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Colorado Laso
The day started like most of them had that week; frightening, disconnected, disconcertedly and absoloutely bound for a hard time. He found himself waking and walking in a bleary haze most days, armed only with sheer determination but no real will to live.
That wasn't strictly a new thing but he had hoped the new vocation and location would help tame the myriad of addictions and help remove or reduce some of his well-deserved anxieties leaving the residual as something he could live the rest of his time with.
It had been this way for as long as he cared to try and remember trying but things had gotten markedly worse since Eigen's death. The world felt hollow, like all the words spoken just echoed down a long and rambling memorial hall of lost instances that more than not he didn't care to walkfor the sake of claiming a few happy minutes from the familiar numbing. Even his having learned to redirect from the constant thoughts he knew would lead him down that dark coeridor, he still found the oft-present walls filled with pictures, each day was just a meandering stroll down miles and minutes of cold and lonely corridor in which the light at the end never came. No matter where it went it all seemed the same and nothing, especially the little things, ever crossed his consciousness that it didn't tickle his senses and temp him to indulge the datkness.
It would be impossibly irresponsible to say he didn't care to live anymore or simply wished to die. Eigen would never want that and he'd done it a few times already in the past. While he had held out hope he would make it through the veil it had never quite worked out for him.
In those days Eigen was safe, people knew where he was and to care for him even when there was work to do. To have met with his final curtain then, as far as he cared, would habe been a blessing. His consciousness and conscience occupied the strangest intersection of place and time of anyone he'd ever known or knew and life had not been friendly with him for it. The days he wadn't killing, just making the time go away to get his pay, he usually considered himself just waiting to die due to the ugly of it all. There had been more than a few days that were precisely his wish manifest and they served to leave him wondering exactly who it might be and why they kept him breathing. That, on any given day could easily be seen as one of the most taxing ideals he had ever had to live through. He wasn't too sure that this fun eventuality didn't top all of imagined outcomes that had eaten up so many of his solitary early mornings and more than he cared to admit of his time.
He knew that life was staying busy doing work in the earnest pursuit of maintaining the greater good that held the darkness in check but he was tired and had been tired some time now, not that anyone cared. Employers seldom cared about those they employed beyond harm to their interests.
The last time he'd gotten killed, fleeing a group of armed assailaints, he'd ended up under a running streetsweeper at nearly midnight and bled out 3.8 gallons of blood over a 16 hour period waiting on a surgeon to arrive on a plane from California. Three brothers and a sister came to witness him and his parents showed up but past that no one cared. No get-well cards, no flowers but plenty of prayers and that hadn't even been during quarantine lockdown days.
"The only thing needed for evil to flourish is the absence of action by good men." He mumbled to himself as he looked up at the somewhat clean white steel cieling. One day he would give up the ghost but he did not feel like this would be the day.
He sighed and looked over at the woman laying next to him wondering if the clatter than sounded like a person landing on the roof of the ops trailer would even wake her. There had been wiskey involved the night before.
Either 'Grik' or 'Grak' had landed on the roof of the trailer again to noisily croak and survey the pile of garbage that he had put back together after they had neatly and expertly sliced the bags open and broadcast it across the yard the morning before.
He had grown up his entire life being friends with the covids around his house and had looked forwards to finally being able to make friends with real ravens but much like his holigan friends of the past, they tended to tear up any and everything and he, as always, was left to clean up the mess. He wasn't too certain that he didn't prefer Blue Jays at this point.
In retrospect he had to think that it was most likely exactly these things which had made him prefer the woods to the afternoon trouble making sessions the other kids got into.
Early in life he had heard Aesop's story of the crow and the pitcher and had instantly been intimately intrigued by them. It was easy to reason that a dog could think in complex patterns but to see proof that the black birds that filled the sky in every location everyday could was something that made him curious.
It hadn't been long before he had befriended an entire murder of them and they were bringing him presents. He still found it charming that they enjoyed cat food more than any other treat and even the barn cats were very wary of even the smallest crows.
Upon arriving at the Grove of Piñon pines he has spotted the two nesting ravens that immediately spot them. He had known he would have to keep a lookout for the eagles do to the drone drawing them but the size of the ravens was a startling yet pleasant surprise.
