Speaker 1: All media.
Speaker 2: Book club, book club.
Speaker 1: Book club club, book club, book.
Speaker 2: Bo it'sticles on media, book club, your correctly book club.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: You don't get the reading ahead of time. You get
Speaker 2: the reading, that's right, the book, which from my point
Speaker 2: of view is actually a better way to do a
Speaker 2: book club because I don't usually do the reading when
Speaker 2: I'm in a book club, and I go to the
Speaker 2: book club meeting and pretend like I did the reading
Speaker 2: because I want to relive high school.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Margaret, I treat everything in life like a high
Speaker 1: stakes negotiation because I have been raised entirely by hustle
Speaker 1: influencers on YouTube. So when I walk into a book club,
Speaker 1: I pull out a revolver and I drop that shit
Speaker 1: on the table and I say, what do you got
Speaker 1: to tell me about Moby Dick?
Speaker 2: That's good, that's good, And then they tell they say
Speaker 2: from hell stab at the that's right.
Speaker 1: Yeah huh. That's how I do all of my only line.
Speaker 1: I travel three hundred and sixty four days a year
Speaker 1: just to find people who are reading the books that
Speaker 1: I need to read for behind the bastards, and then
Speaker 1: I engineer the information out of them. It's the fastest
Speaker 1: way I can think of to do it beyond actually.
Speaker 2: Reading, which is why when Sophie brought me onto cool
Speaker 2: Zone Media, she shielded my address from you.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right, despite my best efforts, which since
Speaker 1: I can't read, are limited more or less to yelling
Speaker 1: at other people on the internet to find Margaret's house. Yeah,
Speaker 1: has not worked yet.
Speaker 2: Your white whale, as you sometimes refer to me, Yes.
Speaker 1: Yes, Ever since I went to that Moby Dick book club,
Speaker 1: that one really left an impact.
Speaker 2: Yeah, everything is your white whale depending on the.
Speaker 1: Week, but you know, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: This week, I'm going to be reading a piece from
Speaker 2: an upcoming book written by Carrot Quinn Carrick Carrot.
Speaker 1: Like the Carrot. Okay, so like literally spelled carrot Quinn.
Speaker 2: Yeah, gotcha. Old. You know, queer has a has a
Speaker 2: queer name cool.
Speaker 1: I just want to make sure people could find them
Speaker 1: by googling.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, now Carrots like the Food and then Quinn
Speaker 2: q u I and and she's the author of this book.
Speaker 2: The one that I've read by her is called Through
Speaker 2: Hiking Will Break Your Heart, and it is a through
Speaker 2: hiking memoir and it's very good and will make you
Speaker 2: want to quit your job and go walk for a
Speaker 2: very long way. But she's also working on a post
Speaker 2: apocalypse novel. And the thing I really like about this
Speaker 2: is that she knows traveling in the wilderness more than
Speaker 2: anyone I know. One of the other things she does
Speaker 2: is she leads hikes, right Like, if you want to
Speaker 2: go on a week long you know, women only through hike,
Speaker 2: you can. You can go with Quinn, Carrot. You can
Speaker 2: go with Carrot, Carrot, Quinn. So I'm really excited about
Speaker 2: this upcoming, this up there, I mean, post apocalypse.
Speaker 1: I've always wanted to do more through hiking. You know,
Speaker 1: I've done bits and little bits of that over the years.
Speaker 1: You know, I've done some hitch hiking and shit in
Speaker 1: other countries mostly, but I've never done like the drop
Speaker 1: your life for a year and spend it walking And
Speaker 1: would would very much like to do that, But Sophie
Speaker 1: will probably get frustrated with me. Where I to choose
Speaker 1: to do that now, So I hope, I hope it's good,
Speaker 1: but not quite that good.
Speaker 2: That's that's actually similar to how I feel about through
Speaker 2: hiking is I'm like, I get why I can't do
Speaker 2: it right now, and I'm sort of annoyed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would like to nuke my life to do
Speaker 1: that right now.
Speaker 2: Actually, yeah, and that's why at the end of this
Speaker 2: we're fundraising for Yeah, Robert and Margaret's Through Hike Adventure.
Speaker 1: Where my dream has always been the thing I hope
Speaker 1: I get to do someday is I want to take
Speaker 1: a you know, fly into probably fly into Dublin, hike
Speaker 1: from Dublin to on the other side of Ireland, Galway,
Speaker 1: hike to Galway, and then go hike from Galway straight
Speaker 1: up north, you know, across the island and eventually up
Speaker 1: to Belfast, like do the whole linkland width of Ireland
Speaker 1: on foot. Has always been like the thing that I
Speaker 1: most wanted to do.
Speaker 2: That would be cool. I want to do the three
Speaker 2: big American ones, but I also want to do the Lacaya.
Speaker 2: I think it is the way the Saints Pilgrimage that
Speaker 2: goes from southern France over to western Spain.
Speaker 1: Oh shit, that would rule.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But anyway, maybe we'll get to do it during
Speaker 2: the apocalypse like in this story Willing. Yeah. Yeah. The
Speaker 2: book has a working title of an r Var's Guide
Speaker 2: to the American West, and so you should look for that.
Speaker 2: But also you should just look for through hiking will
Speaker 2: break your heart. And then also memoir called the Sunset Route.
Speaker 2: And one of the another thing I like about Carrott
Speaker 2: is that Carrot's coming. Actually a lot of through hikers
Speaker 2: come from quit their office job and go hiking, and
Speaker 2: Carrot comes from hopping freight trains and hitchhiking to going
Speaker 2: and being like the through hiker.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, so.
Speaker 2: The sun drives my clothes as I ride my bike.
Speaker 2: My stomach is full of breakfast gruel. The dog is
Speaker 2: fed too, and jostling softly in the pannier. As we
Speaker 2: make our way across the road, the cold and fear
Speaker 2: of the night slough off me like old paint. My
Speaker 2: joints loosen. In the gentle day, I try not to
Speaker 2: think of how lost I am and how little food
Speaker 2: I have. I try and lean into this moment where
Speaker 2: on the micro level nothing is wrong. My strong legs turning,
Speaker 2: the petals of my bike pulling the road beneath me.
