

Mook's Odyessy

By: B.S. Adkison

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2020

Chapter One: Hunter-Gatherer Mining

Mook drops the handles of the skid-sled with a contented gasp. He is more than a mile from the forest where he had constructed the contraption and it has been a great help for him to carry his burden of tools and supplies during this last push, up the face of the foothill to the 'mining' site that he had discovered. He must admit that he misses the comradeship of his brother Dak as they usually go on these treks together, but this time, Mook is enjoying the solitude. There are a couple of reasons for that change of heart; one being Dak's way of 'dividing' the spoils so that he always gets a larger and higher quality share. Mook, being the younger of the two brothers, had grown used to that version of 'fairness' but that is not the issue that prompted Mook to go at it alone this time. Mook is weary of that situation and other issues revolving around his brother's concept of 'fairness' but the last straw, the reason for the 'falling out' was over something that he had no say in and that he had not the right nor the fortitude to speak-up about. Leaving Dak, and the entire clan for that matter, was the only way he could think of to handle the disappointment and the pain of his broken heart.

Suki, Mook's companion and closest friend for as far back as he could remember, just took up with Dak when she became of age as if it were the most natural thing that could ever be. The endless time Mook and Suki had spent together, the private thoughts they had shared, the dreams they had, the future they (or apparently only Mook) envisioned, it was all just an illusion, a miss-guided fantasy, or as Mook had come realize in the darkness of his imagination- a lie!

How dare she! Mook thought to himself over and over as he treaded up the foothills to this place. A place he discovered while on another anger filled, head clearing 'escape' that seems to be his go-to coping method when things don't go his way. Mook is smart, smarter than Dak. Why can't Suki see that? She can and does, but that isn't why Suki ran to Dak. Dak is bigger, stronger, more self-assured, more confident and as the first born, he reaps the attention and admiration of both of his parents in ways that Mook cannot understand or except.

Mook would seek out Suki when he felt unfairly slighted and she would patiently listen and say some soothing words just as Mook would do when she was upset. Was that a mistake? As far as Mook can tell, Dak would never seek consolation for anything with anybody. He is careful never to show that kind of weakness. She must find that sort of thing attractive. Thoughts such as this turn over and over in Mook's mind as he sorts and files his way through his troubles and tribulations. He wants to hate them both. He wants to hate everybody and everything, but as the burden of the trail clears his head, he realizes (as always) that the problem is with him.

Being smarter than everyone else is a weight on his shoulders and a thankless burden. Remember when I noticed the river shifting and the hillside becoming unstable? Did praise and congratulations follow when the landslide wiped-out the former village site? Maybe for about a minute before the 'blame' of all that extra work followed as the village was rebuilt on higher and safer ground. Thankless jerks! But all the disgruntled muttering in the world wouldn't change a thing. Suki is gone. She is with Dak now and everything her and Mook had ever shared is also gone. To be close with her now would be frowned upon. Even if Suki wanted it all to stay the same, Dak would see it as disrespect. Certainly, Dak could handle her feelings and emotions from now on, and even if he couldn't, he wouldn't dare let any 'weakness' show. Ha! Perhaps they deserve each other!

That thought brought Mook a small measure of satisfaction as he looked over the worksite and started to prepare for the several hard-working days ahead. High up in the foothills and well above the tree line, the bears should not be any trouble, they rarely venture out of the protection of the forest but just in case, Mook prepares his spear and spear thrower (an extension device that increases the hitting power of the weapon) and he keeps it close at all times. The most common threats up here are mountain lions (called "Pole Cats" by his people, for some reason) and perhaps surprisingly, mountain goats. (Called "Billies.") The Pole Cats tend to stay hidden and they mostly mind their own business but Billies, they are unpredictable. If one blocks your path, you had better find another way around or wait him out. They are so stubborn and territorial that they will defend themselves and charge even if there is plenty of room for both of you. They are so mean that if one of them sees you first, and if they can, they won't hesitate to rush up and headbutt you right off a cliff! As dangerous as they are, a campfire seems to keep them at bey and after Mook places his bow and arrows within easy reach, he prepares a fire pit and stakes out a sleeping area.

