To say that it is difficult to talk about is true. Not an overstatement, not an understatement. The wounds still feel like they happened in a dream. When I wake up I feel like I am going to wake up again as soon as start to move my limbs, and I do not. I wake up once and look at my hand and wrist and wiggle my fingertips and hold it up over my face and pinch myself and poke my eyebrows and sniff it and it is mine. Check after check comes back positive. "This belongs to you." There was not a mistake. There was not a swap of body parts while you were sleeping. You are awake. You are breathing. The nerves are speaking to each other as they should. Motor functions have all checked out. You are indeed occupying the body you went to bed in. Further damage has ceased. Necrosis is staved off. Healing has also ceased. It is not going to get better or return to mint, though it will also not get worse. Wake up. Get up.
Some days I wake up, since it happened, and I scream into my pillow for long pillows for long minutes. Pound my fists on the mattress. Cry until I am exhausted. And then get up and head to the shower, not to take one, but to get the bandages on my leg wet enough to peel off the still reforming skin without damaging it or tearing it because no matter how non-stick bandages claim to be, they will fuse with your newly regenerated skin and tear it off like a fine gossamer contacted with Velcro if you are not careful. If you stub your toe or brush your shin against a coffee table corner or bump against a chair leg, that newly formed skin will peel free like over ripe peach fuzz and the healing has to begin all over again.
I've wanted to brand myself for some time. A change of pace between scarification stints and a way to get a different look as I work on tattooing myself to help me mark time between the many different iterations of myself and stages of my life. The pain brings an acute awareness that helps me cut through the storm swells and confusion and voices and whorls and weirs of manic depression and schizophrenia. When your nerves are screaming out at you, it can drown out the noise. When you can touch something concrete and constant it becomes a reference stone and constant reminder of your human elements, your and everyone else's pains and joys and emotional lives. It allows you to access a reality that opens doors of sympathy and empathy you otherwise would not be able to see or understand. It clear cuts a path to direct needs and functions. In small doses, that pain is invaluable and a joy with incredible utility. In large doses it is a nightmare.
When the deep fryer began to fall over, time did not slow down. I knew my two cats, rescued from negligent homes some years ago, were both in my efficiency kitchen with me, waiting for me to toss a little food on the floor for them to nose and paw, maybe eat, maybe pass on. The fryer was in the same space it'd occupied since I bought it and first began using it. Hundreds of times. This time, whatever balance struck that slowly shifted through the years made its final move. It began to fall, my cats looking up at me, and I threw my hands out at full speed to stop it. From all of the previous times I'd dropped bowls, or a bucket slipped off of a shelf while I was filling it, I knew the cats wouldn't move until it hit the floor and I didn't have time to try to scare them out of the splash radius with words. The speech centers of my brain were an afterthought. All I could engage was "protect them!"
Weeks later I can understand why. I can't afford to take them to a veterinarian to treat them long term for hot oil burns, especially what would likely have been second to third degree burns over 50% or more of their little bodies. I would have had to put them down or take them to a vet to have them do it. The whiff, the scent, the lightest breeze of a notion of having to mercy kill them was enough to send me into action because they are two of my mates. My family in my outpost here in Pittsburgh as I build a life for myself, a single early thirties male permanently estranged from all family save for my immediate siblings, and even they not all as close as siblings are often assumed to be. They mean the world to me, no matter how often I bellyache about them keeping me up all night with their little paw paw games and wrestling with my feet and ankles with a little too much claw now and then. They're my shipmates that take care of the place while I am away and while I'm hurtling through the universe, trying to make sense of other people, and maybe stumble upon someone or ones to accompany me, in my hodgepodge, homemade, Tardis. My companions.
I lunged and the fryer moved along the shelf and slammed against the wall and 367 degree oil rolled up its side like water in a blender. Below, the skitter scratch of cat claws scrambling against floor boards reached my ears, my leading foot planted against the plastic tile to balance me. Relief washed over me knowing "they will be safe" as the sheet of amber oil hanging in the air began its descent over where the fryer basin used to be. Where my hands now were.
I snatched my left hand backward, my right still connected to the arm putting as much force as possible into the basin, now against the wall to drive my body backward. The oil sloshed over my right hand and, knowing I could not withdraw it without allowing the entireity of my torso to fall into the shower and shelf and further shake the ball of solar flare to catch the rest of its contents on my face, I pushed back and took a shower against the skin's hand.