Speaker 2: The road crests arise, still wooded, though still no view,
Speaker 2: and I can see that it drops down and then
Speaker 2: curves out of sight below. Okay, maybe we'll descend now,
Speaker 2: maybe we'll get off this goddamn mountain. I coast downhill,
Speaker 2: picking up speed, letting the wind ruffle my hair, letting
Speaker 2: my tired legs rest. How good it feels to just
Speaker 2: be carried like this. The down tree is hidden behind
Speaker 2: a curve in the road. I don't see it soon enough.
Speaker 2: I hit the brakes, but it's a huge tree, broken
Speaker 2: branches everywhere, and I'm going too fast. I can't even
Speaker 2: make sense of what happens next, except there's a terrible
Speaker 2: grinding noise. I'm going over the handlebars, I'm bouncing, sharp
Speaker 2: pain in my body, and then everything is still. My
Speaker 2: first thought is the dog. I pull myself up. There's
Speaker 2: some blood on the fabric of my dress. My bike
Speaker 2: is tangled and twisted wood, the handlebars bent backwards. The
Speaker 2: pannier with a dog in it is facing up. But
Speaker 2: it didn't get smashed under the bike, thank god. And
Speaker 2: I open it up and the dog jumps out, looks around,
Speaker 2: wide eyed, startled, shakes himself with vigor. He's okay. I'm
Speaker 2: weeping with relief. How stupid I was, being so so stupid?
Speaker 2: Why would I go so fast like that on this
Speaker 2: janky ass road. I almost killed my best my only friend.
Speaker 2: I'm sitting on the ground now openly sobbing my chest,
Speaker 2: heaving a tender pain starting to make itself known. There
Speaker 2: a stabbing burning. Each time I take a breath, I
Speaker 2: can't stop crying. Though the dog stands next to me,
Speaker 2: curious watching me cry. I'm blubbering incoherently at him. He
Speaker 2: has everything in the world that I have, and he's
Speaker 2: so small, and it's my responsibility to keep him alive
Speaker 2: out here in this big, dangerous land. Snot is running
Speaker 2: down my face, and I lift the blood stained skirt
Speaker 2: of my dress to wipe it away. That's when I
Speaker 2: see the cut on my leg. A sharp ended branch
Speaker 2: must have dragged its way across my thigh. The cut
Speaker 2: is rough looking and messy, but not too deep, and
Speaker 2: the blood is already starting to clot. When I stand,
Speaker 2: the leg feels tender and a little fresh blood is out.
Speaker 2: I rub my hands over the rest of my body.
Speaker 2: I feel bruised and maybe a broken rib, but otherwise okay, lucky,
Speaker 2: I got lucky. My bike is mangled, though one of
Speaker 2: the rims bent the wheel. Rubbing against the frame and
Speaker 2: walking is painful, and in addition, now that I'm around
Speaker 2: the bend. I can see that the road does not
Speaker 2: continue to descend. It climbs back up onto the ridge.
Speaker 2: The ridge, though, the clear, open ridge. I can see
Speaker 2: it ahead of me, cast in soft yellow light. The
Speaker 2: road goes up there, and there should be a view.
Speaker 2: The view I wanted there is that at least, better
Speaker 2: get there before the stiffness settles in, before my rib
Speaker 2: becomes all the way painful, and pushing a bike is
Speaker 2: too much. I make my way gingerly up the hill,
Speaker 2: the dog trotting along beside me, the slowness of my
Speaker 2: bent bike matching the slow, painful movements of my body.
Speaker 2: The road tops out in a rocky clearing, and I
Speaker 2: can see the valley spread out in the light below.
Speaker 2: The road ends. Here. There's a small house, a sort
Speaker 2: of one room shack, up high in the air on stilts,
Speaker 2: with a long turning staircase leaning up to it. I
Speaker 2: stand for a time watching the shack, watching for movement,
Speaker 2: but there is none, no sounds either, just the stillness
Speaker 2: of this peaceful evening. I lean the bike against one
Speaker 2: of the metal supports, pull off my panniers, and begin
Speaker 2: to mount the stairs. One two, three, four, flights. I
Speaker 2: grab the guardrail to support myself, WinCE at the pain
Speaker 2: in my leg and chest. With each turn of the staircase,
Speaker 2: the mountain recedes below me, and I can see farther.
Speaker 2: I can see the ridges leaning away from this one.
Speaker 2: I can see more of the valley far below. The
Speaker 2: dog is right behind me, heaving himself up each metal step.
Speaker 2: After six flights, the staircase ends and there's just plywood
Speaker 2: above my head. Nowhere else to go. I press the
Speaker 2: plywood up. It sticks, and then it comes free, revealing
Speaker 2: a square opening in the floor of the shack. I
Speaker 2: pop my head inside. I see a row of wooden benches,
Speaker 2: a metal table, some shelves, a small cot, a wood stove.
Speaker 2: Each of the four walls is made up of huge windows,
Speaker 2: looking out in every direction. I lift the dog up
Speaker 2: and set him inside, and then climb in after him.
Speaker 2: It's nicer inside the shack than out. The walls block
Speaker 2: the wind, and the huge windows gather the warmth of
Speaker 2: the sun, shelter, my God, shelter. Something inside of me
Speaker 2: releases some tense little ball on furls, just in time
Speaker 2: to enjoy these sweet, sweet interruptions in the form of advertisements,
Speaker 2: and we're back. I drop my panniers on the floor.