Mook has two rabbits and a nice, fat quail that he had bagged on the way up here. He will roast one rabbit tonight by the firelight when it becomes too dark to work. The other, he will mix with the tubers, wild peppers and rice that he has brought with him and make a stew which will feed him for a couple of days. The quail he will leave hanging from a piece of string for at least three days to enhance the flavor as the aging will reduce the gaminess and promote tenderness. To relieve his hunger during the workday, Mook has a stash of venison pemmican and a treat from his mother of special rice squares sweetened with syrup made from corn. Mook's mother is not blind to his love-lost grief and the rice squares, packed in a basket for safe travel, is a message of affection that Mook can't deny. Mook doesn't know that Suki spent all afternoon with his mother helping her make them. Regardless of what Mook may think, Suki feels bad about what happened, and she hopes to eventually salvage some of what they had together.

Mook's bow and arrows, although a dangerous and deadly weapon system, is kept handy mostly to bag any small game that may come around. The spear, with its razor-sharp, forged-steel barbed tip is for big game and personal protection with its hard-hitting killing power. Mook may not be as physically strong as Dak, but he is well versed in the technics involved with the spear and its power enhancing extension device. His life depends upon it. It will stop a pole cat or a billy in its tracks and even a bear will be slowed considerable with a solid hit. But what of an ambush of other men? Shouldn't that be one of Mook's greatest concerns? The problem with that is, there just isn't any others.

Suki was brought long ago from the south to Mook's village as an orphaned baby. Once each season, the Southerners arrive for celebrations and trade. They are a nomadic tribe and lack smithing facilities and they don't tend crops. Oh, they have planted areas, but they limit those to plants that will survive until they return later. Their lifestyle is to follow the game herds, hunting them in the great plains of the south. They depend on the spear points and arrowheads manufactured at Mook's village. But of more importance to the codependence of both tribes is something else, especially important for Mook now due to what has happened regarding Suki.

Because Suki is adopted from the southerners, that meant when she became of age, she would be available for marriage to a man of this tribe. Of course, Mook, as perhaps the smartest young man in his tribe, instinctively knew this, and that was obviously his motivation as he established a close relationship with Suki when he was just a child, before he really knew what he was even actually doing. This may have been a brilliant display of ingrained intellect, but when Mook, who is a few years older than Suki, had found that his parents had become annoyed when his desires towards Suki became lust filled, awkward, clumsy, overbearing and blatantly inappropriate, they felt they had to step in. Suki may have been flattered, but she wasn't ready for that type of attention. It had progressed to a point where the elders intervened and Mook had to back-off.

Mook was embarrassed, humiliated and deeply wounded, but it was Suki who presented the so called 'olive branch' of peace with renewed, friendly attention towards him and that began Mook's deep descent hopelessly into the 'friend-zone.' After it was known that Mook must back off, Suki really thought that she was free to become as close as she wanted with Mook and nothing would become of it. She never seemed to have the slightest idea that she might be leading him on in any way.

Mook didn't see it that way, he didn't see it that way at all. He was doing everything right. He was giving her space. He was becoming a permanent fixture in her life, building himself into something that she couldn't live without, being incredibly patient, letting her come to him when she was ready, he was executing his brilliant plan one step at a time. He watched her as she flowered into a young woman, and he saved himself physically for the glorious day when they would be together.

Dak held no such restraint, and he acted on his fantasies and desires just about whenever and wherever he had the chance. He was doing just that when Suki happened upon him when she was out for a walk in the woods one day.

Only the thought of a suitable suiter arriving this season with the Southerners kept Mook from complete despair. But the time of the season for their arrival had come and gone. A search party was dispatched and after several weeks, they returned without seeing any sign of them. This set back, along with the humiliation of his dashed intentions towards Suki was more than Mook could bear. The sight of Dak and Suki being all 'lovey-dovey' around the village, the thought of maybe meeting someone else suitable from the south also apparently dashed, and now the entire clan preparing for Dak and Suki's wedding, it is all too much. He kept his feelings to himself, (without Suki to talk to, who was the only one who seemed to have any interest in his problems, meant he didn't really have anyone to confide with anyway) and he told everyone he was going off to find a suitable wedding gift. (That itself was a painful statement for him to make.)

