that we knew we had been gone for about 18 months. Sonny pointed out how tall our little sister was. He added that no one had really expected any of us back. He figured we had been gone about three and a half years.

Jenny, the oldest girl, proudly put her arm around Ruth. Yes, said Jenny, that would be right. We started back about 18 months ago. We got lost and have been working hard to get back home, she said. Jenny and I and Ruth looked at each other. Beatrice and Emily, the two middle girls, hugged each other quietly and sat on the parson's bench by the door. Josh, the second youngest settled between them.

Sonny looked around at us. He told us he would be back tomorrow to see how we were doing if that was okay. We nodded yes. He paused one last time before leaving. He told us more than asked us that we weren't with our parents. I looked around bewildered for a moment. No I said. I did not say anything more about that and he did not ask any more. He shut the door behind him.

I sat at the kitchen table. The room had lost its feminine touch. Sonny and his little brother, Arty, I remembered. Jenny snapped her fingers and nodded her head in agreement when I finally recalled the little brother's name.

We sat puzzled for a long time. Moments that we could remember were sketchy.

We could all remember that we had travelled south with Mother and Father. Our earliest recollection seemed to be in the late summer out in a field of tall grass. The last field before the true mountains. The Rockies rose up about a mile to the west. We were all runnning and playing and Jenny said that we had better get home so that we could get our hay cut. By the looks of the grass here, ours should be ready at home.

So we started home. We stopped for supper at a ranch that was very nice. They had flat boards about four feet by eight feet. Must have come from quite the tree, but the rancher claimed the wood was plied together. But he had built a look out tower that the wind couldn't blow down. I wanted to copy that idea when I got home. I told that rancher I planned to steal his idea and he thought that was alright.

We were happy there, except Jen wasn't with us then, can't remember why. But we knew that we had to go when the rancher's wife kept shushing Emily and Ruth at the supper table. They just wanted to play and be kids, but that rancher's wife seemed really upset at us and would never look at us.

I remember that we met up with Jenny and Beatrice and Josh just past that place. I told her about the plied wood and the other boards that were treated so they would not rot. She was amazed at that.

Jenny remembered that we went past a lot of huge round bales. Jenny was worried that we were not going to make it home in time to get the hay in before winter. We didn't. We walked through a lot of bush that winter. We got separated from Jenny and Ruth for a while, which made us sad, but once we found a little red wagon that was Ruth's and we knew we were on the right track. Finally we came over a hill and heard Jenny and Ruth coming up through thick bushes on our right hand side.

And the funniest thing was that when us kids came down the hill, it was like a big long stairway, with a bannister and everything. We had work hard going down because there was so much snow on the stairs. And the funny thing was that before Jenny and Ruth could come out of the bushes, we had to scare away a big old moose. I finally took a plate that was made out of plastic, except it was a toy that flew if you held the plate upside down and threw it. I took that and whacked the moose on the nose. It looked so shocked and surprised. Kinda like I woke it up. It shook abunch of snow off of itself. I was standing on the third stair from the bottom of the long stairway. The moose looked at me and I looked at him. We both realized that we were inside a foyer of a mansion that had no roof on it, and the front door was already open. The moose walked away without looking back and then Jenny and Ruth could come out of the bushes on our right, which seemed to the west. They came into the foyer, because there was no wall there on that side and the sun had already set. But we kids were all back together.

And some how that long winter brought us back to our house in Dunston. Spring is about to be sprung. And our Neighbor Sonny and his brother Arty seem like they will be back tomorrow.

I think we all know we are ghosts, but it has been a long time since we were all together. And Ruth has grown so much.

multi-verse versus the uni-verse

In a very insightful moment, Vikena had an insight. There is more than one universe that she was travelling. There were many universes, which means a multitude of universes. She realized in a flash that all things exist, just the belief was missing for most people.

And she realized that possibly, the multi-verse did not believe in everything, just what it was able to percieve. Humans moved too quickly to be percieved most of the time, just occasionally, would a human force be established long enough for a universe to notice.

Vikena smiled and looked around. She knew her children were still alive some where.

the multi-verse smiled and blinked. It felt the resonance of a mother missing her child. Timeless that is. The present in the multi-verse is always there.