Speaker 2: I should take inventory of the shack, see what is
Speaker 2: useful here? But I'm overcome with an unnameable exhaustion. I
Speaker 2: carefully lower myself onto the cot, curl up into a ball,
Speaker 2: and shut my eyes. When I wake, its afternoon and
Speaker 2: the light is heavy. I slept more deeply than I
Speaker 2: have since leaving Maud, and I fight the urge to
Speaker 2: close my eyes and fall back asleep, to sleep for
Speaker 2: a hundred years. The dog is sitting right in front
Speaker 2: of my face, staring at me. You're right, dog, I say,
Speaker 2: I should get up and put things in order. I
Speaker 2: roll onto my back and WinCE in pain. I'm thirsty.
Speaker 2: Did I put any water out for the dog? I
Speaker 2: fish a bottle from one of my panniers and fill
Speaker 2: a jar lid that serves as his water dish, set
Speaker 2: it in the corner. Anticipation percolates through me as I
Speaker 2: open a wooden cabinet above the metal table. It's the
Speaker 2: same anticipation I felt in the city, opening up abandoned
Speaker 2: apartments with Georgia. The time before mine was a period
Speaker 2: of unimaginable abundance of goods. Always I am mining that time,
Speaker 2: salvaging its leftovers, hobbling them together to make my own
Speaker 2: spare of life. What hold over treasures will I discover here?
Speaker 2: The first thing I see is a pack of matches
Speaker 2: and a lighter and a roll of toilet paper half
Speaker 2: used up. This already is a bonanza. I've been lighting
Speaker 2: fires with my flint and the dry inner bark of
Speaker 2: pine trees. I learned to make fires of the flint
Speaker 2: in the city using paper trash's kindling, and Maud's group
Speaker 2: taught me about the tree bark. This lighter in matches
Speaker 2: will make things go so much faster. That'll be nice
Speaker 2: until they run out, and then it's back to the
Speaker 2: flint and toilet paper. I can't remember the last time
Speaker 2: I had toilet paper in the city. Toilet paper was
Speaker 2: for rich people. We use trash paper dampened with water,
Speaker 2: the water squeezed from cheap plastic bottles to make a bidet.
Speaker 2: Since leaving the city, I've used moss grasses folded over
Speaker 2: into a bunch smooth stones. There's a deck of cards,
Speaker 2: a handful of dirty dice, a few pencils, and some
Speaker 2: scrap paper, A small red zippered pouch with a white
Speaker 2: cross on it, a first aid kit. These often don't
Speaker 2: hold much that's truly useful. Some safety pins gauze things
Speaker 2: like that, but you never really know. Lastly, there's a
Speaker 2: note written on a scrap of paper, Lottie Moonlight at
Speaker 2: the end of the world, with you falling in love
Speaker 2: among the stars, yours Alfonso. I run my fingers over
Speaker 2: the words, place the note carefully back in the cabinet.
Speaker 2: Other people's sadnesses years gone. There's a long wooden storage
Speaker 2: box under the metal table, and I lift the lid.
Speaker 2: Plastic bags, packages seemingly intact. This box must be mouseproof.
Speaker 2: I rifle through them. A ziplock of broken noodles, a
Speaker 2: cardboard box of instant mashed potatoes, some cans their label's gone,
Speaker 2: likely too old to eat without risk getting sick. And
Speaker 2: then some thick plastic packages that are still sealed freeze
Speaker 2: dried meals, faded and old but not yet expired. These
Speaker 2: are gold. They last decades. This is a major score.
Speaker 2: We're eating good tonight, I say to the dog, who
Speaker 2: is busy sniffing at every corner. He lifts his leg
Speaker 2: and lets a stream of urine run down the table support. Hey, now,
Speaker 2: I say, this is inside. You can't do that. He
Speaker 2: looks at me curious. In the bottom of the metal
Speaker 2: band is a notebook, and I flip it open. It's
Speaker 2: full of entries. The earliest dated fifteen years ago. Fifteen
Speaker 2: years Apparently this place operated as something called a fire
Speaker 2: lookout tower, a place to watch for wildfires, back when
Speaker 2: there was still state infrastructure beyond the cities. Someone lived
Speaker 2: up here and looked out these big windows and watched
Speaker 2: for smoke and recorded their observations every day, and if
Speaker 2: they saw a fire, they contacted some sort of authority,
Speaker 2: and those people would send out helicopters to fight the fire,
Speaker 2: helicopters way out here. I can't imagine the infrastructure that
Speaker 2: used to exist to move all that fuel all this way.
Speaker 2: Just the work it would take to clean the fallen
Speaker 2: trees off all these roads must have been staggering. Elsewhere
Speaker 2: in the shack I find a metal lantern lacking fuel,
Speaker 2: an enamel plate and cup, a couple of forks. On
Speaker 2: the window sill is a pair of binoculars, a plant
Speaker 2: identification book, a book on local birds. A plastic tote
Speaker 2: on the floor holds an old roll, a sleeping bag
Speaker 2: that smells pleasantly of mildew, and a couple of paperback Westerns.
Speaker 2: There's a large blue water container that's empty. A wave
Speaker 2: of dizziness reminds me that I'm actually quite hungry. At
Speaker 2: the table, I rip open one of the freeze dried meals.
Speaker 2: The plastic is brittle and breaks apart in my hands.
Speaker 2: I empty the contents into my pot with some water
Speaker 2: from one of my bottles, and set it to boil
Speaker 2: on the small canned woodstove. I've been gathering twigs in
Speaker 2: the morning and carrying them with me in case I
Speaker 2: an I camping in a spot without trees and need
Speaker 2: to cook dinner, and I'm happy to have those twigs
Speaker 2: now so I don't have to climb down all those steps.