Mook looks over the worksite. A black, 'powder ring' protrudes from the hillside with the signs of some of the sharp, metal 'hair' poking-out from it. Usually one of four, this black disk is partially exposed to the weather and will crumble to dust as he scoops it into a basket, but back at the village when it is boiled in a mixture of fat and salt, the black substance will soften allowing the women and children to pull the metal 'hairs' out so they can be used to attach arrow points to shafts, and to make strong stitching in belts and shoes and for dozens of other uses.

Mook is in luck, exposed at the center of the black disk ring is the tell-tail gray powder of the substance that they call "lou-um." Why does it have that name? Mook has no idea. It is an ancient word, as ancient as this entire site. This is lucky because many back disks have a center of only useless, crumbling 'ruddy-red,'

Mook is always full of wonder and amazement whenever he uncovers one of these sites. He has never been given a straight answer as to what these things were as they occasionally pop out of a hillside or are uncovered from a riverbed or a sand dune. All the elders can say about it is that it is from the "joke-time" when men were stupid, and they squandered all they had. But Mook can see that these relics, these 'assets' were not made by stupid people, not by a long shot.

He is careful and he takes his time as he breaks the sandstone away from the backside of the exposed black disk that he is working on. In the areas that are not exposed to weathering, he sees some more of what he has seen before. The indentations in the sandstone that has been transferred from the surface of the black disk and Mook correctly believes that it is some form of communication system from long ago. He has realized that it must be some sort of coded information storing system that has been long forgotten. He copies the most legible symbols with charcoal onto a piece of cloth that he carries with him and he will add it to the others that he has stored away back at his lodge in the village:

CORSA LT265/R16

What on Earth could it mean? It drives Mook crazy trying figure it out and he is no closer now then he was the first time he had seen such a thing as a child as his father chipped away the stone in between and above the two black disks of a similar site, and as he lifted a large, flat layer of sandstone away, revealing the symbols "VORTEC" in the "glube." (Their name for the easily melted substance that is found throughout these sites and that they use as a temporary adhesive for things such as arrow heads, to hold them in place as they secure them with wraps of the 'metal hair' from the black disks.)

Mook is making good progress as he found that the sandstone breaks away without much effort. Often, there is an intact layer of very thin 'ruddy-red,' a crumbling 'boundary' that seems to encase the entire site, and it can yield sections that seem to be coated in a wonderous, jeweled colorization that can catch the light with fantastic effect. Sometimes these preserved pieces are large and intact enough that they can be formed into a small box or at least into small, crafted ingots that can form parts of neckless or bracelets. It raises his ire, but he will keep his eyes open for such treasure for a wedding gift for Dak and Suki, dammit!

What a bounty this site is yielding. It is of the type that produces useful substances that are spread out somewhat evenly among all four of the black disks. Many sites yield their bounty of useful substances mostly from between just two of the black disks at only one end of the site, and those sites lack much of the most coveted and most useful substance of all- 'blade-plate.' (Or as we know it- steel.) This is the stuff that with the help of the black 'disk powder' to help stoke the smith's fire, it can be hammered and formed into the blades, spear points, plows and shovels that are useful and needed by his people, and that can be traded for skins, baskets and furs from the southerners. (If they ever see them again.)

Mook breaks long, stacked lengths of premium blade plate from just behind the black disk after he carefully collected the 'lou-um' from the center of the black disk. A smaller disk just behind and inside the area of lou-um, is also apparently made of ruddy-red blade-plate but it is discarded. This is a blade-plate look-alike that the smiths have assured him is different, and although it can be eventually worked into good plate, it takes too much work. What they, and Mook, are after and what is greatly prized, is inside the tube of ruddy-red that is located after the black disk and is behind the long, stacked lengths- the motherlode!

The best of this treasure may still have traces of the 'stink-black' covering it inside the tube of ruddy-red, a tar-like substance that protects the round length inside from the weathering and the etching normally associated with ruddy-red. Mook busts the outer tube away and the smell of the stink-black is strong.

By night fall, Mook had separated piles of black disk powder, lou-um, glube and a motherlode of blade-plate. He has also gathered handfuls of the 'golden string' with their tell-tail, colorful glube coatings. The smith's collect this, and after the glube is burned away, and when enough is accumulated, (which may take years) the substance is melted and formed into prized cooking pans and other items.

