The Quest

Table of Contents The Preface The Intro The Escape The Ascent The Arrival The Future People The Pictures The End Preface How the source material of this abridged tale ever got to us is a bit of a mystery, but our receptionist, Bob, who received the documents said the man wore a well pressed suit, had a most peculiar red hair cut, and had an unforgettable ability to make extremely exaggerated facial expressions. Bob informed us that the Red-headed guy walked into the lobby here at our world headquarters, and stood firmly about 3 feet in front of his desk, in an upright and stoic manner, much like a military officer might for a routine inspection. The strange guy quickly went on to explain in a candid but snide and matter-of-fact manner, that the documents were written by a former auto parts broker. He said the individual who wrote them had an unusual alien encounter in the year 2013, and wrote his chronicles shortly thereafter. Then he dropped the package on Bob's desk, did a quick about face, and marched out the door, never to be seen or heard from again. We don't know much about the guy with red hair, or about the anonymous author, or how the pictures of the future were taken, but we do know that this book has been a best seller, and we thank you for being one of the many to make a purchase despite some of the critical reviews we've been getting of our first edition by the skeptics that think this is all a big hoax. Whether aliens actually exist or not is not something we at Peaks Publishing can prove or disprove, but we do know that the view of the future portrayed here must cause us all to stop and reflect on our lives in this day and age, and where we are going as a planet, and as a race that would like to think we own this planet. Not that we can do anything about fate, but, why not ponder it anyway? Harry Reasoner Editor-in-Chief, Peaks Publishing Intro Since reaching adulthood, I've somehow forgotten about taking occasional breaks to think a bit about all that philosophical bologna about time and space, destiny and what it means to be a carbon-based life form on this planet we call Earth. Through the transitory period between my kid stage and my adult stage, I just kind of came to accept that life was simply some big game, and fame and fortune was the ultimate goal. I was born back when VCR's were the hottest new technology, and the US dollar was the basic language of the world. Back then, most people only moved homes or changed jobs about every other year. I thought I entered this world a pretty lucky guy. I mean I wasn't dealt a royal flush or anything, but things were fairly under control. We'd hear about riots and wars, and famine and floods, and all, but it was always via the TV and was about some place on the far reaches of the other side of this dirt ball we call Earth. Anyway, my family stayed together through my whole upbringing, and always kept us well fed, groomed, and appreciated. In the small oil town where I was, life was just one big adventure. There wasn't much worry about our future, and time could never pass too slowly. Everything was magic. If we got bored, we knew it was our own fault, and not the fault of the TV. Especially, because there were only 13 channels, and 11 of them didn't tune in very well. The other however many is left had the news and soap operas on all the time, and an occasional football game. The news was always about everything but our own lives, while somehow being everything about our lives, or some nonsense. The questions were, in my mind, when we had over 20 channels coming in, "Is this TV a reflection of us, or a free election by us? Do we determine what it is, or does it determine what we are? Or is it just the old chicken and the egg thing?" I guess it was when all us local yokel kids would run out in the fields chasing tumbleweeds as they blew in the wind, that the outside world started thinking that people in Taft were behind the times. When we started getting the Narcissistic Video TV (NVTV) channel cabled in, I think we all started to realize that there was this whole big other world out there, and that we we're all connected to each other somehow. The news made us think about what was happening to everybody else, but NVTV made us think about what was happening to us. That's when we started thinking about catching up with the times and learning the universal language of Music Video a little better. No more rocket launches down rusty old pipelines for us kids. It was time to watch music videos and learn about the world in a whole new way. I started to realize that my living such a stay-put limited existence was not good, and that I should head for another part of the world, and see things from an alternate perspective. Next thing you know, I was off to Japan as an exchange student. Well, to make a long story short, I took over a VHS videotape copy of the NVTV best music videos, and I made all kinds of friends. I started teaching Japanese kids about cool slang and rock and roll kind of stuff, and they really liked it. Then, I realized that wow. Even though we can't speak to each other in too many words, we sure could talk by music videos. I came back to my hometown, and it all looked completely different. The people were still having fun in their own little worlds, oblivious to anything happening more than a mile or an hour away. I couldn't help feel envious though. So easily amused, like I was before I stepped out of the mold. I still appreciated the simple things, but it wasn't until quite recently though, that I made the basic connection, that no matter how big or small our worlds are, the same basic laws of chemistry and physics still apply, pretty much by and large. And that explained how big rock stars could be so popular for simply being ordinary people with ordinary problems. Even though most seem psycho, depressed, or totally in love with themselves, they are still characters that we can identify with to some degree. Anyway, I'm going off on tangents right and left, up and down, here and there and all around. Hippy dippy doo. I think my original train of thought was meant to deal with the issue of my transition from kidhood to adulthood. Well, it didn't happen over night, that's for sure, but the main point was that it was thanks a lot to NVTV for making it possible for me to see that both big people can talk to little people and Western people can talk to Eastern people. Somehow, music videos helped me realize the connection between us all, and come to understand there is a universal language we can all speak to each other - the language of music video. Nowadays, with