Speaker 2: While the water heats, I close my eyes, allowing myself
Speaker 2: to enjoy the absolute stillness of this space. This safety
Speaker 2: is an illusion, I know. For true safety, I need
Speaker 2: a source of water, some way to get more food,
Speaker 2: and ideally other people. But now that my bike is broken,
Speaker 2: we're just going to chow here for a bit and rest,
Speaker 2: I say to the dog, who is napping in a
Speaker 2: sunbeam on the worn wooden floor, and then we'll figure
Speaker 2: out what's next. I think the meal was supposed to
Speaker 2: be lasagna, or some approximation of lasagna. Now it tastes
Speaker 2: rancid and the textures are all wrong, but the dog
Speaker 2: and I eat it anyway. The drowsiness that follows is
Speaker 2: a force that cannot be stopped, and I lay down
Speaker 2: on the cot with the dog. The mildewed sleeping bag
Speaker 2: pulled over us as well as our own. I imagine
Speaker 2: that I can sense that other time in the cabin's
Speaker 2: sleeping bag, that previous world, Lottie and Alfonso, smelling of
Speaker 2: flowers and pine pitch and warmed over sweat, falling in
Speaker 2: love at the end of the world. When I wake,
Speaker 2: it's dark and cold. The dog is whining at me.
Speaker 2: He has to take a shit, most likely, while that's
Speaker 2: consider of him to want to do it outside. The
Speaker 2: moon is still fairly large, and the table and woodstove
Speaker 2: are cast in silver. I try to move and I can't.
Speaker 2: I pin to the cot with pain tensing my abdomen.
Speaker 2: To sit up causes a stab in my rib cage,
Speaker 2: as though there's a sword running through it. Fuck, I
Speaker 2: say aloud, God, fucking damn it. The dog lifts his
Speaker 2: ears and looks at me, whinds again. Slowly, slowly, I
Speaker 2: roll to my side, push myself into a sitting position
Speaker 2: using my arms. It's excruciating, but not impossible. My leg
Speaker 2: is sore, but walking as slowly is tolerable. However, lifting anything,
Speaker 2: including the wooden hatch on the floor that leads to
Speaker 2: the staircase, creates another sword of pain in my chest.
Speaker 2: I'm crying by the time I set the dog on
Speaker 2: the stairs beside me. I look at the dog. Maybe
Speaker 2: I can send him down by himself, but he's so
Speaker 2: small and there are predators openly sobbing, I make my
Speaker 2: way down the stairs after him, gripping the guard rail.
Speaker 2: By the time I reach the ground, I feel as
Speaker 2: though I'm going to throw up. Not that though, vomiting
Speaker 2: would be horrifically painful. I want to laugh, but that
Speaker 2: would hurt too. The dog noses his way around the shadows,
Speaker 2: arcs his back produces one tiny, perfect shit. My bike
Speaker 2: is there, leaning against the steel supports of the tower,
Speaker 2: glinting in the moonlight. I touched the metal so cold
Speaker 2: it's almost frosty. I'm cold too. I'm starting to shiver,
Speaker 2: and that hurts. The dog is already bounding his way
Speaker 2: back up the staircase. I turn to follow him. I'll
Speaker 2: deal with my bike tomorrow. The dawn comes long and red,
Speaker 2: the cold bite of nighttime banished by the slow warm
Speaker 2: of the morning. I woke when it was still dark
Speaker 2: and lay for hours in the sleeping bag, watching the
Speaker 2: night fade. The dog curled against my belly. When I
Speaker 2: am still, the pain is still, but every time I move,
Speaker 2: it hollers at me again. Now I close my eyes,
Speaker 2: feel the morning sun on my face. I've got to
Speaker 2: figure out what to do. With great effort, I get
Speaker 2: myself upright and make my way to the table to
Speaker 2: heat some water for breakfast. Putting weight on my leg
Speaker 2: feels worse today, and in a strange way. I lift
Speaker 2: my skirt and press my cool palm to the skin
Speaker 2: around the gash, which is scabbed over. The skin is
Speaker 2: hot to the touch and red and swollen. Sort of hard.
Speaker 2: Wait did I clean this yesterday? Did I even fucking
Speaker 2: clean this? I holler in the tower, letting my voice
Speaker 2: carry out over the bright, vacant world. The dog glances
Speaker 2: up at me, curious. How could I have forgotten to
Speaker 2: clean the cut on my leg. How for all I know,
Speaker 2: it's got fucking sticks in there. I was so excited
Speaker 2: to find some stupid fucking matches and freeze dried meals
Speaker 2: that I forgot to clean a fucking gash on my leg. No, no, no,
Speaker 2: no no, I say to the tower, to the sky,
Speaker 2: to the whole uncarrying universe that spirals around itself into cold,
Speaker 2: infinite space. My head is a rush of noise. I
Speaker 2: see the table and break sticks on thinking, stuff them
Speaker 2: into my stove. I pour water into my pot, shake
Speaker 2: the empty bottle that's the last of my water, and
Speaker 2: light the sticks. Without comprehension, I unFocus my gaze at
Speaker 2: the blank windows and the blue sky beyond. Wait for
Speaker 2: the panic to pass. The water boils over, scalding my hand,
Speaker 2: brings me back into my body. Yesterday I ate a
Speaker 2: flake from the box of instant mashed potatoes. It tasted
Speaker 2: like nothing, as though the plant matter had been replaced
Speaker 2: by dust, the way bones and rock are replaced with
Speaker 2: minerals to make fossils. Oh well, I'm eating the potatoes anyway.
Speaker 2: I dump the contents of the box into the water,
Speaker 2: remove the pot from the heat set it aside. I
Speaker 2: put my head on the cool metal table, close my eyes, think,
Speaker 2: I've got to think. And you know what she thought of?
Speaker 2: She thought of these great ads she invented all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a that's a you know, in the future
Speaker 1: when when the television networks break down because the grid
Speaker 1: has largely failed, the advertisements will continue in our soul
Speaker 1: because because all ads come from a special secret place
Speaker 1: where the human spirit dwells.
Speaker 2: It just a little little leech just sucking on them.