Starry Satyr Night

From the Flatlands
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---

After the EMS crew returns to the fire hall, they sat in silence. They had watched the ambulance leave the scene. With a shiver, they all desired to get out of the early spring wind. At 2 am the wind still cut through to the skin, parka or no parka.

No one wanted coffee. Warren was still sitting there, with a couple more bottles surrounding him. Dave sat down.

"We just had the freakiest thing happen."

Warren didn't look up. "I'll bet."

"How did you know what we would find up there."

Warren shook his head. "I'm not psychic or anything silly like that. I just had a feeling."

"And that's not psychic?"

Warren looked up, angry. "No, the odds were that I didn't want to find out, but you're going to tell me what you found even though I sat here and didn't want to go and I didn't want to find out, but you're going to tell me, aren't you!"

"Why the fuck not?" Dave looked around at the others who were all sitting by now.

Warren rotated the beer bottle in his hands and leaned forward. He looked up with the most intense look Dave had ever seen. Warren suddenly looked fevered, about to explode. But Warren's voice came out exceedingly smooth. "So was it elves, fairies, pixies, or the little horse people?"

Dave felt deflated and silly. The absurdity of the night struck him. He looked over at Marge. He spoke with a small voice. "People attached to horse bodies."

Warren flopped back in his chair. "Centaurs. I looked them up on the internet. Couldn't remember the name for them. Centaurs."

Natalie spoke quietly. "We saw one come along and murder another one right in front of our eyes."

There was a silence that settled in the room that seeped into their bones. Warren flicked his lighter and lit one of the three cigarettes laid out on the table in front of him.

Natalie sat up in her chair. "Hear that?"

They all could hear a siren in the distance. Dave jumped up and went to the door. They could hear the ambulance. Lights were flashing but they cut the siren when they rounded the corner to the fire hall.

Dave said, "What the hell are they doing?"

Ambulance pulled up and cut their lights. Darren jumped out from the attendant's side.

"What kind of bullshit is this!" Darren just stood there. Mandie sat behind the wheel of the vehicle. She looked scared.

Dave asked, "What?"

Darren stormed past Dave into the ready room and looked at everyone around the table. He was shaking he was so pure mad.

"How did you do that!"

No one around the table reacted.

Darren waited moving his gaze from one person to the next around the table. His face grew redder as his blood pressure rose because of the silence. "What did you do!"

Reese asked, "What?"

Darren spoke with a desparate fear and urgency in his voice. "The patient disappeared!" He looked around wildly. "It just fucking disappeared!" No one could answer him.
"How can that happen?" He was only moving to breathe. The rest of him was rigid in anger and fear. "The hospital is expecting a patient and I don't have one! It just disappeared. how can I have lost a patient?" Darren started to shake. "What happened?"

Behind him, Mandie walked up silently. Her face was grey and she had a cold sweat forming on her face. A sure sign of shock.

Darren spoke slowly. "The radio transcripts will show that I loaded a patient and left the scene. The thing just faded in front of my eyes. Gone. The blanket settled onto the stretcher and now I don't have a patient. I don't have anything. How can I go back empty handed?" He stood in the doorway furious. He raised his empty hands up and screamed, "What!"

No one moved. No one answered.

Darren stood there and the silence in the room defeated him. He walked over to the table and grabbed the bottle of rye. He spun the cap and visciously threw it over to the garbage can. He drank three long gulps. He walked over and picked up one of Warren's cigarettes. He inhaled deeply.

Mandie left the room. Everyone could hear her radio in to 911 dispatch. "Yes, a flat tire. Then the patient refused treatment and signed the paper." A pause as Mandie listened, then, "Check we are out of service at this time, the spare is also flat. The Dunston fire crew will help us. We'll radio when we are back in service."

Mandie came back in and sat close to Warren. Darren sat down finally. Mandie pulled out a Colt and lit it with Warren's lighter. It clattered when it hit the table. She blew the smoke out in an easy relaxed manner. But her hand was trembling just slightly when she flicked the bit of ash from the end. She scanned the faces around the table and stopped at Warren. "So what's new with you?"