The thump and tumble of my cats running away collided with the immediate shock of hot oil across my hand and wrist and once my body began traveling backward, the oil beginning to slap and clap against the floor, I began to raise my leg against the back splash. What splashed and dotted my left leg cooled enough as it dotted my pants to leave no mark. What landed in the bin turned around its base like a tsunamic rip tide, crushed against the basin's rear wall, curled around as sport, cameras flashing, snap, and teeth bared came for me.
Balanced, I tore my right hand away, the curling aftershock cresting. It spilled. The wave covered my knee and washed my shin and right foot and that was when a scream cut loose. I cried out. Prime and howl. I screamed to the skies as the last of it dribbled off of my toes.
The deep fryer, spun with the terror of my flash fried hand, fell backward and spilled the rest of its contents to the floor that I, loosed from protecting cats and certain further was easily, by miles, too far, could leap clear and land against the kitchen sink. I breathed hard for wasted minutes in a mental gridlock, hips perched on the lip of the kitchen sink, before I ran to the bathroom.
The cold water was turned to its maximum setting with the tub to shower knob turned to full shower. Water washed all over me and I held my paw up to the chill spray and only brought it down to rinse over every other part of the right side of my body that was vibrating at death levels. Sometimes when I lose my temper and cannot corral it I will fire off a punch into an inanimate object to pop off steam and that tingle returned is that tingle that tells you every part of your skin that was between flesh and bone and the rock and the hard place you found yourself in to bring ya to a point where the only release was the flood of endorphin and whatever other enzymes cover up disappointment and rage has died and maybe given up a fragment of solace to the rest of the mad house. That tingle, rushing over the right side of my body and the nerves shouting out for soft words brought me back to the point where I understood I could not put enough cold water on every part of me that needed it.
My leg continued to burn. For hours afterward. I was able to wash my arm in enough cold water, enough of it falling into the tub, as it scattered from the shower's head against my hand, to cool my foot. Second degree burns, superficial as superficial second degree burns can be, set in on my arm and foot as second degree burns ate into my leg, starved of cool.
I got out of the shower and pat dried myself.
Skin came off in palm sized chunks.
It stuck to the towel.
I got back in the shower.
Skin clogged the drain.
I cried. I grabbed a bar of soap and rubbed. More skin came loose. It stuck to the walls of the shower. It stuck to my own face. It caught in my chest hair and groin. Tendrils drifted from my beard. I shouted "no!" I shouted "this is not happening" over and over and over. For many seconds it was all I could say. Every part of me felt like it was coming unseamed.
I was in shock for two days.
I didn't know what to say to myself or anyone else. I didn't know what to believe. I slept. When I woke I did not move. While I stayed frozen I tried to sleep until I did. When I was not sleeping I tried to. When I was sleeping I waked with a recurring nightmare every handful of minutes I could forget. Terror stricken. It was not real. I was in shock.
Waking, I looked at my hand and it was not mine. It was a raw thing. It stank. The smell of it was raw meat opened two days too late. Sour and slimy and sticking to everything it touched. Blood oozed and wept from its every divide. It was a scene in that movie that you cannot watch start to finish because it turns your stomach just enough to make your eyes cross and tinfoil rattle in your mouth until you are too sick to stand. For some time, waking and looking at it and having its smell fill my nostrils so close to my face and knowing that if I lifted my blanket enough to look down at my leg I would see a sea monster colored in a sickly greenish yellow full of lint, cat fur, exudate, and blood scab as far as light can carry, I would sweat and convince myself if I just lied still it would heal itself fine like a rug burn.
On the third day I threw up. 60 some odd hours in bed hydrating with only a two litre of Barq's root beer I happened to toss over there before deciding to make food before bed took it's toll. Waking up the third day for the twentieth time in that period, pain spiking, and the odor of raw flesh beside my head, unable to shake it away and unable to cut it off, took its toll. I wretched.
Rolls of heaves began working their way along my spine. I began to scramble with my good left hand to make sure my face was pointed toward empty floor space instead of mattress, pillow, or wall. I could not walk. Wherever the projectile went, it had to be somewhere I would be able to lie near without getting it into open wounds. I succeeded and ralfed, sickened by the furious turbulent grotesquery of my own body parts.
On the fourth day I came to grips with what would become my new modernity. Without health insurance, there was no one to fix me except me. I tried to walk and succeeded. I pissed. In my own toilet. Deep brown syrup. I found my fridge. There was food, I walked to my sink. There was water. I drank and drank and drank. I pulled food and food and left arm's full of tupperware and placed on my night stand. I found my cubby of strange and sudden items and found my scarification kit and breathed a sigh. Relief, joy, love for the friend who came over prepared for a one time dual scarification incident I ribbed him for (coming over prepared) that he left with me. With a little improvisation I was able to repurpose the kit to cover the open wounds enough to return to bed on track to recovery instead of on rails to infection.