Speaker 2: You could view it as that as well too. Sure,
Speaker 2: here they are, and we're back. I've never been much
Speaker 2: for wound care back in the city, organizing with Georgia
Speaker 2: and the others, that was never my role. I was
Speaker 2: good at breaking into buildings, stealing boxes of food from
Speaker 2: the backs of trucks that were unloading dumpsterring, making connections
Speaker 2: to get resources we couldn't scavenger steal. Georgia was the
Speaker 2: one in the group with some basic medical knowledge. If
Speaker 2: someone stepped on something sharp or twisted their ankle jumping
Speaker 2: down from a chain link fence, she was there. Hospitals
Speaker 2: were great places to get disappeared, so people like Georgia
Speaker 2: were crucial. It wasn't always possible to help every problem,
Speaker 2: like with Rick and his abscessed tooth, and how impossible
Speaker 2: it was to find antibiotics. But Georgia and others like
Speaker 2: her did what they could. Now spooning tasteless potato mush
Speaker 2: into my mouth, and this isolated fire tower far from
Speaker 2: the last vestiges of a dying empire. I wish that
Speaker 2: I had taken the time to learn basic wound care
Speaker 2: from Georgia. What an idiot I am. I dropped some
Speaker 2: potatoes on the ground for the dog, and hehrks them down,
Speaker 2: and then he licks the wooden floor clean. I've got
Speaker 2: to get more water. What would kill me first, dehydration
Speaker 2: or my infected wound?
Speaker 1: I want to laugh.
Speaker 2: Where was the last water? I passed a little seep
Speaker 2: on the side of the road yesterday and made a
Speaker 2: clear pool in the grass. How many miles back was that?
Speaker 2: My bike is too broken to ride, I'd be traveling
Speaker 2: on foot, and I'm in so much pain I can
Speaker 2: barely move. Maybe once my ribs have recovered some I
Speaker 2: can walk to the water source in a few days,
Speaker 2: But right now I can't travel that far. I need
Speaker 2: to find something closer. Shutting my eyes, I visualize the mountain.
Speaker 2: Where has the water been on this ridge so far?
Speaker 2: It bubbles from up from underground streams and springs, likely
Speaker 2: replenished by snow melt. When traveling with mods group, we
Speaker 2: found it by watching for different kinds of plant life.
Speaker 2: There'd be dry slopes of yellow grasses and stiff woody brush,
Speaker 2: and then in a fold in the mountain, a riot
Speaker 2: of green. We'd make our way to this drainage and
Speaker 2: follow it downhill or uphill, sometimes splitting into two groups
Speaker 2: to go both ways, until we heard or smelled water.
Speaker 2: It just rained a ton. I think back to my
Speaker 2: night under the tarp, so that should help things. I
Speaker 2: eyeball the blue plastic five gallon water container that sits
Speaker 2: in the corner of the tower. I should take that
Speaker 2: thing with me on my search for water. Empty, it'll
Speaker 2: be light enough, but how will I even lift it
Speaker 2: once it's full with my injured ribs. One thing at
Speaker 2: a time, I say out loud to myself. In the cabinet,
Speaker 2: I find the first aid kit and rifle through it,
Speaker 2: not expecting much. There's some ancient band aids that glue,
Speaker 2: likely useless, a roll of gauze, some sterile wipes, and then,
Speaker 2: good God, an amber colored pill bottle. It rattles in
Speaker 2: my hand. It has pills inside. The label says doxy cycling,
Speaker 2: a fucking antibiotic. I can't believe my luck. I up
Speaker 2: end the bottle that doesn't or so. Pills in my
Speaker 2: palm are brown and oblong and have eye dash too
Speaker 2: etched into them. These are not antibiotics, their ibuprofen. I
Speaker 2: take a deep breath and tip the pills back into
Speaker 2: the bottle, setting four aside. These will be helpful for
Speaker 2: the pain. At least they'll make my water gathering trip
Speaker 2: a bit easier. It takes a while to get down
Speaker 2: the stairs. My body has grown stiffer as the day
Speaker 2: has progressed. But by the time I'm walking along the
Speaker 2: ridge away from the tower, following the faint jeep track
Speaker 2: overgrown with weeds that heads more or less in a
Speaker 2: westerly direction, the ibuprofen is kicked in, and the pain
Speaker 2: feels a little farther away. Isn't so sharp as to
Speaker 2: make me want to throw up my mashed potatoes, which
Speaker 2: is good because I wouldn't want to waste what little
Speaker 2: food I have. The dog is trotting beside me, happy
Speaker 2: to be walking in the sunshine, not a care in
Speaker 2: the world. My leg has begun to throb, and I
Speaker 2: try to ignore it, repeating the mantra one thing at
Speaker 2: a time to myself and take it breaks whenever I
Speaker 2: need them. Sitting on the water jug and staring out
Speaker 2: over the valley below, I don't know how fast I'm walking,
Speaker 2: or how much time has passed exactly, but it's afternoon
Speaker 2: when the jeep track ends and a single footpath continues
Speaker 2: on along the rocky ridge. The footpath drops down into
Speaker 2: a cluster of trees, and I see a promising sight,
Speaker 2: a depression filled with green grass. I dig with my
Speaker 2: fingers in the grass. The earth is dark and moist here,
Speaker 2: but there's no standing water. Damn. Below the depression is
Speaker 2: a cleft in the trees, dropping down, filled with rocks
Speaker 2: and boulders. I should follow this. The going is slow, though,
Speaker 2: with my jug and my injured legs and my ribs.
Speaker 2: Each small drop down from a large boulder, dragging the
Speaker 2: banging water drug after me makes me dizzy with pain
Speaker 2: and hunger now too, and it takes me time to
Speaker 2: steady myself for the next obstacle. My pace slows to
Speaker 2: a crawl as the afternoon lengthens. I try not to
Speaker 2: let panic cloud my decision making as I push on
Speaker 2: down the boulder choked ravine. The ibuprofen is long since
Speaker 2: worn off, and the last of the light is fading.
Speaker 2: When I smell minerals and feel the air change on
Speaker 2: my skin, I find the pool in the lee of
Speaker 2: a large granite boulder, clear water, about elbow deep in
Speaker 2: the middle, dancing with water bugs. In this moment, the
Speaker 2: rest of my worries drop away, and the pain and
Speaker 2: panic induced fog clears. In this moment, I have solved
Speaker 2: the greatest and most basic of life's puzzles, and I
Speaker 2: want for nothing. I am happy in the purest sense.
