Mar. 3 - written by Christopher Rohan

Weeks 13

2-25-22 - Prompt: Preparation

Louis quickly skipped up the steps to the town hall as a small crowd bustled in to find a seat. He knew most of them, but small towns have that effect. The room was packed to the brim so he simply made his way to the back wall to stand. He found Carla there as well. The two of them were old friends. They grew up in the same neighborhood, were close all through high school and even went to the same college. Something happened there that Louis was never quite sure of, however, and they lost touch. Now, even though they were both in the same small town, they’d barely speak.

“Hey,” he said sheepishly, he was never sure if he’d say something upsetting. “Do you know what this is about?”

“Seriously, Lou?” she replied indignantly, “Where have you been?”

“Geez, Carla, what is the problem? I was on a business trip, and I just got back this morning. I’ve been unpacking when I heard the bells ringing.”

“Sorry,” said Carla, it was her time to be sheepish, “some hikers went out two nights ago and no one’s heard from them.”

“That’s not that long ago, why the concern?”

“Not sure, but I think they might be looking for anyone to help search for them. You may just want to stick to your computers.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Louis looked at her wondering how they didn’t know each other at all anymore.

“Seriously, that’s what you do, right?” Carla began, but was interrupted by the deputy.

“Alright now,” he began, banging on the podium with his fist to quiet the room. “Let’s quiet down.” The deputy waited while the chatter in the room settled to a low mumble and then silence.

“We’ve called you down to see if anyone can help. Two nights ago, a small group of hikers went out into the flowage. Their plans, as told to the ranger were to be out for just one night.”

“That’s not cause for much concern!” shouted a middle-aged man everyone knew as Mr. Wilson, the owner of the hardware store.

“True, Tom,” responded the deputy, “but the problem is that they went north.”

The chatter in the room started again.

“Quiet now,” the deputy’s fist thumped on the podium again, “quiet down. I know what everyone’s thinking, and we can’t assume. We just have to respond based one the information we have.”

Louis’ hand shot up, and Carla looked at him with that same looked she’d given him the last few years. “Go ahead, Louis.”

“Sir, I’d like to volunteer. I have some wilderness rescue training, but forgive me, I just got back to town this morning and I’m a little lost. What does that mean?”

“Two nights ago,” began the deputy, “the lights came back.”

“The lights, sir?”

“Yeah, the lights. The same lights that appeared in the north sky thirty years ago when people started vanishing.”

2-28-22 - Prompt: Clock

Rupert sat in another beige and windowless room in another office in another inadequately padded, plastic-wrapped, steel chair with another smooth-jazz covered pop song faintly playing below another clock’s invasive tick, tick, tick.

He counted again the number of offices he’d been that month. Twenty-eight interviews, he thought to himself. This was the twenty-ninth. He tried his best to stifle the hopelessness welling up inside. He needed to be confident this time. Some of the interviews were real disasters and he was glad that no one but the interviewers saw him embarrass himself. The problem was his age. He knew that these new companies were looking for far younger candidates, and people that could learn all the new ways of doing things. 

He thought about how he got there. He’d been working the same job for thirty years. At first, he was scared when the company let him go, wondering what he’d do and if anybody’d hire him. Then, the first day after the job came and he’d slept like he’d never slept before. Peace, was the only word he knew to describe what he’d experienced. He woke to the sun shining through his blinds and heard the early spring birds chirping just outside his window. He’d wondered why he’d never noticed them before.

He’d made French toast, his favorite, and took a walk after finishing. On his walk he began to think about all the things the job had never permitted him to do. At first it was just that the work was demanding and he was fighting for position with all the other young guys, then years went by and he’d found that he was older and had never done any of the things he’d always wanted. When he got back from his walk he booked a ticket for Fiji.

It was the best month of his life. His skin browned in the South Pacific sun and the bags under his eyes disappeared. Tightness in his shoulders and back disappeared as did the tightness of his belt.

The ticking clock snapped him back to the present and he looked again at the room around him. What am I doing here? he asked himself. When he’d gotten back from Fiji the naysayers came out. “When are you gonna find some work?” they’d ask, or “You can’t just lounge around on the beach, that’s no way to live your life.” He gave in and began job hunting, but he couldn’t handle the neutral walls and fluorescent lights. Just then, one flickered above his head as the door opened.

“Rupert Flechman,” a young woman said expectantly.

Rupert looked around at the other applicants as they did the same.

“Rupert Flechman?” she asked.

“He must not be here,” Rupert said with a shrug and the door quickly closed. A smile stretched across his face as he gathered his things and promptly walked out.

3-1-22 - Prompt: Permit

Lori held in her hands the key to her next adventure. Pu’u Ohulehule ridge line trail started just north of the iconic Kualoa Ranch. Tourists flooded the ranch to ride four wheelers and speed passed the beauty of the world around them. She didn’t go for those sorts of things and wished that people would just slow down and see the intricacies of the most diverse ecosystem in the world that is Hawai’i. She’d been there for a few weeks and had experienced so much of Oahu, but she finally gathered the courage to go on a hike.