Days went by like barges trying to force their way over harbor reefs. The stench of my hand continued to get to me as I left it bare with the kit nearby. The flesh continued to sweat and the swelling did not go down. Slicing it off became an option. I could not sleep with any fidelity. I could not rest and when I was awake the pain I felt was more than anything near the throb I felt inside my skull when I fractured my jaw. It was more than anything I felt when I fell down stairs or was in my second car accident or slipped off of the odd side of a hand rail and landed on the concrete bordering the stairs beside a 21 foot decent from a porch to a sidewalk with a hill between us. I wanted to cut it off as the bare flesh continued to weep that slimy clear goo. Cut it off! Cut it off!
I wrapped it. I wrapped it. Healing began. The recurring nightmare, the recurring dream continued. I was able to make bandages and while it healed I was able to order in specialized products for attending to burns. I researched for days whiles my leg and hand and arm stuck to my bed sheets. Every time I tried to move, they stuck to me. Belief set. "If I don't move while I'm waiting for these products to arrive, there is no way it can get infected because it is sealed by the plastic fabric so further movement will only create more problems and possible amputation." I had to figure out a way to urinate.
And I did. Three weeks in. My neighbors stopped by to see if I was okay. I still could not leave the bed for any sort of extended period. Dropping my burned hand below my heart produced an incredible throbbing pain the likes of I have never felt. To put the sensation in perspective: do you know when recommendations say to keep the limb elevated? Imagine that every time you are lying flat on your back that limb crosses a plain. Now imagine that plain is wherever your heart is located. Now imagine that every time that limb crosses south of that plain you instantly feel like it is about to burst apart as though a truck tire, connected to a 3/4 ton truck, is rolling over it and if you do not raise it above that plain IT WILL BURST INTO HAMBURGER MEAT. Yes. That. Now imagine that while you are trying to find a comfortable way to lie in bed and sleep. Now imagine that happens instantly for 18 days to everything from your elbow up and your knee down!
Coming in to something close to normal. I hope that was coherent. How else can we survive?
The pain remains. It feels indescribable though I've done my best.
People you knew before look at you differently. More so than your scarification. They look at you as though there is something contagious about you. The root of your being is love for animals. Perhaps they should.
As I've healed and become a human being again through the last weeks, looking at my hand and my leg, I almost feel like I am wearing a human costume. All of the skin was flash fried off of my hand save for my palm. The skin underneath each one of my digits and my palm is original and up to date. Looking at it, seeing it clinging to the rest of my flesh, it is out of place. I want to peel it off and it will not go. It will not go away. There is no transistion between the old, the original, and the new. It is stark. If you shake my right hand you will feel the transition in the form of many tiny spikes where the original skin meets the new. Where the rough and weathered meets the baby smooth; fingers crossed bounds, hands clasped in a firm grasp.
I still find pieces of skin around my apartment. It is disgusting. It is revolting. Vomit climbs through my body and I know I have to pick that part of me up and put it in a garbage can and it is... .... .... ..... .......................... I know I can go on. I know I will. I know I have to. It hurts.
It hurts.
It hurts.
It hurts.
Fuck. It hurts so much and I know I have to go on and it just fucking hurts so much. I want to shake it off. I want to be able to shake it off. The pain is ................. ugh. I know I'll beat it. I think part of the pain it gives me is that I didn't have a choice. And now I have to wear a permanent and exceptionally visible reminder of how I didn't have a choice through the 24 years of my life my Dad destroyed myself. I broke away from that, finally. It took cutting my face apart to see. To finally split his noose. Now I have to wear the scars of chance and love right along with them. It hurts. It fucking hurts. It wasn't supposed to be this way. I have to wear it. I will and have and will continue to do so.
I am happy to close this chapter. If I didn't talk about it I would still find myself living in it months, maybe years, from now.
At least now,
at least now,
we can get back to comedy, true tragedy (instead of misfortune), and stories untold in fiction. Close this book and open a new. Carry on, soldier. How many times do I have to change? How many times do I have to be changed? People already look at me so many different ways from what I am. And they will look at me differently again.
Ever becoming.
We have been patient. We will still.
You thought you new hell. It was one of many.
It was a long month. Come back home, darling. The worst is over. You may have set a new ten. Many, most, if not all, is lost in translation, however- -there's still a lot of work to do. Do not quit on me and I will not quit on you.
/////Bjork x Deathgrips - "Thunderbolt" fourteen birth of the painted dinosaur. Molt.