Speaker 2: I fill a water bottle and guzzle the entire thing.
Speaker 2: Now for the hunger, I pull a freeze dried meal
Speaker 2: from my backpack and laboriously crunch up and swallow a
Speaker 2: few handfuls of the dried contents, which tastes like salt
Speaker 2: and not much else, followed by another bottle of cold,
Speaker 2: perfect water. The dog drinks his fill and gets part
Speaker 2: of my meal too, and then settles down in the
Speaker 2: warm sand, ready for bed through the trees. I can
Speaker 2: see the molden orange of the sunset, and I allow
Speaker 2: a moment of perfect contentment to pass before I ask
Speaker 2: myself what exactly I mean to do now? The cold
Speaker 2: is coming and I'm already chilled the heat of the day.
Speaker 2: Escaping into the atmosphere, I brought my sleeping bag with me,
Speaker 2: and I decide to sleep here next to the water
Speaker 2: and figure out what my next steps will be in
Speaker 2: the morning when the sun returns. Animals will want to
Speaker 2: use this watering hole in the night, most likely, and
Speaker 2: I don't want to spook or be spooked by them,
Speaker 2: So I walk a little bit into the trees until
Speaker 2: I find a flat, dry patch of ground. I'm more
Speaker 2: than exhausted, my broken body aching in new ways from
Speaker 2: trying to compensate for its injuries while I hike down
Speaker 2: this ravine, and it feels blissful to escape into the
Speaker 2: warm depths of my sleeping bag. The dog like a
Speaker 2: hot water bottle against me, and cinch the hood closed
Speaker 2: over my face, leaving just my nose sticking out. It's
Speaker 2: warm in my down cocoon, and the forest is peaceful
Speaker 2: and still, and sleep comes easily. My sleep is full
Speaker 2: of nightmares, and I wake multiple times in the night,
Speaker 2: unsure at first where I am some part of my
Speaker 2: body uncomfortable or in pain. I roll over with difficulty
Speaker 2: and drift off, only to wake again in a new
Speaker 2: kind of pain. I'm relieved when the first of the
Speaker 2: light begins to bleed into the sky, and I lay there,
Speaker 2: eyes open, listening to the sounds of the forest aching
Speaker 2: and almost but not quite warm enough, and wait impatiently
Speaker 2: for the warmth of the sun. Dawn finds me sitting
Speaker 2: on the sand next to the pool, shivering slightly, using
Speaker 2: one of my water bottles to fill the five gallon jug.
Speaker 2: Soon most of the pool is inside the jug, water,
Speaker 2: bugs and all, and I am contemplating how to get
Speaker 2: the beastly heavy thing back up the ravine to the ridge.
Speaker 2: Lifting it is out of the question, just one half
Speaker 2: hearted try, and my ribs are screaming at me. But
Speaker 2: maybe I can drag it. The dog sits a little
Speaker 2: bit away in a patch of sun and watches without
Speaker 2: judgment as I use my knife trim the hem of
Speaker 2: my dress in one long, spiraling strip. The fabric twists
Speaker 2: easily into a small rope that is not I decide
Speaker 2: strong enough to pull five gallons of water, and I
Speaker 2: reluctantly return half the drug to the pool. Although I
Speaker 2: am disappointed, this turn of events pleases the water bugs greatly.
Speaker 2: One end of the rope ties to the handle of
Speaker 2: the water drug, and the other I wrap around a
Speaker 2: fixed stick, which will be easier to hold onto than
Speaker 2: the rope itself. I take a few tentative steps up
Speaker 2: the slope, my feet digging into the deep pine needles.
Speaker 2: The jug tugs me back, and then a bright pain
Speaker 2: as my core engages moving my broken rib, plus the dull,
Speaker 2: throbbing pain in my leg. Fuck, there is no way
Speaker 2: I can pull this drug uphill. My head turns to
Speaker 2: static again, and I sit on the sun warmed ground
Speaker 2: and try to gather myself. I mustn't panic. The situation
Speaker 2: is very bad, but panicking will make it worse. I
Speaker 2: must not make things worse. Dog pads over to me
Speaker 2: and climbs in my lap, curls into a doughnut, and
Speaker 2: shuts his eyes. He's not worried. He trusts in my
Speaker 2: ability to figure things out. Oh that I was as
Speaker 2: clever and powerful as my dog thinks I am. I
Speaker 2: shew the dog off and ease myself up again, slowly
Speaker 2: so as to not jostle my ribs, and stare at
Speaker 2: the water jug, willing myself to solve this puzzle. I
Speaker 2: can't carry the jug. I can't drag the jug. What
Speaker 2: can I do? The water sloshes as I pour the
Speaker 2: rest of it back into the pool. I chug a
Speaker 2: leader and fill the two bottles in my backpack. These
Speaker 2: two leaders are all I can carry, but at least
Speaker 2: it's more water than I had yesterday. The ravine looks
Speaker 2: completely different on the climb up, and I recognize almost nothing.
Speaker 2: I chastise myself for not noting more landmarks, but my
Speaker 2: experience on the way down was clouded heavily by thirst, exhaustion,
Speaker 2: and pain. Still, next time, I should be more careful.
Speaker 2: When I'm half way to the top, I sit for
Speaker 2: a long moment and let the pain subside. Want to
Speaker 2: sit there forever, but make myself stand again. Hunger is
Speaker 2: making me dizzy. The freeze dried meal I ate last
Speaker 2: night was the only food I brought, and I've already
Speaker 2: burned through the little bit I saved and ate for breakfast.