Having had them slam down on the roof of the trailer a few times and walk out to them sitting within on the ladder, a foot or so from his face, he realized they were easily 3 ft tall and 5 lb apiece.
Everything was huge here including the state record mountain lion that had been killed just across the rise in the canyon that held the installation next door.
He pulled in a deep breath and tried to gather himself after finding the cell phone tower on the ground yesterday. He'd found it just down the road adjacent to the military base. In truth it hadn't surprised him greatly to find the tower blown down and in pieces on the ground what with the 60 mile per hour winds but what has surprised him was the cell phone company not only being reluctant to do anything immediately but literally saying that they didn't believe him. He had sent them pictures and also had her call and it in. It was only then that they finally admitted that not only did they know it but that they, "Had eyes on it."
Having moved onto the old bomber range at the back door of the military installation, the origional reservation, that had been highly contested land for years, he had fully expected things to be strange but strange didn't even begin to cover the madness that immediately began to coalesce and contract around them much as the winds and weather had.
Having looked at the past weather charts he had seen a few anomalies but nothing had prepared him for the insanity that was ever varying in this location. It was no wonder the ravens dwarfed the American Bulldog that seldom left his side. He could hardly blame Tango what with his master choosing to stay in the contained within trailer with no windows made of steel and anchored to the ground. They tended to stay in the 80,000 pound RV just across the lot.
"I'm going to need to go into town today. Do you want to go?" He gently shook her by the arm.
"Why?" Came the reply.
"We're down to 3 gallons of gas for the generator and the water cistern's lid was left off again so I'll need more bleach, again." He had stopped trying weeks ago to get her to put the lid back on. At first it had angered him a bit but then he realized that she had never been in a place that didn't have running water.
"Take a card. " This was the stock answer for chores. She had repeatedly said that she felt bad that she couldn't do more but he could hardly blame her with the disease causing her so much pain and this was her project anyway.
"Want to smoke a bowl with me?" He asked absently and thought about pulling on the knee high and hot snake boots but thus far he had chosen to strap on his .22 and 8 rattlesnakes hung in the trees as a result. He saw it as the better option as he stood up stepped into the tennis shoes.
That wasn't strictly a new thing but he had hoped the new vocation and location would help tame the myriad of addictions and help remove or reduce some of his well-deserved anxieties leaving the residual as something he could live the rest of his time with.
It had been this way for as long as he cared to try and remember trying but things had gotten markedly worse since Eigen's death. The world felt hollow, like all the words spoken just echoed down a long and rambling memorial hall of lost instances that more than not he didn't care to walkfor the sake of claiming a few happy minutes from the familiar numbing. Even his having learned to redirect from the constant thoughts he knew would lead him down that dark coeridor, he still found the oft-present walls filled with pictures, each day was just a meandering stroll down miles and minutes of cold and lonely corridor in which the light at the end never came. No matter where it went it all seemed the same and nothing, especially the little things, ever crossed his consciousness that it didn't tickle his senses and temp him to indulge the datkness.
It would be impossibly irresponsible to say he didn't care to live anymore or simply wished to die. Eigen would never want that and he'd done it a few times already in the past. While he had held out hope he would make it through the veil it had never quite worked out for him.
In those days Eigen was safe, people knew where he was and to care for him even when there was work to do. To have met with his final curtain then, as far as he cared, would habe been a blessing. His consciousness and conscience occupied the strangest intersection of place and time of anyone he'd ever known or knew and life had not been friendly with him for it. The days he wadn't killing, just making the time go away to get his pay, he usually considered himself just waiting to die due to the ugly of it all. There had been more than a few days that were precisely his wish manifest and they served to leave him wondering exactly who it might be and why they kept him breathing. That, on any given day could easily be seen as one of the most taxing ideals he had ever had to live through. He wasn't too sure that this fun eventuality didn't top all of imagined outcomes that had eaten up so many of his solitary early mornings and more than he cared to admit of his time.
He knew that life was staying busy doing work in the earnest pursuit of maintaining the greater good that held the darkness in check but he was tired and had been tired some time now, not that anyone cared. Employers seldom cared about those they employed beyond harm to their interests.