AUTHOR.CALHO: If I didn't write it, I would be hitch hiking cross country to Maine and then Alaska in that order. While taking frequent breaks to spread leaflets. And sit in diners. And write on things because I wasn't at a computer. I may still do that in a few years. Writing this also helps me forget about and better understand the limitations of being human, and keeps me busy enough to allow me no free time to burn the world down.
THEMATIC.ABOUT : Collapse often. The things that hold people together and hold them apart and scatter brains. The things that make thoughts go boom. The things that ooh and aah and [expletive deleted]. Sometimes poking around the margins where responsibility ends and the only one to look to is the Original Equipment Manufacturer and say "but, I already pressed 9 for more options and the menus are exactly the same. Can you just replace it?" The answer will be: "please hold." Sometimes hanging out in dark corners. Sometimes following the train tracks. Looking for ways out and ways in and all the while sharing the things seen and heard and done and drawn and written and scorched and healed and teased and caged and dreamed along the way.
Showing posts with label death grips. Show all posts
Showing posts with label death grips. Show all posts
10/10/16
1/13/14
The Year End Playlist 2013
Everything that went cannonball 12 cylinder 600 horsepower through my heart in 2013:
Dec Death Grips - Beware Go
Nov Macklemore - White Walls Go
Oct MC Chris- FTW Go
Sept The Knife - One For you Go
Aug The White Stripes - Seven Nation Army (remix) Go
Jul Vyle - Tech Go
Jun Nico Vega - Iron Man Go
May Nico Vega - Beast Go
Apr Nine Inch Nails - The Day the World Went Away Go
Mar Cookie Monsta -Bliss Go
Feb DJ Shadow - Mutual Slump Go
Jan Unkle - Heaven Go
2013 is officially on the books. Making a dual appearance is Nico Vego because I ate them that hard. Tis beautiful. It's kind of strange to see the progression and how 2012 bled in to 2013. The January selection is my favorite. Almost put Marnie Stern on the list, but she did not make the year long cut. Her and Gucci Mane and Killer Mike. Still got a soft spot in my heart of hearts and Yeah Yeah Yeahs almost made the cut for a second year. However, almost only counts in hand grenades and government work.
Dec Death Grips - Beware Go
Nov Macklemore - White Walls Go
Oct MC Chris- FTW Go
Sept The Knife - One For you Go
Aug The White Stripes - Seven Nation Army (remix) Go
Jul Vyle - Tech Go
Jun Nico Vega - Iron Man Go
May Nico Vega - Beast Go
Apr Nine Inch Nails - The Day the World Went Away Go
Mar Cookie Monsta -Bliss Go
Feb DJ Shadow - Mutual Slump Go
Jan Unkle - Heaven Go
2013 is officially on the books. Making a dual appearance is Nico Vego because I ate them that hard. Tis beautiful. It's kind of strange to see the progression and how 2012 bled in to 2013. The January selection is my favorite. Almost put Marnie Stern on the list, but she did not make the year long cut. Her and Gucci Mane and Killer Mike. Still got a soft spot in my heart of hearts and Yeah Yeah Yeahs almost made the cut for a second year. However, almost only counts in hand grenades and government work.
10/23/13
Bed Time Story 2 (51 text messages to my sister)
It was a routine
take off. The sun was low and behind, about to tuck itself to bed behind the
Monmut mountains edging the salt basin of the Campmine desert
She prepared as usual when her alarm went off at five p.m. playing loud, nudging her out of dreams
It was her favorite song. Slow jazz but not easy listening. The woman on the record asked, in her bowling ball tenor rolling across the jazz lounge smoke through flower hats and bow ties "how are youuuu, todaaaaayayeaye. I came here to playaaaaayeaye"
She didn't light up after her hand swiped the red digited clock off her night stand
Today was the same, but a little different. The city lights would be on beneath her. The stars would wink to life above her, but the X-two two four around her was on her maiden record attempt and her nerves were steel.
At the edge, a mistake of any proportion could be fatal. Nerves were unreliable. Senses, however, could get her back home
The briefing went well. She painted her nails a vioently subtle purple while her black coffee steamed in its styrofoam cup while the lieutenant went on and on about the fighter/bombers specifications in front of the touch screen while she tried to find a comfortable way to sit in a plastic folding chair in a room too hot and not think about where in hell the annual budget went
Janice already went over the six hundred page manual twice and knew it backwards and front. she could've Built the damn thing in the time the briefing took.
She blew on her fingertips and sipped some more coffee.
Outside of the bubble canopy, the sun laid deep red and orange streaks across the salt flats, bunkers, and air traffic tower where dinosaur fish hundreds of feet long used to swim.