Speaker 2: I imagine dumpsters full of stale bread sheet cakes stolen
Speaker 2: off the backs of trucks, greasy street food, and other
Speaker 2: abundances of the city. I imagine Georgia, her soft fingers
Speaker 2: on my scalp as she braids my hair, and the
Speaker 2: first light on the rooftop whispering to me about her
Speaker 2: dreams the night before. Would I have been better off
Speaker 2: if I just stayed yes for a little while? And
Speaker 2: then that world is behind me, I say aloud, as
Speaker 2: I brush the pine needles off my dress and pick
Speaker 2: up the blue jug again. That world is lost, and
Speaker 2: in its place, I've gained something I didn't even know
Speaker 2: I'd been missing. These mountains, the arid valleys. I mean
Speaker 2: to try and find my mother, and I mean to
Speaker 2: make my home here, figure out what to eat and
Speaker 2: how to live and where the people are, or maybe
Speaker 2: just die trying. D D. That's the end, damn right.
Speaker 1: You can really tell it's written by somebody who knows
Speaker 1: what it's like to be out in the middle of
Speaker 1: nowhere without any kind of technological assistance, just like you know,
Speaker 1: surviving based on your wits and whatever you happen to
Speaker 1: have in your backpack, which is more minimal than like
Speaker 1: the most prepper types at least they're going to put
Speaker 1: in a YouTube video, right like this is Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is somebody who's like spent a lot of time dealing
Speaker 1: with the problems of like there's not water or not
Speaker 1: clean water, or like I've gotten myself sick or hurt
Speaker 1: and now I have to figure.
Speaker 2: It out on my own. Yeah, no, totally. Like I
Speaker 2: remember the first time I read this. I read some
Speaker 2: like ya book when I was a kid, and I'd
Speaker 2: run away from home at one point by that point,
Speaker 2: and i'd like slept outside and I did not sleep, right.
Speaker 2: I was too cold. It was you know, June, and
Speaker 2: it was too cold, and I couldn't sleep. And so
Speaker 2: I read this book and the kid like runs away
Speaker 2: and sleeps on a park bench and just like goes
Speaker 2: to sleep, And I'm like, Nope, this motherfucker whoever wrote
Speaker 2: this is never slept outside, never slept hard. Yeah you
Speaker 2: know that first night you're sleeping outside by yourself. No
Speaker 2: you're not. Yeah, not without a not without a sleeping bag.
Speaker 1: No, No, I mean not even like honestly like sleeping,
Speaker 1: not even just sleeping hard, sleeping like medium, Yeah, part
Speaker 1: I don't know what you call like when you're not
Speaker 1: like out in the middle of nowhere or whatever, but
Speaker 1: like because of some sort of situation like you're you're
Speaker 1: traveling around and shit gets fucked up with a card
Speaker 1: or whatever. Like if I had to like crash on
Speaker 1: benches in you know, uh, airports or whatever, and like
Speaker 1: that's not really sleeping, let alone being out in the
Speaker 1: woods alone for the first time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, yeah, no, but yeah, and you're right. That
Speaker 2: is the thing that I really liked about When I
Speaker 2: was reading this story. I was like, Oh, and it's
Speaker 2: also like it's a good infotainment too, right, because you're
Speaker 2: like I've done I've been in the woods a lot
Speaker 2: and stuff, but I've never been without water in the woods, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: and so I've never had to do the work of like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's where the grass is and follow that. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: you can tell that either Carrot has and I mean
Speaker 2: I've I've read her through hiking stuff, so I know
Speaker 2: that she's run out of water on a hike before,
Speaker 2: you know, but like knows the actual answers. And I
Speaker 2: think that's really cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah. That happened to me once in the Himalayas, and
Speaker 1: it was because I was with someone else's the only
Speaker 1: reason I really got out of that situation because I
Speaker 1: was like heat stroking out and don't think I would
Speaker 1: have had the presence of mine too, And so it
Speaker 1: was like she basically kept me going and literally like
Speaker 1: crawling across the ground until we found a stream where
Speaker 1: we could ref phil and thankfully we had tablets and
Speaker 1: stuff on us. But like, yeah, I don't know what
Speaker 1: I would have done if I had been alone in
Speaker 1: that situation, because like I was in pain, and that's
Speaker 1: all the other thing. The degree to which like being
Speaker 1: in pain, like physically injured when you're alone in a
Speaker 1: situation like this is like an intoxication effect, right, Like
Speaker 1: not in a positive sense, but in the sense that
Speaker 1: it sort of like deranges your ability to make choices.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's like that first snap the character takes
Speaker 2: is so real, you know, the like, ah, I need
Speaker 2: to do a million things. I just got out of
Speaker 2: a really bad situation. Good night. You know that's so real.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm excited to read this book. When is it out?
Speaker 2: I don't think there's an actual date yet. So I
Speaker 2: just want to want to let people know that they
Speaker 2: should be on the lookout and they should follow Carrot,
Speaker 2: and they should Carrot has a sub stack and does
Speaker 2: a lot of like travel blog stuff. And again, I
Speaker 2: really enjoyed Through Hiking Will Break your Heart, and I
Speaker 2: expect I will really enjoy The Sunset Route, which is
Speaker 2: the memoir that talks a little bit more about the
Speaker 2: pre her life before, like what letter to be, popping
Speaker 2: trains and all that stuff. But I haven't read that
Speaker 2: one yet, but I really like. Okay, I like then.
Speaker 2: The thing I like that is I like the immediacy
Speaker 2: of the writing. I like that it is written like
Speaker 2: someone who is a through hiking blogger as an apocalypse walker,
Speaker 2: you know, like you don't read a lot of present
Speaker 2: tense writing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I like too. And you can tell this
Speaker 1: is by someone who knows their shit, because this is
Speaker 1: how it's angled, or at least how this part's angled.
Speaker 1: Where like scrubs who have never been outside of the
Speaker 1: city for any real period of time, who've never been
Speaker 1: out on their own, need to imagine like zombies or
Speaker 1: some shit to make the apocalypse scary real heads, No,
Speaker 1: the scariest thing is just being alone out in a
Speaker 1: situation where there's absolutely no chance of rescue.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, totally, because that's plenty of danger. Yeah, days
Speaker 2: and days could go by with everything being completely fine
Speaker 2: and then you can crash your bike and then you're like,
Speaker 2: well now what you know?