Over the next few days, with Mook breaking away the sandstone and pushing it out of the way and letting it tumble down the hillside where the larger pieces roll and bounce until they crash and explode far below, he has turned this site into a mess of broken up and turned over dirt and stone. Guided with his experienced eye, the ruddy-red points the direction to the remaining pair of black disks and to the heart of the site's substance potential. Mook's separated substance piles grow exponentially, far larger than he will be able to bring back to the village in one trip. He will move his spoils back to the forest edge one trip at a time with his skid-sled and then he will probably recruit help from the village to bring it all in later from there.

The remaining black disks (the 'front' of the site) always contain the bulk of the prize. This 'heart' perplexes Mook. The thin, trace ruddy-red surrounds glube that is often inscribe with symbols such as "5.8", "DOHC", "DuraMax" or as the first one Mook had seen and as this one again proclaims: "Vortec." What could it mean? It baffles and tortures Mook to no end. Not just the symbols, but this 'heart' of the site as well. Inside the ruddy-red and under the glube lies the largest mass of lou-um of the site and as Mook breaks it up into manageable pieces with blows from his biggest and heaviest hammer, he exposes the odd shaped chunk of blade-plate that is always inside. He can't help but wonder what it all means. Certainly, this entire site was once something that did something. But what? It is like the whole thing was alive once. Not alive like a man or a beast but as Mook can tell from the lay-out, the orientation of what is left, from what he has seen as he smashes, rips and pries the object into piles of useful substances that will be made into products to be traded and utilized by his people, the entire site was once an integrated, inter-connected something. With usefulness once worthy of the obvious, extreme effort that was extended for it to have existed in the first place. This is an object that Mook has decided, judging from his examinations, that certainly was once alive- alive with motion.

But as Mook takes a break, and as he has a good, long look around at the seemingly endless wilderness which from this perch, high above nearly everything, and spanning in every direction, is a view that is generally all the same- mountains, valleys, forest, lakes, streams, rivers as far as the eye can see. All of it is as old as the hills. (Literally!) Everything, as far as Mook could know, is as it always has been. Everything except this out-of-place and impossible 'thing.' This bounty of useful materials, this perfect and orderly mass poking out from the natural and understandable hillside. It is here as if to say, "You don't know anything." It is as if it exists only to mock Mook and to remind him of how stupid he is.

He resumes his hammer blows. That will even the score. Reducing the site to pulverized piles is therapeutic and is relieving his despair. Every crash and strike of his hammer shows the world who is the boss.
Chapter Two: What Happened?

Ten thousand years before the heartbroken Mook swings his hammer on this lonely hillside, the objects of his frustrations where everywhere, and not just the object that his hammer breaks apart, but the source of his human frustrations as well. Before the seas rose and then fell, before the miles-thick ice advanced, pushing nearly all that was man-made more than halfway across the continent, before over ninety percent of all that was alive went extinct, before the nuclear powerplants melted-down, before the pack-ice pushed them around but failed to reduce their dangerous emissions, before the massive weight of that ice managed to disturb largely unknown but critical balances regarding the strength of the earth's crust, resulting in the eruption of the super volcanos, before all of that was the "joke-time."

It happened suddenly in a geographic time frame but apparently somewhat slowly for the human attention span. There was plenty of warning. An entire generation was obsessed to levels seen by many as extreme, and to placate them and to ease the world's worry, entire infrastructure systems were rebuilt, changed and replaced. So much building, tearing down, replacing and changing occurred that, like how the trees block the overall view of the forest, the steps and decisions that were implicated and that were thought to be the cure, hid the sickness.

Wind and solar powerplants were built at ever increasingly rates to replaced coal and oil. Electric cars, batteries and charging stations were constructed to replaced gasoline power as insisted by a demanding, feverous public. Everywhere and anywhere the advanced and efficient was built to replace the old and the dated. With world-war like urgency, the rate of building expanded exponentially, producing so many new jobs that world-wide labor shortages became the norm. So much building; building-building-building and more building. New systems replaced the old faster than the old could be removed so much of the old stayed on-line as well.