She whistled her song into her respirator, nodding her head and thinking about how good it would be to touch down and take off her twenty pound helmet.
Glancing left and right, runway lights came to life, she reminded herself she didn't have to wait for the weapons crews to load up the hard points on the X-224s wings. Her wings.
It was not a weapons test. It was a dual test of woman and machine and settling in to her cockpit, adjusting her harnesses, she moved her gloved hand to the throttle without a cloud in the sky
"alright, Lionmane, its just you and me today. Be good.". She toggled her radio switch with a wink to her in helmet display, the dual turbines thrumming quiet as an aeroplane is capable behind her head.
"This is Rainbow Nugget, ready for all go on your signal Walking Stick."
The control tower came back, the controller chuckling at her call sign despite himself, "Rainbow nugget, you are clear for go. Be safe out there. Don't scratch the paint."
"I'll bring him back in one piece, you get the wine cooling. I'm gonna need a pick me up when this is over." she winked again at her visor display and took a deep breath.
Without the crackle of the radio, the jet engine buzz was too quiet. Her left hand flew across the dials and switches on her console, yellow lights blinking softly to solid green.
The chime rang through the cockpit. Lionmane X two two four sighing back "I am ready"
She toggled the brake switch, turned on her wing tip and running lights and hauled on the throttle with her right.
The tower half a mile away tore through her vision as the engines screamed. Water condensed on the canopy front, capturing the sun at her back in burned gold droplets as she broke the sound barrier once and then twice.
She winked her radio back on and barked against the breast squeezing gee force: "systems stable. Vertical climb!"
The X-224s landing gear mashed the sand like a drunk through the middle of a street hanging onto their beau for dear life before finally letting go.
The twin tails streaked into the evening sky as she held the throttle at maximum. The Tower, miles behind, came back. "Rainbow Nugget, you are clear. Have you on the board. You are on pace for time to climb record."
"Systems stable!" she barked back, Earth doing everything it could to collapse her lungs
Over her shoulder, as the engines screamed and the composite alloy frame of the X 224 shook, the sun began to rise over the sloping peaks of the Monmut mountain ridge.
The basin beneath her shrank to a football field and then a coin. She held the throttle down. The Tower came back: "Rainbow Nugget, you are clear, you are clear. Looking good."
Janice grit her teeth, "I know!"
The sun shone like mid day. her visor tinted itself, twin contrails scorching upward. "Afterburn!" she shouted as her pressure suit began to force circulation through her limbs.
With all of the strength she could muster she lifted her hand from the throttle, flipped the clear plastic cover from the bright yellow and black deadmans switch and pressed the lime green button at its center
At the base, 30 pounds of TNT went off over their heads. The control tower shook like a twig in a thunderstorm as the lionmanes engines tore the sky apart and two new stars blazed to life in the evening sky.
The Tower came back, "we have you on visual!" unable to contain their calm.
Janice held her thumb to the switch and touched the stick with the gentleness of a mother cleaning a kitten.
The canopy turned, too quickly at first, and more slowly. Janice gave a ferocious glance across the console before risking turning her head away.
The canopy spun at her fingertips and as she climbed the sun set again behind the shadow of her wing tip.
The sky began to darken and the lights of Santa Monica, Las angeles, Eugene, San Antonio, Austin, and Denver grew brighter and brighter. "Where's Mexico city," she chuckle rasped to herself.
"Rainbow Nugget, you've got the record, bring him in whenever you're green." She nodded, tearing her eyes away from the ground.
"I hear!" she barked, not yet ready. The sky turned blue and then black and in that midnight blanket the stars came to life in front of her.
All around they shined with a brilliance that pulled at her heart harder and harder as she held her thumb to the afterburn switch
"Rainbow Nugget, be advised you're running out of air up there."
"Walking Stick, I hear y-" the X- 224s thrashing rumble ceased.
The g forces crushing her body reversed direction and threw her forward hard enough to send her hand through her head up display atop her console, shattering it
"Rainbow we have you losing speed, copy?"
The stars began to spin outside of the canopy. City lights, then stars, then cities again. Her eyes raced, cueing the visor display to go to this and that menu, lines of information and diagrams and maps whipping by. They raced like one hundred horses loosed from their pens across her in helmet display
Steady green lights turned to flashing yellow and then sharp and solid red. "Rainbow, do you copy??"
as her eyes raced they picked out pieces of information. "Flame out," she shouted to herself as she rammed the throttle to zero and worked her hands across the dials.
"Come back?" the Tower shouted through her earpiece.