no channels at all, the whole universe is connected by networks and the answers to all our questions are only a few pecks away. It makes me shudder to think how we could even have handled TV back when we could only watch what it fed us! And I remember half nostalgically of the days when those huge VHS tapes could only hold one movie or a dozen music videos, and you couldn't share them with your friends unless they were within walking distance. Enough about the past, which may be your future, depending on when you happen to be reading this, which for you, reader, is now. I am quite sure you are reading this now. In your now, at least. Call me psychic. Or psycho. I do digress again. Suffice it to say, times have changed, but so have I. I recently had an interesting stint away from the job. I went far far away, in more ways than one. If you are reading this anytime much before the year 2013, you might not believe a word of this, but if you read it much after, you will be reading for your history exam. I've been doing my one job for several different companies over the last 4 years in exchange for a periodic credit to my personal ACUMEN (A Cerebral Utility Made Electronically Negotiable), much like the paper check things once accomplished for one's bank ACCOUNT (A Cash Count Of Universally Negotiated Transactions). The rapid expansion of my ACUMEN has generally been my main reason for living, so naturally, I've been putting in lots of long hours of hard work for my employers. The companies I've been working for have all been essentially owned by the same guy, some Chinese philosopher that died several years back, but has been adopted around the world as the guy to blame for all our troubles. Bureaucracy at its best. Even though he's dead, most people don't know it and the others are afraid to say anything about it. I was one of the few who remember how it all happened, but that is because, every time the Authority Agents (Double A's) allocate us a memory upgrade, I pretend to install it but don't and later throw it away when I know the video cameras' mainframe crashes. I only know when that is because my good friend Pete Moss is a hacker that illegally tapped into the local POP before the video camera installations, and has since been able to track its activities, without being tracked by the Double A's. (Or at least, he thinks they haven't been tracking him.) I wish I had time to tell you all about the gradual installation of video cameras and motion detectors and network censorship software that took over in the last half century, but I'm on a very tight deadline with this book, as the investors and distributors are in need of something good to be done right away. Suffice it to say, books (the paper kind) were made into firewood after the oil supply ran low (another temporary shortage), and the IdNet became the sole source of information on the past. I wish I could go back in time so I could have more time for writing this, but I don't have access to the time travel technology yet, and a deadline is a deadline. If I could time travel though, I would probably have gone on my mountain hike years sooner, but then, who knows if I would have had the encounter with the future people had I done that. Or for that matter, if I had done anything different with my life. I realized how I could take any event that happened at any time during my lifetime, and say, would I be here now today if I didn't do what I did then? Say, for instance, I bought a VCR. Then sometime much later, on the night before our epic escape from town, I had the urge to see an old movie favorite of mine, and consequently stayed up late that night. The next day, of course, I would have overslept and consequently started the whole day out late. Which, could have meant missing the whole future people experience. If that were so, I would probably be back at my old job selling auto parts instead of freelance writing here in my cabin by the lake in the mountains high above. All because I had the money and willingness to buy a VCR. (Which was a whole other example of an event that happened for all sorts of reasons that I won't even begin to list here.) Anyway, my old job was a lucrative upwardly mobile one. I was always doing the same thing, selling stock in companies that manufactured auto parts. Even though the oil shortages hit, and the auto industries had their periodic crashes, I still made lots of money. The secret, like many things, was timing. The ebb and flow thing. I always sold for the right companies at the right time, and bought for the other companies at the other times. (I got promoted a few notches back when the rumors of the potential legalization of SolarPowered Cars were going around.) In case you are reading this before the trade wars between Japan and the U.S. got out of hand, you are probably wondering what cars look like in the year 2013. Well, don't worry. They haven't changed a bit since around the mid 90's. The U.S. government never learned that there are other things to sell to Japan other than over-sized cars that have the steering wheels on the wrong side. Instead, they forced Japanese auto manufacturers to import sub-standard auto parts from US subsidiaries, thereby making Japanese luxury cars less desirable. They added several tariffs on top of that, and loads of bureaucracy to help regulate things. Then, the Japanese had no choice but to use their surplus dollars to buy land and set up their plants in the U.S., and import the parts from Japan. Then, the US auto companies moved their shops south where the labor was cheaper, and made even cheaper cars to compete. Meanwhile, all the different auto companies and parts companies and banks and such kept buying into each other. Then, after much regulation, all the car companies of the world had to lay off their engineers and stop making any new improved designs. Most of the auto parts made nowadays aren't made to last very long, but it hasn't been bothering me too much selling defective brakes and the like. I've always figured that by the time the cars that used them fell apart, I would have made enough fast money to retire to Costa Rica, and take up surfing big waves as a new career. Besides, with the all the companies strung together like a hand-crafted quilt, it would take legal proceedings a lifetime before they ever worked the spread of the blame down to some goof ball broker like myself. So I got severely lost in my work for several years. Each promotion and benefits boost only fueled my appetite for more, and before you knew it, I had ascended from number 1 up to number 31 of 555. And I knew that at the