The last time he'd gotten killed, fleeing a group of armed assailaints, he'd ended up under a running streetsweeper at nearly midnight and bled out 3.8 gallons of blood over a 16 hour period waiting on a surgeon to arrive on a plane from California. Three brothers and a sister came to witness him and his parents showed up but past that no one cared. No get-well cards, no flowers but plenty of prayers and that hadn't even been during quarantine lockdown days.
"The only thing needed for evil to flourish is the absence of action by good men." He mumbled to himself as he looked up at the somewhat clean white steel cieling. One day he would give up the ghost but he did not feel like this would be the day.
He sighed and looked over at the woman laying next to him wondering if the clatter than sounded like a person landing on the roof of the ops trailer would even wake her. There had been wiskey involved the night before.
Either 'Grik' or 'Grak' had landed on the roof of the trailer again to noisily croak and survey the pile of garbage that he had put back together after they had neatly and expertly sliced the bags open and broadcast it across the yard the morning before.
He had grown up his entire life being friends with the covids around his house and had looked forwards to finally being able to make friends with real ravens but much like his holigan friends of the past, they tended to tear up any and everything and he, as always, was left to clean up the mess. He wasn't too certain that he didn't prefer Blue Jays at this point.
In retrospect he had to think that it was most likely exactly these things which had made him prefer the woods to the afternoon trouble making sessions the other kids got into.
Early in life he had heard Aesop's story of the crow and the pitcher and had instantly been intimately intrigued by them. It was easy to reason that a dog could think in complex patterns but to see proof that the black birds that filled the sky in every location everyday could was something that made him curious.
It hadn't been long before he had befriended an entire murder of them and they were bringing him presents. He still found it charming that they enjoyed cat food more than any other treat and even the barn cats were very wary of even the smallest crows.
Upon arriving at the Grove of Piñon pines he has spotted the two nesting ravens that immediately spot them. He had known he would have to keep a lookout for the eagles do to the drone drawing them but the size of the ravens was a startling yet pleasant surprise.
Having had them slam down on the roof of the trailer a few times and walk out to them sitting within on the ladder, a foot or so from his face, he realized they were easily 3 ft tall and 5 lb apiece.
Everything was huge here including the state record mountain lion that had been killed just across the rise in the canyon that held the installation next door.
He pulled in a deep breath and tried to gather himself after finding the cell phone tower on the ground yesterday. He'd found it just down the road adjacent to the military base. In truth it hadn't surprised him greatly to find the tower blown down and in pieces on the ground what with the 60 mile per hour winds but what has surprised him was the cell phone company not only being reluctant to do anything immediately but literally saying that they didn't believe him. He had sent them pictures and also had her call and it in. It was only then that they finally admitted that not only did they know it but that they, "Had eyes on it."
Having moved onto the old bomber range at the back door of the military installation, the origional reservation, that had been highly contested land for years, he had fully expected things to be strange but strange didn't even begin to cover the madness that immediately began to coalesce and contract around them much as the winds and weather had.
Having looked at the past weather charts he had seen a few anomalies but nothing had prepared him for the insanity that was ever varying in this location. It was no wonder the ravens dwarfed the American Bulldog that seldom left his side. He could hardly blame Tango what with his master choosing to stay in the contained within trailer with no windows made of steel and anchored to the ground. They tended to stay in the 80,000 pound RV just across the lot.
"I'm going to need to go into town today. Do you want to go?" He gently shook her by the arm.
"Why?" Came the reply.
"We're down to 3 gallons of gas for the generator and the water cistern's lid was left off again so I'll need more bleach, again." He had stopped trying weeks ago to get her to put the lid back on. At first it had angered him a bit but then he realized that she had never been in a place that didn't have running water.
"Take a card. " This was the stock answer for chores. She had repeatedly said that she felt bad that she couldn't do more but he could hardly blame her with the disease causing her so much pain and this was her project anyway.
"Want to smoke a bowl with me?" He asked absently and thought about pulling on the knee high and hot snake boots but thus far he had chosen to strap on his .22 and 8 rattlesnakes hung in the trees as a result. He saw it as the better option as he stood up stepped into the tennis shoes.