"Flameout! Walking Stick! Flameout!" She winked at her visor to close the radio link as her hands continued to work furiously.
The X - 224 no longer arrowed upward. It spun end over end until momentum could carry it no further and began its descent. With no more air to feed engines, the lionmane became a fuel filled 3000 pound free falling bomb
"air brakes," she told herself, "now!" her hands flew and the lionmanes frame rumbled with the back up hydraulic systems effort beneath her ejector seat
"im not giving up on you!" she shouted at her console, her eyes flying behind her visor as the stars spinning outside her canopy began to wink out and the sun began to rise again.
She pumped the fuel from nothing to the kitchen sink as the X 224s end over end flattened out into a frisbee toss. "god damn it, remember!"
Her mind tore through the pages of the manual and the briefing and the sequences as she read her speed by altitude and knew she could fire the landing gear without ripping it clean off.
The city lights slipped completely from view as the Monmut ridge rotated in and out of view
She pumped the fuel from nothing to the kitchen sink as the X 224s end over end flattened out into a frisbee toss. "god damn it, remember!"
Her mind tore through the pages of the manual and the briefing and the sequences as she read her speed by altitude and knew she could fire the landing gear without ripping it clean off.
The city lights slipped completely from view as the Monmut ridge rotated in and out of view
She pulled up her backup head up display inside her helmet and caught her heart in her mouth. The zeroes on the altimeter were disappearing much too fast.
She prepared as usual when her alarm went off at five p.m. playing loud, nudging her out of dreams
It was her favorite song. Slow jazz but not easy listening. The woman on the record asked, in her bowling ball tenor rolling across the jazz lounge smoke through flower hats and bow ties "how are youuuu, todaaaaayayeaye. I came here to playaaaaayeaye"
She didn't light up after her hand swiped the red digited clock off her night stand
Today was the same, but a little different. The city lights would be on beneath her. The stars would wink to life above her, but the X-two two four around her was on her maiden record attempt and her nerves were steel.
At the edge, a mistake of any proportion could be fatal. Nerves were unreliable. Senses, however, could get her back home
The briefing went well. She painted her nails a vioently subtle purple while her black coffee steamed in its styrofoam cup while the lieutenant went on and on about the fighter/bombers specifications in front of the touch screen while she tried to find a comfortable way to sit in a plastic folding chair in a room too hot and not think about where in hell the annual budget went
Janice already went over the six hundred page manual twice and knew it backwards and front. she could've Built the damn thing in the time the briefing took.
She blew on her fingertips and sipped some more coffee.
Outside of the bubble canopy, the sun laid deep red and orange streaks across the salt flats, bunkers, and air traffic tower where dinosaur fish hundreds of feet long used to swim.
She whistled her song into her respirator, nodding her head and thinking about how good it would be to touch down and take off her twenty pound helmet.
Glancing left and right, runway lights came to life, she reminded herself she didn't have to wait for the weapons crews to load up the hard points on the X-224s wings. Her wings.
It was not a weapons test. It was a dual test of woman and machine and settling in to her cockpit, adjusting her harnesses, she moved her gloved hand to the throttle without a cloud in the sky
"alright, Lionmane, its just you and me today. Be good.". She toggled her radio switch with a wink to her in helmet display, the dual turbines thrumming quiet as an aeroplane is capable behind her head.
"This is Rainbow Nugget, ready for all go on your signal Walking Stick."
The control tower came back, the controller chuckling at her call sign despite himself, "Rainbow nugget, you are clear for go. Be safe out there. Don't scratch the paint."
"I'll bring him back in one piece, you get the wine cooling. I'm gonna need a pick me up when this is over." she winked again at her visor display and took a deep breath.
Without the crackle of the radio, the jet engine buzz was too quiet. Her left hand flew across the dials and switches on her console, yellow lights blinking softly to solid green.
The chime rang through the cockpit. Lionmane X two two four sighing back "I am ready"
She toggled the brake switch, turned on her wing tip and running lights and hauled on the throttle with her right.
The tower half a mile away tore through her vision as the engines screamed. Water condensed on the canopy front, capturing the sun at her back in burned gold droplets as she broke the sound barrier once and then twice.
She winked her radio back on and barked against the breast squeezing gee force: "systems stable. Vertical climb!"
The X-224s landing gear mashed the sand like a drunk through the middle of a street hanging onto their beau for dear life before finally letting go.
The twin tails streaked into the evening sky as she held the throttle at maximum. The Tower, miles behind, came back. "Rainbow Nugget, you are clear. Have you on the board. You are on pace for time to climb record."