rate I was going and the rate the company was going that by the time I made it to 555, the company could easily be up past a thousand, so I'd only be about half way to the top. At any rate, I recently started pondering things a bit, for some strange reason. I thought about what I was becoming and all that who am I how am I what am I where am I going existential Hindu stuff. Every morning and night as I drove through bumper to bumper traffic, and as I rode the elevator to the top of my office building, and as I sat at my desk telling people what they wanted to hear, I pondered my actions for a change. I thought and thought, and with each ring of the phone, each stop of the elevator, and each honk of a horn, I grew more and more tense, and began fantasizing about a little old pond I used to sit by as a kid, watching frogs jumping in. Then, it dawned on me, "I gotta get outta town!" I wanted to take a long vacation, but I had already used my vacation days, so I asked my boss if I could take one extra day in exchange for working a full weekend after my return. But, he said, "Sorry, 31, it is against company regulations". He sat there with a stern look on his face, trying to look in charge like his boss's boss's boss, whose portrait sat behind his huge plastic desk. I suddenly felt the tie around my neck tightening like a noose. I had to get away, at least for a weekend, and get to know mother nature a little better. The Escape Well Thursday evening came, and I went to see my old buddy, Pete Moss. Pete was a former rock star that had a couple of originals that went big on the alternative college radio stations. After touring several of the local bars and nightclubs, his name grew bigger, and soon, he couldn't even go to the grocery store without somebody whispering, "Hey, isn't that Pete Moss, from the Moss Machine?" But before he even made any cover stories in national magazines, he gave it all up, and opted out for the simple life. He still plays a mean guitar, but his new thing since has been traveling the high roads in search of lost treasures, and generally trying to enjoy life without rushing things too much. Anyway, having recently acquired some camping gear from some friends who recently met up with a Big Brown Bear, I thought I'd see if Pete would like to go for a little camping expedition somewhere. So I said, "Pete, where should we go?" And he quickly pointed to a post card on his wall and said, "There!" And I said, "Why?" And he replied, "Because it is there." I looked closer at it, and it was supposedly some 14,500-foot tall pile of rock sticking up in the middle of a very vast and spacious desert known as Death Valley. (Supposedly, it is the tallest mountain peak West of London, South of Vancouver, East of Hawaii, and North of the Panama Canal.) The Ascent We hopped in the four-runner I got as a company fringe benefit, and struggled thru traffic to get out of town, and within hours, found ourselves approaching mountain peaks that looked like something out of a National Gee-o-Graphic Magazine! I looked up at all of them and asked Pete, "Which one are we going to climb?", and he replied, "The tallest one out there. . ., Rockhopper." And I said, "Well which one is the tallest one?". And he responded, "That one!", pointing to the one that to me looked the smallest. "But, that one is smaller than the others!", I exclaimed. And he rebutted rather laconically, "No, Rockhopper, it only looks smaller." "Okay…", I thought, while stuffing my tent into the dead air space of my backpack. I was glad to know we were about to hike the smallest mountain, yet get to say we climbed the highest one. (And you can yellow mark that line!). So we stuffed our packs with as much stuff as we could, and then placed them on our backs and started hiking up a windy trail. The pack felt rather light at first. I thought, "Gee, I could have brought more fun stuff, but I didn't, and that sucks!" I thought that over and over with each step until I stopped staring at the ground and decided to look up and take in a deep breath of fresh air. "Wow!", I felt, "This is way cool!", and I asked Pete what he thought, and he simply remarked, "Rockhopper, a journey of 14,500 vertical feet less the elevation at base camp of 8,000, begins with a single step!" I remembered hearing a version of that back in one of my favorite Confucian Theory classes that I took in grade school. Now, somehow, it was all starting to make sense. . . So anyway, we kept on making footprints in the dirt, and continued on our merry way. Time was ticking away though, as the sun started heading for the Western horizon faster than we were moving towards base camp. Pete exclaimed emphatically, "Dude, if we don't make it to base camp before sundown, we'll never make it to the top of the mountain and back in time for you to report to work on Monday!" With that extra bit of incentive, I kicked it into gear and gave it my all, despite feeling like I was close to dropping dead from exhaustion. We managed to make it in the nick of time, just as the moon started taking over as our source of light. As I was too tired to cook, I offered to do the dishes and let Pete cook up an excellent meal, which I quickly inhaled. It was rapidly getting majorly cold, as I found the moon doesn't quite generate the heat like the other light in the sky, so I put off the dishes for the evening and quickly retired to my sleeping bag where I went off to dreamland for a while. On my way to dream land, I thought about the day, and the fact that we were only half way there. A feeling of fear swept through me. The thought of not making it to the top and back home in one piece really got my stomach churning. Especially if I were to miss a day of productivity back at the office. That would move me back to status 13 or less in no time. But, I knew I had to endure. If we made it this far, we'd darn sure better make it all the way. Once the conflict in my head subsided, I was able to fall fast asleep and dream about hooking big light bulbs into sockets. I remembered feeling like the goal was to overcome as much negative reinforcement as I could and simply light up my world with truth, or something. I don't know. When I wake up after such abstract dreams, I have a hard time making much sense out of them. I suppose if I tried hard enough, I could make some connections between my various states of mind but suffice it to say, I appreciated the light of the sun when it finally appeared the following morning. The sub zero temperatures made washing the dishes a rather painful experience. I was wishing like mad that I had done them the night before, when