In the frenzy of this brave, new world, with its 'feel-good' promise in this latest and most modern version of man conquering nature, hardly anyone noticed that the problem may lie in the 'building' itself. The building was the problem, and the solution was to increase the building. Can you see now where the problem might be? Oh hindsight! What a perfect vision of the truth!

It didn't help that the generation that was initially the most worried and determined, sort of 'lost interest' not unlike the generation a few generations before them- the Hippies, who seemed to have lost their idealism and drive as they got older only to embrace what they once fought against as they went on to refocused their once, righteous attentions into the new pursuit of the almighty dollar in various business ventures. Perhaps they thought that in newly gained positions of power, they would be able to renew their lofty goals, but that worthy secondary objective largely failed to materialize.

With the Earth well into the effects of global warming, and with a new, more level-headed and somewhat more conservative generation starting to become prominent, the original urgency of climatic emergency appeared (to them at least) to be overrated. Frozen tundra thawed (releasing even more 'trapped' carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses) and became excellent farmland just as populations reached new and impossibly high numbers. Wildly increasing levels of carbon dioxide actually helped improve the crop yields (which was eagerly and gleefully reported by those lobbies that had a stake in such matters) and the longer growing seasons due to that same global warming was seen as a timely godsend and a stroke of luck when it came to feeding these new, record population levels.

Initial concerns started to seem overblown and a turnabout of public opinion favored a new mindset where we might actually be preventing a dangerous new ice age. Rapidly improving technologies seem to be available just as they were needed. If we can only continue to build and manufacture these new ideas fast enough was the new call of man of this not-to-distant future.

It was like a flip of a switch when it all came to a halt. Just how important those existing oil wells were, became strikingly apparent when they started to go dry. World-wide factory farming on depleted soils depended on fertilizer made from those trapped hydrocarbons. The world's rapid and rabid construction of the new green energy infrastructure was going on at a fever pitch, regardless if it was actually needed or not, and that had become the driver and the paradigm of the world's economy, and its completion continued to be demanded by the elite, intellectual leaders who had staked their reputations and livelihoods on providing the promised new, clean and green infrastructure, which made it impossible for them to back-track or back-down from what was largely their life works and what would be their personal legacies. But those building projects also required fossil fuel to be realized and completed. And with the energy hungry, hydrogen fuel plants, with their well-touted and heavily advertised promise for the general continuation of the current constant, on-the-move, must have the newest, latest and greatest, way of life that everyone had been accustomed to and that was being demanded by the modern and arguably increasingly spoiled world populations, those facilities that would be required for that way of life to continue, and they were still a long way from becoming operational.

The timing couldn't have been worse when drug resistant diseases finally caught up with antibiotic overuse in both farming and medicine at basically this same time. Added to the world's problems at that time, the jet-stream and the so-called cold-water 'conveyor belts' of ocean currents changed or ceased in just the timespan of just a single, unfortunate and unlucky season.

It wasn't the best time to be alive. But that wasn't a problem for long, because in a relatively short time, there wasn't much left alive anyway.

Mook's elders may have called this the "joke-time" but what came next was anything but a joke. In fact, Mook had never heard much mention of what had happened after the joke-time, probably because hardly anyone was left alive to remember it. And of the few (and were talking very few) who did live through it, they may have been so entirely and physically away from the actual mayhem, that they just didn't experience it firsthand. Or, of those that were there to witness what had happened, they may have been just too traumatized to willfully recall it, as if anyone was left or who would dare to even ask them about it.

It all started out with the best of intentions. With all the recent advances in technology back then (the immediate future for us) that was all aimed at the hope of a better, brighter and glorious future, each new, rapid-fire disaster was just a test of the mettle for these, enlightened and superior leaders. Food shortages were initially met with caring and compassionate responses nearly instantly, with the help of social media. Energy brownouts and then black-outs were countered with neighborhood, portable generator 'community up-dates' where everyone gathered around and stayed connected with their phones and devices. People of the first world pooled and shared most everything in heart-warming nativity that should have made the God's proud. That sort of honorable behavior may have prolonged the egos and the spirits for the 'haves,' but in the meantime, the 'have nots' were becoming organized, systematic, efficient and above all- desperate and dangerous.