"Systems stable!" she barked back, Earth doing everything it could to collapse her lungs
Over her shoulder, as the engines screamed and the composite alloy frame of the X 224 shook, the sun began to rise over the sloping peaks of the Monmut mountain ridge.
The basin beneath her shrank to a football field and then a coin. She held the throttle down. The Tower came back: "Rainbow Nugget, you are clear, you are clear. Looking good."
Janice grit her teeth, "I know!"
The sun shone like mid day. her visor tinted itself, twin contrails scorching upward. "Afterburn!" she shouted as her pressure suit began to force circulation through her limbs.
With all of the strength she could muster she lifted her hand from the throttle, flipped the clear plastic cover from the bright yellow and black deadmans switch and pressed the lime green button at its center
At the base, 30 pounds of TNT went off over their heads. The control tower shook like a twig in a thunderstorm as the lionmanes engines tore the sky apart and two new stars blazed to life in the evening sky.
The Tower came back, "we have you on visual!" unable to contain their calm.
Janice held her thumb to the switch and touched the stick with the gentleness of a mother cleaning a kitten.
The canopy turned, too quickly at first, and more slowly. Janice gave a ferocious glance across the console before risking turning her head away.
The canopy spun at her fingertips and as she climbed the sun set again behind the shadow of her wing tip.
The sky began to darken and the lights of Santa Monica, Las angeles, Eugene, San Antonio, Austin, and Denver grew brighter and brighter. "Where's Mexico city," she chuckle rasped to herself.
"Rainbow Nugget, you've got the record, bring him in whenever you're green." She nodded, tearing her eyes away from the ground.
"I hear!" she barked, not yet ready. The sky turned blue and then black and in that midnight blanket the stars came to life in front of her.
All around they shined with a brilliance that pulled at her heart harder and harder as she held her thumb to the afterburn switch
"Rainbow Nugget, be advised you're running out of air up there."
"Walking Stick, I hear y-" the X- 224s thrashing rumble ceased.
The g forces crushing her body reversed direction and threw her forward hard enough to send her hand through her head up display atop her console, shattering it
"Rainbow we have you losing speed, copy?"
The stars began to spin outside of the canopy. City lights, then stars, then cities again. Her eyes raced, cueing the visor display to go to this and that menu, lines of information and diagrams and maps whipping by. They raced like one hundred horses loosed from their pens across her in helmet display
Steady green lights turned to flashing yellow and then sharp and solid red. "Rainbow, do you copy??"
as her eyes raced they picked out pieces of information. "Flame out," she shouted to herself as she rammed the throttle to zero and worked her hands across the dials.
"Come back?" the Tower shouted through her earpiece.
"Flameout! Walking Stick! Flameout!" She winked at her visor to close the radio link as her hands continued to work furiously.
The X - 224 no longer arrowed upward. It spun end over end until momentum could carry it no further and began its descent. With no more air to feed engines, the lionmane became a fuel filled 3000 pound free falling bomb
"air brakes," she told herself, "now!" her hands flew and the lionmanes frame rumbled with the back up hydraulic systems effort beneath her ejector seat
"im not giving up on you!" she shouted at her console, her eyes flying behind her visor as the stars spinning outside her canopy began to wink out and the sun began to rise again.
She pumped the fuel from nothing to the kitchen sink as the X 224s end over end flattened out into a frisbee toss. "god damn it, remember!"
Her mind tore through the pages of the manual and the briefing and the sequences as she read her speed by altitude and knew she could fire the landing gear without ripping it clean off.
The city lights slipped completely from view as the Monmut ridge rotated in and out of view
She pumped the fuel from nothing to the kitchen sink as the X 224s end over end flattened out into a frisbee toss. "god damn it, remember!"
Her mind tore through the pages of the manual and the briefing and the sequences as she read her speed by altitude and knew she could fire the landing gear without ripping it clean off.
The city lights slipped completely from view as the Monmut ridge rotated in and out of view
She pulled up her backup head up display inside her helmet and caught her heart in her mouth. The zeroes on the altimeter were disappearing much too fast.
She pumped the
fuel from nothing to the kitchen sink as the X 224s end over end flattened out
into a frisbee toss. "god damn it, remember!"
Her mind tore through the pages of the manual and the briefing and the sequences as she read her speed by altitude and knew she could fire the landing gear without ripping it clean off.
The city lights slipped completely from view as the Monmut ridge rotated in and out of view
"Fire! You son of a bitch, fire!" The fuel light blinked from yellow to green. The main hydraulic light showed solid green.
She tore her respirator from her face. "Start!" she rested her left hand on her ejector lever and hammered the throttle.