the weather conditions were more bearable. I guess all actions will catch up with you eventually. Anyway, we had Quacker Oat Meal for breakfast, packed a lunch, and quickly set off on the next leg of our journey. I looked up to see the peak we were attempting to conquer, but I couldn't quite see it yet. I asked Pete if he knew which peak it was, and he said, "It's the one behind the peak over there", pointing to a peak that looked rather far away. I gulped nervously, thinking, "It's obviously further away than that one, and that one looks far away, and I am not in shape to be here. I wanna go home." I almost slipped back and fell on the rocks below me as my mind drifted back to my cozy apartment back home. I wanted to be at my desk, next to my little portable fireplace, playing with my interactive VR goggles, drinking hot Java. But I knew, after all, that I would only go home defeated if I didn't meet the goals of my mission. My self esteem would shrivel up, and my reason for being would revert back to simply selling auto parts for quick profit. I knew there must be more to life, and if I didn't at least try my best, then I don't know what. I got distracted suddenly as I saw a flash of light pass overhead. I looked up and just over the horizon, a large gray flying saucer popped up and hovered for about 5 seconds. I fumbled to get my camera out and when I just started to focus, it darted rapidly to the right, out of site. Of course, Pete didn't see it, so he thought I was suffering from exhaustion induced hallucinations. I started to believe him, and tried to focus a little better on the trail, and not get distracted so easily. But I couldn't help question myself, "What if beings from other worlds actually exist? What would they think of us, climbing up some stupid mountain for no reason?" Well, I convinced myself for a moment that it was, in fact, the altitude, and kept trudging up the hill, gasping for every bit of thin air my lungs could pull in. We stopped for a moment to see how far we had gotten and how much further we had to go. It looked like we could hike the long way around this big peak that was in the way, or we could scale the face of it and have a little more fun. It was a tough choice, and we probably spent several minutes too many discussing the different potential outcomes before ever deciding, and even then, it wasn't official like it was back at the office. But Pete pretty much thought it would be better to try scaling it because it would be more dangerous, and therefore, more of an adrenalin rush. Or, in short, more fun. I, being the novice rock climber that I am, not to mention out of shape, was a tad bit worried about the possibilities of getting half way up to a point of no return and running out of physical or mental energy. Or even worse, run out of the three main elements: food, water, air, and food. Or what if I get dizzy and lose my sense of direction and take a slip back and knock my knoggin out on the next available place to land. All these fears were running through my head like a freight train outta hell. I thought, "Ya know Mr. Moss, you are really pushing the limits here, and I'm afraid something might go wrong here, and I'm scareder 'n chit." But all I said was, "Well Pete, I agree that we should go this way, except that I sort of think it might take a little bit longer, and therefore, I won't be back to work by Tuesday morning. But, you know. It doesn't matter much one way or the other. Just thought I'd mention that." I never was much of one to assert my will upon others, so I reluctantly followed suite or however you spell a bunch of cards that have something in common. So, there we were looking up a towering wall that looked like it was leaning back like a tree does right before it turns into a log that kills. Or like a big gnarly wave looks like to a sack of flour on a surfboard. In short, I wanted to go home, and the routine of 9-5 work and the IdNet in the eves was sounding better with each foot of altitude that we gained, or done got, or however you say it. After several long grueling hours that seemed like days, I started feeling rather short of breath, and thirsty, hungry, and a bit disoriented, and mostly hungry. I gobbled down the only thing I packed, a big sardine sandwich with lox and lettuce and tomato, and blue berry jam. The night before, I forgot to go shopping at the Safeday Mall and my watch was not functioning properly in the service area we were in. So, basically, I had to pack only what I had in my kitchen at the time. I almost lost it when I tried to make the darn Samwitch, but half way up this cliff that we were hanging cool on, I felt as though my sandwich was quite tasty. And I wish I'd have packed another couple for the trip. I was getting really worried about an hour later, when I realized the valve on my hoodikai had failed. A "hoodikai", in case you don't know, is any container that contains water that has been processed by moisture harvested from clouds that gets dehydrated, then given a jolt of electrolytes. The word originally meant "rain kingdom" or "that world of things that fall from the sky" in ancient Japanese, referring to plain old water as the necessary thing that it is. Missionaries from the West later arrived, and in their efforts to communicate, mispronounced the word, and eventually mizpelled it, and it was subsequently adopted in their culture back home as a word that meant "disadvantageous or unfavourable thing". By then it, was spelled as "hoodikai" in Roman characters and was still used to refer to water, but with its new meaning. Back in Japan, however, the word for "disadvantageous thing", though phonetically spoken the same way as "rain kingdom", was spelled by different kanji, and generally referred to things like the device that had just malfunctioned on me and caused all my water to leak. All I could do was look down the side of the rock at the trail of moisture that was rapidly evaporating back into the sky, and ask Pete if I could share some of his water. He was very kind and allowed me enough to keep myself alive, without sacrificing his own life. The new trouble at hand was that of the sun, which seemed to be moving rapidly to the Far West, which cast a cold shadow upon us as we were hanging on the Eastern face of the mountain. In other words, it was getting colder, and darkness was about to follow sooner than we wanted it too. If we were to stop where we were, we wouldn't get a very good nights sleep, and probably wake up in even worse shape the next morning. About 100 feet straight up, there appeared to be an outcropping of sorts where we figured