She held the permit in her hand and it reminded her of how much of the island was government property or government controlled. Most hikes needed special permission, mostly just to monitor the comings and goings of visitors. It was also military land, not simply the DNR monitoring things. It made sense. Hawai’i sits in a very strategic position and if the US didn’t control it, some other government probably would. It didn’t change the reality that native Hawaiians still need permission to traverse the lands their ancestors had been walking for hundreds of years.

She was glad to be able to share the land for a short time and in some ways she felt vindicated since she wasn’t just tearing things up on an ATV.

As she made her way to the trailhead, the thoughts began filter like the light through the diverse canopy overhead. She was glad the land was protected, even if by simple inconvenience. She began to lose sight and sound of civilization as the path climbed upward. It started only one hundred feet above sea level. As she came to her first river crossing, she checked her watch, one mile and already she was at five hundred feet. She knew she’d ford four more times on her way up the path saddled between two ridges. 

Her legs ached and she loved it. She was muddy and the coarse undergrowth of the narrow path scratched and tore at her exposed legs. The sun sat high and would soon begin its usual descent, setting over the mountains to her right a few hours before extinguishing in the vast Pacific. She planned to get to the summit of the Pu’u and then make her way back to her car. She wasn’t too fond of there-and-back trails, but it was nice to end right back at her rental car. She’d then make the drive up and around through Laie and Kahuku to hit Sunset Beach to watch the intensity that ended Hawaiian days.

3-2-22 - Prompt: Safe

I’m not sure people know what they’re talking about when they say ‘safe’ or tell you that you are safe. I’ve caught my self saying it. It’s almost as though it means safe enough or, more often, “you are where I am most comfortable with you being.” My name is Ranjit, and I’ve rescued over thirty people off the Hymilayan mountainsides.

I’ve mountaineered most of my life. It’s just something you do where I’m from. It’s a small mountain village not far from some of the most treacherous climbs in the world. My friends and family have been the nameless figures breaking up the endless white snow in the photographs of Westerners. “My Sherpa” is how they refer to us. 

“Safe.” That’s what we say when we bring lost climbers down the mountains. It’s always made me cringe a little to say it. It’s true, we are taking people from a world in the sky, where humankind are unequipped to survive and back to a place where they might thrive, but that just makes it feel relative. It doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel like we are using the word the right way.

I’ve always been the sort that makes his mother wince. I was glad to have a mother who’d brave the discomfort of her son doing dangerous things so that I could do what I love. I think that’s where I get the odd relationship with safety. There is something about being on the very edge that makes me feel right. It’s when I’m back in the valley that things don’t. I am a great climber. I’ve also been able to help those that aren’t to experience something bigger than the simple “safety” they live in. It seems that when people say safety, what they actually mean is comfort.

There is nothing comfortable about climbing mountains. There isn’t even much fun in it. What is there, however, is something beyond yourself, something bigger.

3-3-22 - Prompt: Mourn

“The day you left, I can’t forget

The pain and loss, countless regret

Endless pings of monitors

Tubes and needles tethered you to life

Until the pinging stopped”

“What are you listening to?” Anthony asked with some disdain as he slammed Nick’s car door closed.

“Hey, you’re in my car, you don’t get to criticize my music,” replied nick.

“I just asked who they are,” defended Anthony.

“It was your tone. It was all in the tone,” Nick said with a wry smile, and then seriously continued, “They’re called Winter’s Sun.”

“Eesh, I don’t mean to be critical, but sounds really sad. they may as well be called The Droopy Lonelies.”

“Yeah, I can see what you mean, but honestly, I usually feel sort of lighter after listening to them.”

“Really?” questioned Anthony, “How’s that?”

“I’m not sure exactly, but it’s just sort of nice to feel like someone else understands being sad about sad things. Everyone else that act super happy all the time, just seem to be faking it to me.”

“Oh, well, yeah, I guess I can understand that.”

Both were silent as the car continued down the street and song continued mourning. nick glanced over at Anthony whose gaze was fixed on nothing in particular. He seemed lost in memories. Nick knew the feeling. They’d never talked about it, but Nick knew that the main reason why they were friends, as different as they were from one another, was because they’d both lost people. Nick lost his older brother a few years ago. His parents had brought him to counselors that helped, but he knew that he’d always walk with a limp, so to speak. He knew that Anthony’s mom had died when he was really young, but he just focused on sports and academics. All his grief seemed funneled into intense focus. At least, that’s what Nick always thought.

“What’s on your mind, Tone?” he asked with some hesitation.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he replied with some irritation, “it’s this stupid song. I just want these guys to get over it. Maybe they’d sing better songs if they’d just forget it.”

“I can turn on something else.”

It’s whatever. We’re almost there anyway.”

The car rolled the last block before the school parking lot as soft, etherial tones questioned the numbness of popular music.