Above the tower a roar tore through the late afternoon sky.
Miles up two contrails ran like rails to the east as one and then another sonic boom rattled windows across state lines.
Janice pulled back on the throttle once the lights held and began a slow and looping decent to the salt basin, her heart still pounding.
She winked her radio on. "This is Rainbow Nugget for Walking Stick"
"Walking Stick here."
"Bringing him in."
"We have you on the board, the field is clear Rainbow Nugget. You've got the altitude record too"
The twin turbines thrummed in Janice's ears as she sighed, "glad to hear it," and winked her radio off.
The debriefing was going to be harsh, but no one could ever take the record away from her.
As the tires on the X 224s landing gear hit the salt and sand and rolled the beast along the runway past the control tower, Janice began to whistle and think about sleep. She sang softly as she shut down the engines "how are you today?" and the sun set behind the Monmut mountains
Gnite. <3 div="" u="">3>Her mind tore through the pages of the manual and the briefing and the sequences as she read her speed by altitude and knew she could fire the landing gear without ripping it clean off.
The city lights slipped completely from view as the Monmut ridge rotated in and out of view
"Fire! You son of a bitch, fire!" The fuel light blinked from yellow to green. The main hydraulic light showed solid green.
She tore her respirator from her face. "Start!" she rested her left hand on her ejector lever and hammered the throttle.
Above the tower a roar tore through the late afternoon sky.
Miles up two contrails ran like rails to the east as one and then another sonic boom rattled windows across state lines.
Janice pulled back on the throttle once the lights held and began a slow and looping decent to the salt basin, her heart still pounding.
She winked her radio on. "This is Rainbow Nugget for Walking Stick"
"Walking Stick here."
"Bringing him in."
"We have you on the board, the field is clear Rainbow Nugget. You've got the altitude record too"
The twin turbines thrummed in Janice's ears as she sighed, "glad to hear it," and winked her radio off.
The debriefing was going to be harsh, but no one could ever take the record away from her.
As the tires on the X 224s landing gear hit the salt and sand and rolled the beast along the runway past the control tower, Janice began to whistle and think about sleep. She sang softly as she shut down the engines "how are you today?" and the sun set behind the Monmut mountains
///Cleveland Lounge - "Drowning (Scuba Mix)" all the best to you on your sleep swim
5/27/13
Year End Playlist 2012
The music that made life a little easier to comprehend through 2012. I told ya I was gonna put it together. Got my "nyaahhhhhh" face going. But seriously, this is what brought me through. Instead of going by statistic logging I decided to go with the actual tracks I flagged through the year. Sometimes the song you listen to the most is not a real indicator of what hit you the hardest. I really do believe this is an accurate reflection of what punched my heart in the nuts through last year.
Dec RJD2 - Moonlit Skies Go
Nov Skrillex - Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites Go
Oct Lo-Fidelity Allstars - Valentine Boast Go
Sept El-P - Stay Down Go
Aug War - Baby Brother Go
Jul Bjork - Pluto Go
Jun Aphex Twin - Waxen Pith Go
May Tosca - Oscar Go
Apr School of Seven Bells - Loveplay Go
Mar Starkey - Eris Go
Feb Kinny and Horn - Sacred Life Go
Jan Paul Murphy - Soul Call Go
This is the official tax return for 2012. The books have been, after a fashion, balanced. Five months late, but better late than never. I feel pretty good about it. Making next year's list, I can already bet on it, will be Death Grips. I know I'm behind the curve of music, but I don't care all that much. I'm just happy I have time to digest everything that comes across my plate as thoroughly as I care to, and that's what's up.
///Death Grips - "Guillotine" ace high, chuck
Dec RJD2 - Moonlit Skies Go
Nov Skrillex - Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites Go
Oct Lo-Fidelity Allstars - Valentine Boast Go
Sept El-P - Stay Down Go
Aug War - Baby Brother Go
Jul Bjork - Pluto Go
Jun Aphex Twin - Waxen Pith Go
May Tosca - Oscar Go
Apr School of Seven Bells - Loveplay Go
Mar Starkey - Eris Go
Feb Kinny and Horn - Sacred Life Go
Jan Paul Murphy - Soul Call Go
This is the official tax return for 2012. The books have been, after a fashion, balanced. Five months late, but better late than never. I feel pretty good about it. Making next year's list, I can already bet on it, will be Death Grips. I know I'm behind the curve of music, but I don't care all that much. I'm just happy I have time to digest everything that comes across my plate as thoroughly as I care to, and that's what's up.
///Death Grips - "Guillotine" ace high, chuck
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