It was surprising how many weapons the world had. There wasn't enough for everyone- at first. Soon, those with weapons changed that ratio. The speed at which the pajama clad, sandal wearing, device connected, intellectual, open-minded types were dispatched was stunning. The old, the very young, the disabled and the sick soon followed. Livestock was next and pets became virtually non-existent all in less than a single decade. Then what was left, turned savagely against each other.

Within fifty years, (the time it took stashes of canned food to be used up or to go bad) it was over. The whole of humanity, nearly nine billion souls was reduced to a world-wide population of around ten thousand, spread out so sparsely that most would never meet anyone outside of their own, immediate family during what turned out after that to be incredibly short and hard 'lives.'

Global warming continued unabated regardless of the tragedy that befell the human beings and their bones, and the ruins of their great, coastal cities were silently submerged in the rising sea levels of the next few hundred years. Desertification due to radical climate changes of the continental interior areas of the deserted land masses, buried the collapsing cities of those places with inland sandstorms that lasted for entire seasons. Small pockets of animals (including humans) hung on by the skin of their teeth in some small, rare geographically 'lucky' places.

Of the wild beasts, only those that specialized in staying aloof and hidden had survived the desperate early rampages of the human masses that occurred immediately after the end of the joke-time. Cows, horses, pigs, chickens, turkeys, goats, sheep, dogs, cats, just about anything that could be killed and eaten- was. This is all just a sample of what happened in the northern hemisphere, Africa and the other southern continents fared even worse.

Massive climatic, climate-change altered super-storms took out just about everything else that couldn't migrate or adapt quickly enough. Rapidly rising ocean temperatures, accompanied by saline and acidity changes of the sea, devastated coral beds and reefs triggering a chain reaction of fishery die offs that were exacerbated by continental sized algae blooms that choked-out much of what marine life that was left.

A couple centuries of all that, and then the start of a slow clearing of the excess carbon dioxide due to (finally) the absences of unnatural human additions, and continuing natural processes that removed excess carbon such as rock and soil erosion, plus new plant growth from natural occurring reforestation of those newly devastated areas, had the climate starting to swing back the other way. But that swing would be extreme by present day standards.

Wild and unprecedented storms the world over, included snow accumulations in the northern and southern hemispheres that grew more each year than could melt away had snowpack's forming into glaciers, and as those glaciers grew, expanded and moved out, inch by inch, they relentlessly pushed, pulverized and covered what is left of the great cities of the north, into nothing but just strange, artifact rich geological layered bands in newly formed mountains and hillsides.

Several hundred years of the crushing weight of miles thick ice, pressing and changing entire continents with stresses and forces on the Earth's crust, forced a response when thin and week areas of that crust started 'letting go' giving birth to a era of incredible volcanism that lasted decades and had the effect of increasing once again the levels of carbon dioxide (which had failed to fall all that low anyway) and caused global temperatures to rise once again, and that eventually caused the ice to begin to recede. Add a few thousand more years for the new, scraped, gouged and exposed land to again reforest and 'presto' you have a world that is basically void of any sign of a former human presence.

For the few humans that had remained alive, they had been much too busy just trying to eek out a living during all of this to have retained much (if any) of the knowledge and technology of the joke-time. The language that they use has become so bastardized that you probably wouldn't be able to understand them. In fact, in the rare times that two tribes meet, the most basic and crude sign language must be used such as rubbing the belly to express hunger or cupping a hand to the ear to show that you hear something and dozens of other childish expressions.

But those rare meetings are incredibly vital and important, and all the finesse and diplomacy available must be utilized to ensure successful outcomes. Because as every living thing instinctively knows, even if it is not often spoken about, is that inbreeding must be avoided.

Some tribes display the jutting chin, and/or the chronic deafness associated with that condition but even this is occasionally overlooked when tribes meet, because if the alternative for a mate is your own sister or (if you're lucky) your first cousin..., well you get the picture. These meetings are also usually friendly at this point of the human de-evolution because with extremely low population levels, there really isn't any resource pressures anymore.