we could set up camp for the night. I was still a bit worried about missing work on Monday, and knew at the rate we were going, we weren't gonna make it back in time. By our original plans, we should have made it to the peak and back to base camp by now. "Oh well", I thought, as I swallowed nervously, gulping only air. My mouth was tasting like cotton, getting dryer by the minute. I wanted water and I wanted it really bad. Pete made the last 100 feet in no time, but I straggled behind, struggling with each breath. He yelled down words of inspiration like, "Come on, dude! Don't be a wimp! Push yourself! You can rest once you get up here!" I couldn't wait. To sit still on some narrow outcropping of rock was starting to sound like the pleasure of all pleasures to be had. Well, I managed somehow, but barely before sunset. Once I arrived, the temperature seemed to drop suddenly in half. I of course, packed only my shorts, because it was supposed to be a day trip, and it was warm when I left. Thank goodness Pete was thinking though. He learned in boy scouts at an early age that it helps to pack for all kinds of situations, and he envisioned me forgetting things like sweatshirts and a hat, so he packed extras. He didn't envision my hoodikai breaking down, but he did pack an extra old-fashioned style canteen of his own that had clover juice in it. He didn't tell me about it until I told him I was about to die of thirst. Then he offered me a couple of swigs to get me by, and recommended we find a water source first thing in the morning. I was really beginning to realize that there is more to getting from point A to point Z in the dot2dot drawing metaphor of life. The water shortage issue became rather important when we woke up the next morning. The sunrise in the East was quite beautiful, but my throat was parched and the sun took on the look of some evil life force zapper about to challenge me to the death. I knew my immediate mission at hand was merely to survive the day, sleep through the night, then repeat. Repeat and repeat until Pete and I make it to the top of the mountain and back to base camp. Then, back to the city. Then back to work. Then back to the routines like those union picnics where we all hook into the IdNet and take on the roles of picnickers at a picnic in the 3-D rendered emulations of actual places that used to be frequented by actual people. I remember as a kid, we used to go to Buena Vista Park, and ride cardboard slides down a big sand dune hill, and go on Easter egg hunts, and then pig out around the Bar-B-Que grill with all the friends. But, that always took so long to organize. Then, to get there took over a half an hour. Then the set up, and grilling the hamburgers and all. Now, its all instantaneous convenience. We just log in at the right time, click on the pictures of ourselves, then type each other messages. For hamburgers, we click on a little Hamburger icon, and within minutes, the Hamburgers arrive via pneumatic tube from the auto-burger food processor downstairs. The picnics are my favorite fringe benefit at the company because they give me a chance to unwind and relax for a while, without having to waste too much time. Picnics that used to take up most of a Saturday are now done in less than 30 minutes. Anyway, I knew daydreaming about the convenient life back home wasn't going to get me back there any faster. My immediate concern was water. We could hear the sound of water in the distance when the wind would die down, but couldn't quite tell which direction it was coming from. It looked like another 200 feet up there was a big area of relative flatness, so we headed up that way. The further up I got, the harder it seemed to breath, and my legs were starting to cramp up again. I was wishing I had a parachute so I could just jump back to base camp, but I didn't so I stopped wishing. When Pete lost his footing on a loose rock that fell, I started wishing a helicopter would come to my aid. Watching the rock accelerate at 9.8 meters per second squared towards the distant ground below didn't exactly calm my nerves. I did however, gain a new understanding of the law of gravity. It didn't seem to make much sense in high school physics class when they described a small red apple falling on some Newton dude's head. There surely are some laws that govern the universe that no lawyer could ever change. I thought about the moon, and how it works differently there, but I remember there is some formula relating to sizes of objects that determines the force of gravity between them. So, there is a formula that has been programmed into the universe by some big programmer, so it seems. Tests have indicated that the same formula applies to everything discovered to date in this little solar system we live in, and may even apply to the whole Milky Way galaxy, but who knows about the other galaxies. All I could figure at the time was, don't slip and fall like the rock, because there ain't no changing the laws of gravity. Anyway, I tried like mad to keep up with Mr. Moss, but realized we have different paces that we adhere to. Could be the fact that he exercises more often than I, and eats healthier. Maybe he's just a lot tougher and strong willed, but I wasn't as concerned about who got to the top first as I was about just getting to the top period. What a failed mission this would be if we couldn't make it to the end of our journey in one piece. The thought kept echoing in my head, whipping me every time I tried to stop moving forward. By the time the sun had reached its peak in the sky, we had finally made it to the top of our first big peak. There was a stretch of flat land, and lo and behold, a trickle of a spring running nearby. I ran towards it and plunged my head in and gulped like crazy until I reached water-logged state. That was the best water I think I ever tasted. I sat down and tried to catch my breath, and make friends with the sun again. It seemed so much friendlier now that we had water to drink. I filled my hoodikai after I fixed it with a little creative engineering. Then, Pete insisted that we bust a move and head on up the next peak, which I was hoping was the final peak. Pete said, "Don't get your hopes up, I think we're only at 13,000 feet and the main peak is at fourteen five." I was too tired to work out the math. One step at a time, we proceeded on our way. The water supply was ample now, but the air supply was starting to wither away. For some strange reason, it seemed the higher we went up the hill, the thinner the air got. The lack of oxygen had interesting effects on my physiological being. I always took