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: The times that I feel the most I'm a grown
Speaker 2: up now is when I am doing something and something
Speaker 2: goes wrong and I am the only one who can
Speaker 2: fix it, you know, and I don't like that feeling.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I want to be able to like do things collaboratively
Speaker 2: or have other people take care of me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know, it's it's it's also it's scary
Speaker 1: that kind of shit. I mean, it depends on how
Speaker 1: fast in them, because there's fast emergencies and slow emergencies.
Speaker 1: Right there's the if I don't act right now, someone
Speaker 1: is going to die for whatever reason or I will
Speaker 1: be beyond rescue. And then there's slow emergencies where it's
Speaker 1: like there's not really a ticking clock, but if I
Speaker 1: don't figure this out, at some point, things will will
Speaker 1: like inevitably degrade. And uh yeah, the fast emergencies in
Speaker 1: the moment, if you get through them, there's only so
Speaker 1: much fear that you can actually have because you you know,
Speaker 1: you have very little time. Right You're making a choice
Speaker 1: in interacting it's the weeks afterwards when you realize, like,
Speaker 1: oh shit, if I hadn't made exactly the right choice
Speaker 1: in this one moment, like the consequences would have been nightmarish,
Speaker 1: and like you kind of ye in some cases, spend
Speaker 1: the rest of your life thinking about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. One time I was driving my van that I
Speaker 2: lived in through the mountains and it was just a
Speaker 2: sudden blizzard and I spun one point eighty on a
Speaker 2: mountain curvy road on the freeway in the snow, with
Speaker 2: like no control over my van, and it was just
Speaker 2: slow motion. And then I didn't go over the edge.
Speaker 2: I did a like eighteen point turn to get back
Speaker 2: and then just kept driving through this blizzard. But it
Speaker 2: was nothing I could do for like the next what
Speaker 2: should have been two hour drive of him was like
Speaker 2: a five or six hour drive, you know. And that's
Speaker 2: the slow motion one eighty turn sucked the next five
Speaker 2: hours where no one could I the only way out
Speaker 2: was through you know. Yeah, and you're like, Okay, this
Speaker 2: is what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: Fuck up?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah. No.
Speaker 1: I had a situation where I was out in the
Speaker 1: middle of nowhere in the mountains with a friend in
Speaker 1: her dog and I'm keeping some details from this because
Speaker 1: there's some stuff I shouldn't say. But both the first,
Speaker 1: her dog fell into this very fast moving stream of water,
Speaker 1: and she, without kind of thinking, dove in after it
Speaker 1: and was it was attempting to like grab the dog,
Speaker 1: like had a hold on it as it was getting pulled,
Speaker 1: and then it got pulled down and she wound up
Speaker 1: getting pulled into the water just because of the speed
Speaker 1: of it, and yelled for me to go, like save
Speaker 1: her dog. So I started running down and then like
Speaker 1: ten feet on, I'm like, what the fuck am I?
Speaker 1: I have to get her out of the water. And
Speaker 1: it was one of those like if I hadn't you know,
Speaker 1: done strength trained, because she weighed probably an extra eighty
Speaker 1: pounds with all of the water inflating her winter year
Speaker 1: and everything, you know, if I hadn't you know, had
Speaker 1: the physical strength to get her out, if I had
Speaker 1: run a little further down the path before turning back
Speaker 1: to come get her, like because the dog, by the way,
Speaker 1: was fine. It's a dog, like it got sucked into
Speaker 1: the water and then and then it got it get
Speaker 1: crawled out of the water when it calmed down. But
Speaker 1: I don't know that she would have been right, Like
Speaker 1: in fact, I doubt she would have. And it's one
Speaker 1: of those things that like I haven't because we were
Speaker 1: completely out in the middle of nowhere, no cell service
Speaker 1: or anything. We were an hour walk from our car,
Speaker 1: So it was like one of those as little like
Speaker 1: you know, it was just my decisions in that moment
Speaker 1: that we're going to have an impact on the situation.
Speaker 1: And it was fine, and it was you know, maybe
Speaker 1: ninety seconds, but it's ninety seconds that I will be
Speaker 1: thinking about for the next fifty years or you know,
Speaker 1: over long.
Speaker 3: Totally.
Speaker 2: Yeah. God, well, if you want to experience that in
Speaker 2: fiction form instead of yeah, you know, and I mean,
Speaker 2: and that's why we read adventure. You know, it's like
Speaker 2: is to experience that safely because we do experience it otherwise,
Speaker 2: but it's nicer when you can experience it safely. And
Speaker 2: for more daring stories of adventure, wait for more Cool
Speaker 2: Zone Media book club every Sunday on that's right, people
Speaker 2: who did cool stuff and it could happen here.
Speaker 1: Feed Yes, that's right, and check out our upcoming book
Speaker 1: club reading Rainbow but spelled the way they do in
Speaker 1: Louisiana like E A U X and it's it's just
Speaker 1: the same stories as in the book club, but we
Speaker 1: do a fake Cajun accent. So that's right, you know,
Speaker 1: that is all Robert. It's entirely, entirely me. I'll have
Speaker 1: a guest that I cook an etu fe for. Uh
Speaker 1: don't even know what an attufe is, but I know
Speaker 1: it's fucking casion, so you know, yeah, check in for
Speaker 1: that one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, at the end, we eat beignets. That's all.
Speaker 1: I've been called offensive by the Cajun anti defamation leak, but.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 1: What are they gonna do, come up from the swamps. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they'll never make it in the mountains.
Speaker 2: Nah, they probably would probably pretty pretty impressive people. Well,
Speaker 2: if I survived till next week, I'll have another story
Speaker 2: for you. See you all soon.
Speaker 3: It Could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 3: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Speaker 3: cool Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
Speaker 3: Iheard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 3: You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated
Speaker 3: monthly at cool Zone Media dot com. Slash sources. Thanks
Speaker 3: for listening,