Warren shrugged. "Oh, not a lot. Got to go to the bank tomorrow, " he glanced up at the clock, " today and see if I can talk the banker into giving me my operating loan for the farm. For some reason he doesn't seem to think that I have much chance of making a living from it until the border opens to ship some beef down there. Like that is going to happen real soon."

Mandie said, "That sucks."

Warren said, "Yes it does."

Mandie looked around again, "Well?"

Dave started to talk, but Warren interrupted. "I can believe in UFO's, that Elvis is still alive, whatever story is on the World Weekly News. I can believe that 9/11 was a CIA conspiracy, that aliens secretly run our governments and that the globalization is designed to bankrupt this country, but I have a hard time believing in disappearing little horse people."

Dave added without looking up. "One that was murdered right in front of us and we didn't do anything to stop the bastard."

Melanie said, "I thought he was going to help his friend."

Dave, "But we are not supposed to lose control of the scene. How could we let that happen right in front of us."

Warren asked, "Did he have a bag over his shoulder with a black fan outlined in red on it?"

Melanie nodded. "Yes."

"Bastard."

"You've seen him before?"

Warren hesitated like he really did not want to answer, then nodded.

"And he does worse things than murder."

Melanie said, "Son of a bitch."

He looked up at the fan circling laconically above the table. "I do not want to respond to anything at that intersection again. He knows my face."

Melanie said quietly, "It is like where an interdimensional twilight zone thing happens."

"Does nobody care that we saw a murder tonight? A real live murder!" Dave leaned forward and hid his face with his hands.

Warren stood up. "Well I've got to see the banker tomorrow."

Eventually everyone and went home that night.

Secret Agent Man - The Sensuality of Survival

The Sensuality of Survival.
- If you want to keep a secret, never tell anyone.

What if a Martial artist has to face the fact that he sucks, and turns to learning ballet instead. Now that is comedy.

What made me think of that is a certain situation that occurred in Dunston. Boyo did not understand it at the time because he was only 13. He still hadn't learned to tell the difference between what he thought and the folks around him thought.

When he was 13, Boyo lived straight west of Dunston, known as that because it was forever dieing. A slow and ineffiecient death.

There used to be a chain of stores called the Solo Stores. The name was probably a pun on So Low for the prices that the independent store owners had to stick on their merchandise. On a Saturday night after a particularily uneventful social at the local community hall (uneventful because the RCMP did not have to come and squash a perfectly good round of fights).

A bunch of guys were outside the hall, beyond the light at the front entrance where the bugs were hanging out. Some were there to smoke. The rest just to hang out, away from the music and the pressure of acting nice for their girl firends or the girls they wanted to be their girlfriends. Darnel spoke up and asked if anyone wanted to fight. Boyo was surprised, because Darnel was usually so mild. Loud but mild. Not out of anger, just because he wanted to challenge someone. the guy they all used to call Ricky who was already 16 shrugged and tossed away his cigarette. He rolled up his sleeves and they squared off about 20 feet away from the group. Farther off away from the hall light. The two raised their fists. Darnel shuffled a bit and darted in for the first swing at Ricky's face. Ricky jumped back a little too slow. He got nicked.

Ricky came in with a couple of punches and backed off quickly holding his chin. Another clash and flurry of fists and Ricky backed away. Darnel straightened and dropped his fists. Ricky dropped his. Darnel said, "okay." He grinned. Ricky didn't. They both walked back over to the group. No one said anything about the result of the fight. Mitch popped open his car trunk, brought out a 12 of Club and we drank.

Ricky was quiet and Darnel was laughing and loud, but not brash. Boyo soaked up the silence from Ricky. Somehow, by the end of the night, Ricky got called Rick instead. Darnel had given him the first beer.

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From the Flatlands

Fire Practice

Fire Practice on Monday was good. Checked out the power of the new 18 hp V-Twin Honda pump. Ran two 2.5" hoses to Siamese to 4 1.75" hoses. One of the lays was a minute man. But we put an extra 50' on the minute man when we packed up. Now each has 150' total reach.

Worked out the hydrant problem.

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Dunston Lives

Boyo looked up from filing the stone. He had been called Boyo for so long that the new guy still did not know Boyo's real name.


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