those breathes of air for granted. At least up here, the taste of the city smog wasn't quite as harsh. By late afternoon, the earth was spinning away from the sun again, and we found ourselves in the shadow of the next peak in front of us. With the shadow came another drop in temperature. Just another law of the universe that is beyond our control. We set up camp near a small stream that the previous spring was connected to and got ourselves ready for dinner. Since I had no sandwiches left, I was faced with starving to death, or killing Pete and eating him, but since Pete was my good buddy, I thought of better ways to keep myself alive. Pete had a small handful of trail mix left, but said I should suffer a bit for forgetting to pack like I should have. He did however, teach me how to make a fishing pole from a stick, my shoestring, and a piece of wood that he carved into a sharp evil looking hook. I dug around the mud a bit and found a big honkin' earthworm and stuck it through the hook. It squirmed a bit, but I couldn't tell by the look on it's face if it was fearing for its life or not. But I knew it was my only hope for a decent meal. So I threw it in the stream several times and caught nothing. I was getting very discouraged, and my stomach was growling up a storm. Then, when I least expected it, I got a nibble and I jerked the stick back real hard and out came a Three-Eyed 8-inch Rainbow Trout. It landed on the ground all flopping around like crazy. It seemed really glad it found its dinner, but I think it also knew that I had found my dinner too. I remember reading about some life cycle theory in my Biology class in High School, but now I was beginning to get the picture. Things eat and then get eaten. Other things die and become fertilizer that nourish plants that could be the source of my next meal. "But, what about me?", I wondered. How will I ever get recycled? That could be the only way for me to reincarnate and live eternally. I stopped thinking about it because it was too heavy, and required too much energy to think, and this little fish wasn't gonna get me by for too long. But it sure helped. We made a little fire by rubbing sticks together, and threw the little guy on the coals. I split it with Pete, then he tried his luck at catching a fish, and had another in no time. His was smaller, but it still looked quite edible. We threw him on the coals too, and inhaled him in a flash. After that, I passed out, and went into dream mode again. I had visions of walking through a big desert on a hot summer day, and people were chasing me, but I couldn't run. They cornered me and asked me if I wanted a glass of water, and I said "YES!!". Then they said it would cost me all the money in my wallet. I rebutted, "That's too expensive! I can get a glass of water back home for less than $5!!!" "So what!" they replied, "You are dying of thirst, and we will not sell it to you for any less." So I pulled out my $77 and gave it to them for the glass of water. Needless to say, I woke up the next morning with a new understanding of supply and demand. I thought about the way the oil companies hold their oil reserves while crying out about shortages, while crushing the pro-solar energy movements. Then all of us gas guzzling car drivers accept the big price hikes in gas, because its harder to find, and we need it bad. Anyway, we woke up at the crack of dawn, just in time to see a beautiful sunrise. I used to think the universe revolved around us, but this morning I felt a strange feeling that the Earth was actually spinning towards the sun. I always knew that since my Astronomy teacher told me back in Elementary School, but still felt like the sun was dancing around the Earth. Whatever was taking place, time was certainly passing. Since my telewatchpager broke and Pete didn't believe in wearing such devices, we could only count the days and guess the hours by the relative positions of the sun and moon. I was kind of starting to like that approach. No deadlines, just move along as best we can, and keep ourselves alive and well in the process. It was time for breakfast, and so I threw the pole back in hoping to catch a fish who was as hungry as I was. I wasn't having any luck at all, until Pete pointed out that I forgot to put a new Earthworm on the hook. He sarcastically informed me that it is not the wooden hook that attracts the fish. I looked around for another Earthworm, but was having trouble finding one this time. I was panicking, being the city guy that I was, used to having food service always a click of the mouse away. Farms everywhere cranking enough food out to feed the whole world and then some. No more fears of famine. At last, humankind has reached a state where it has complete control of its own food supply. Even a record worldwide drought couldn't scare most of us, with so much stored up as Food Goo. Of course, those in control of the food sources still rest a little easier than those who don't know how to pick and hunt their own. I felt like I was one of those. Wondering where the next meal would come from, and not knowing a thing about fishing, hunting, or gathering. Good thing my good buddy Pete was along. He's given up a lot of modern convenience for the rough life, and seems to like it. Most just scoff at him though and say he simply can't face reality, but he doesn't seem to care much about what anybody else thinks as long as he is having fun. I of course, simply walk the tightrope of life. Always standing on some fence not sure which ground to stand on. I know I do a lot in life that I don't agree with, and know better than to do the things I do. But, heck, everybody else does too, so why not join the bandwagon and keep the personal relationships on the uppity up? Anyway, I held on to several magazines that I collected when I was younger and hid them from the cameras when the mandatory recycling laws took effect. If you haven't lived through them yet, they all started at the peak of the recycling craze. The law of the land required that all magazines and old books be thrown into the blue recycle boxes for fueling the growth of the economy back during one of those so-called "gas shortages". I reminded myself occasionally about the revolutions of the past by reading those magazines and realized that they always had some new idea happen, then a big gang of people all agreed and started following the first person to utter the idea publicly. Then there were easy answers for a large group of people. In any case, I thought about what a hypocrite I am to know that we humans are not the rulers of this universe, yet live as though we are. I was learning quickly by my mistake of not packing more food than I thought I would need. But then again, it seemed like the way it should be. Survival of the fittest. No hand-outs for sitting on one's duff. If yer hungry, go find something to eat. If you can't find it, accept the fact that you will soon be feeding some fitter life form, whether it be a tree or a vulture. I still didn't care to think of myself as the food of some vulture, tree, or other life form. I felt the hunger driving me to do whatever needed doing to find a meal before too many hours past by. I've heard of people going several days without food, but I don't think they were climbing steep mountains at the time. Whatever. I still wished I woulda packed a few more lunches. My fishing luck was running low, and I couldn't see any signs of any other foods in the area. The trees and such were scarce, and there were no berries within walking distance. And it seemed that all of the above were becoming more and more scarce the higher up we got. There were a few birds flying around, but they were small and I couldn't seem to hit any of them with the rocks I picked up off the ground. Pete, after watching me struggle aimlessly for so long, finally pulled out a brown paper bag, like the kind I used to take to school. He told me he packed an extra emergency meal knowing what an idiot I was. He pulled an extra of his own out, and we ate up and soon felt a boost of energy and hope overtake us. I was torqued by his holding out on me like he did, but I reckon it made me look at things a bit differently for a moment. When the fear of starvation hit me, I realized how nice I generally had it with the instant food goo processor back home. There are lots of nice conveniences back home, but it doesn't matter what I've got, it still isn't convenient enough. I remember when voice-activated appliances started catching on. I thought, "How nice, now I can just sit in one place and yell out commands and things will happen." Now, I find myself complaining about what a pain it is to have to waste my breath telling my toaster how I want my toast toasted. But there I was, suffering in the uncertain universe of the great outdoors, wishing only that I could have packed my whole house into my backpack, and carry it with me without the worry of developing back pains. Oh well, I could only hope that at least by the time my theoretical kids were to grow up, life would be that easy for them. When I was a kid, I recollected, we had to sit around the huge TV set that weighed so much it took the whole family just to drag the thing ten feet across the living room carpet. And phones and pagers and watches and calculators and thermometers and compasses and radios and all that stuff used to be sold separately and take up major shelf space all over the house. Oh well. I could keep on dreaming, but the reality of the moment was that I was hiking higher and higher up the mountain with nothing more than my broken hoodikai, my broken telewatchpager, my nearly empty day pack, my antique camera, and the clothes on my back. I don't know what was driving me to keep on heading for the mountaintop, but I'd like to think it was my pride. After committing to the whole thing, I figured it would be rather lame to turn around now and just call it quits. A commitment isn't a commitment if it isn't kept, much like a promise isn't a promise if it is forgotten. Of course, broken commitments and promises were about as common back home as disposable milk cartons and Take-Out Chinese Food cartons were before food goo came along. I seriously struggled with the whole idea. "Giving up on good things when they get tough isn't such a sin, is it?" I was mumbling to myself. In fact, I got so deep in thought thinking about it that for a while there I temporarily forgot I was even climbing the mountain. My mind was off in an alternate universe thinking the unimaginable. A world without packaging and wasteful waste. A world where things are dealt with rather than disposed of. Time passed but I didn't even feel it. I was no longer counting the seconds, obsessed with the question of when we'll ever get to our final destination. When I came back to my senses, I noticed we were traversing back and forth along a trail that had been traveled on by others before us. It was probably the one we were on before we took off on the big tangent and scaled the cliff. It seems to be the path of least resistance and I certainly felt more secure being on a course that others had successfully been on before. By mid-day, we had finally reached the top of a significant peak that gave us our first view to the vast expanses of the West. I have to say it took my breath away, what little of it I had. The air was definitely getting thinner than any I had ever breathed before. We took a brief break as Pete went out on a ledge to get an even better perspective on things. I sat tight and started savoring each breath of air with a little more attention than usual. I could see smog off in the distance, but this was one of the few valleys of the world remaining that had not yet been overtaken by the urban sprawl syndrome. So, the flavor of the air was quite refreshing, to say the least. Time was ticking away, so we didn't waste much of it on our break. We felt compelled to move quickly, despite wishing to go at our preferred pace. The pressure of needing to get back to work to make a good living coupled with the fact that we could easily starve to death was probably our primary impetus to keep the move on. When resources start to dwindle, it gets fairly imperative that the journey take place in as little time as possible. Anyway, we looked ahead and saw a peak that looked like it might be the one we had set out to conquer. I couldn't even imagine that it could be some other peak beyond that, though I had been fooled more than once before. I crossed my fingers, and kept pushing myself, trying not to even think about it. I thought, well, if it isn't the right one, why can't we just take it as the conciliation prize and just say we climbed a very high peak and enjoyed the view. That wasn't good enough for Pete. By late afternoon, we had approached that peak, only to see another rising above it. Where it came from, I couldn't tell, but it had to be the one we were after. I cringed in fear. I was suddenly reminded of my extreme feelings of hunger, thirst, and whatever you call a yearning for thicker air. I sat on a big rock and asked Pete what he thought about heading back. Pete stubbornly refused. "Go on back if you wish, but I'm not giving up", he quipped. "It's not in my blood." "Well, what about food?", I asked. Pete said, "You can go several days and survive without it, if you have but the will." After a brief reflective pause, he continued, "When you are hungry enough, you might figure out how to throw the rocks better at the birds, for instance." After he said that, those little sparrows flying around started to look like flying boxes of Kentucky Fried Chicken. I picked up a stone and tossed it at a little guy that was sitting on a rock hoping for some of our breadcrumbs. I missed by a long shot. In fact, the bird didn't even seem to notice. I tried a few more times, finally getting close enough to scare it away. I gave up, and opted for trying the approach of ignoring my hunger and persevering a bit longer. I did for about another 2 hours, but the sun was starting to set and I knew I wasn't going to be able to sleep without something for my stomach to entertain itself with. I asked Pete how good he is at hitting birds with rocks and he replied that he's done it before and is confident he hasn't lost the touch. So, naturally I begged him to try to get two with one stone and let me have one of his kill. Instead of throwing any rocks though, he chose to throw some diatribe at me about fending for ones own self. He reminded me that if I really want a bird for dinner, and there are birds in the vicinity, I can figure out a way on my own. I thought and thought, knowing the odds were against me if I were to aimlessly throw countless rocks. I'd most likely use up what little energy I had just trying to learn how to throw. Then, out of the blue, a light bulb went off in my head. I remembered the fishing metaphor and figured these stupid birds were probably keen on worms too. When we sat down, they came closer to us with a look on their faces that begged for sympathy. I assume those who have traveled before us have thrown them bread crumbs and other scrumptious goodies, so they have a high level of trust for creatures like us. And probably expect we packed like the rest of them and had something in our packs to give away out of the goodness of our hearts. I placed some rocks in my day pack back pocket and pretended to be digging for crumbs. It was working and a few of the birds started jumping rocks to get closer to us. I kept fumbling until a pair got within ten feet of us, then I did my thing with a good-sized rock. To make a long story short, we essentially had something to eat for dinner. I felt like some evil heartless warmonger type, killing two little innocent birds. I didn't feel so bad about the slimy fish, but little birds sing and fly and generally don't hurt anything other than lower life forms like the worms, berries, and breadcrumbs. Pete pointed out that the Kentucky Fried Chickins I usually drool over aren't that much different. We're just so removed from the process that we don't ever have to deal with the primordial ritual of hunting and gathering our own foods. Suffice it to say, the "circle of life" thing was starting to make more sense than ever after we finished our dinner that evening. I still enjoy hearing the birds sing in the wind, and all that, but I kind of get a weird feeling of Yin meets Yang now thinking about it. Darkness and light and all those age old metaphors all wrapped into one. Life and death. Creation and destruction. Blah blah blah. Bird songs. Yum. Anyway. After eating our most wicked meal, we set up for the evening retirement scene, found ourselves some rocks to sit on around the camp fire and faced the setting sun and pondered the day. I wanted to rave on about my thoughts regarding the outstanding sunset, but the words I tried too speak all sounded to hallow and contrived to do any justice to the view that it was. So, I shut up and took a picture. Now I look at the picture and acknowledge its beauty and ability to jog my memory, but the sound of the wind and the dropping temperatures and the aches in my legs and the lingering taste of dinner and all my hopes and fears probably don't appear so evident to those of you who weren't in my shoes at the moment I took the picture. But, I am sure you've seen sunsets before that happened at the end of some long special day of enlightenment, and you just couldn't help stare at it in awe, haven't you? If not, I highly recommend it. I was really beginning to think myself a lunatic for trying to do this silly expedition just to be able to say I got to the top of the tallest peak in the country, and only used the trail part of the way. I realized then though that the thought of the end goal being the only point to the whole journey was a bit of a faulty presumption. The going was getting tough and the end kept slipping away, but, to quote an ancient German Philosopher, "then you realize, the real end... is the journey", or something like that. Anyway, I hate to say it but, my publishing agent, Mr. Red, has just informed me that my DeadLine has arrived, and I must turn in this book. I told him I'm not done with it yet, but he retorted that somebody else might try to write the same book before me if I don't get it done soon enough. I told him that everybody has their own unique story and reminded him about how there are no two snowflakes exactly alike, but it didn't fly too well. He replied, "The shelves in the stores can only hold so many books at a time. And if you take any longer writing this book, the stores will give the selling space to somebody else's book." I said, "Wow, survival of the fastest." He looked back at me blankly. I went on, "But won't the customers be upset if they read the whole book and there is no ending at the end?" To which he contended, "You can always do a sequel later, if they like what you've done so far." "But they will return the books if there is no ending!!" I grumbled back. "Well yes maybe, but most consumers won't finish it in time because the return policy lasts only 3 days, and the book should take longer than three days to read." he argued. I thought painfully about the thought of releasing an unfinished story as my first public work, and proceeded to beg on my knees for just a little time extension to get it done, but he blatantly refused. Sorry. The Snapshots Chasing the Ultimate Goal at the Stock Market My Place Of Work The Portrait on the Wall The Postcard on the Wall The Escape from the Big City The Night Light The Initial UFO Sighting The Face of The Mountain The Valley of Death Below Mr. Moss Explaining How Much Further We Have to Go Mr. Moss Leading the Way Up the Face The Surprise at the Top of the Face A Look at our Past The West Side The Sunset after a Long Day The End Copyright 1995 Kevin Krejci