While bear, pole cats and billies managed to evade the big die-off, moose, elk and especially deer also continued to exist and they eventually prospered probably only because man was unable or unwilling to penetrate the wilderness as deeply as they lived during the human killing sprees. The theory is that if man had to wander that deeply into the forest to find food, he would probable turn on the first other human that he came across to prevent losing his own life in a likely attack, and the winner of that encounter would not only eliminate a potential threat, but would score a meal, negating any reason for deeper wilderness penetration. He also might have found that it may have been easier to find a choke point such as a steep valley or a watering hole and wait there for the next desperate human to come along. That way he would not only get some fresh meat, but a chance of more weapons, ammo and clothing.

Some animals avoided extinction just due to their numbers. Rabbits, rats, mice, squirrels, many types of birds, insects, snakes and others survived. It was the domesticated types that fared the worst. The starving masses stormed the farms and made quick work of what they found there. (Including eventually, the humans.) At game reserves, what were left of the buffalo were reduced to a memory and wolfs were shot on sight to reduce competition and to provide food along with any stray dogs and cats. Poultry was just too tempting, and even though it was known that some should have been saved for domestic use for the future, the killing sprees were just too intense and any bird that couldn't fly from danger, was effectively wiped from the face Earth.

Fish fared a little better from man's final exploitation because large-scale, organized human fishing failed to rise above the killings. Just getting a boat crewed involved more cooperation then was possible with everyone out for blood. And after all the killing finally started to come to an end, all serviceable boats and ships had long since fell into hopeless disrepair. Perhaps some coastal tribes build watercraft and fish, but Mook had never meet any of them, but he lives far from the coast. As a child, he had fished the streams and lakes with hooks and bait, but it wasn't very fruitful so that was mostly left for children and the very old to help diversify the menu of the family. Able bodied grown-ups had more important obligations, such as hunting, cabin and hut building and mining the strange sites of the joke-time.
Chapter Three: Time to Get Real

Mook is a grown man now, a veteran of fifteen seasons, nearly middle age in these precarious times. As he ferries the spoils from his mining back to the village, he should be happy and proud of the valuable haul and the accolades and the credit that he will earn from it all, but the trip has failed to clear his gloom. His thoughts have only made it plain that he was foolish to have invested so much time and energy with the hope of a future with Suki being his mate. This time that he has spent alone on this trip had helped to reveal dozens, maybe hundreds of fleeting memories that he should have noticed, or maybe he did notice but he chose to ignore. Looks of attraction, of affection, of lust and longing between Dak and Suki. Still, Dak was certainly aware of Mook's fondness and intensions towards Suki, everyone in the entire village was aware of that and Dak 'swooping in' will never be anything less than a major betrayal of trust for Mook and is unforgivable.

Did everyone see that Dak and Suki were destined to be together? Have I always been the fool? The thought stops Mook in his tracks. In the blank of his mind that followed, he hears the sounds of the forest, the birds singing, the wind rustling through the leaves and the creaking of the tree branches, insects buzzing and as a patch of sunlight breaks through the tree canopy and warms his face, he has a strong, clear thought:

I don't want to go back!

Mook shakes off that absurd thought. Not go back, that's crazy! What else would I do? Where else would I go? Such a thought makes Mook feel silly, stupid even. This roe with Dak will end eventually. Since he has been gone, the southerners have surely arrived, perhaps bringing a suitable mate for Mook with them. A girl even better than Suki. Someone taller, prettier and with larger breasts. Mook has a vision of breasts, that thought, conjured-up way out here in the middle of nowhere and with him currently so all alone, has him responding physically with the all-to-familiar longing and growing under his loincloth. That feeling is short lived as he realizes that it is the thought of Suki's ample breasts that has played the trick on him. Curse her! Curse him! Curse them both! He walks for miles after that, blind with anger, but what really has him blind are his unstoppable, flowing tears.

It took Mook quite a while to completely regain his composure, so he used that time and a reservoir of angry, nervous energy to make the several trips through the forest to bring his entire load of booty to the very edge of the village. The travel is easy due to his skid-sled and the 'grouse line' of the forest- the lack of the vegetation from about five feet high to the level of the ground because of the over-grazing of an out-of-control deer and elk population due to a lack of natural predators.

Mook's mining stash will make him a star and a hero as everyone will be clamoring to get into his good graces for a share of the spoils. He delights at the thought of when he gets back, he will enjoy a gourmet meal (by his village standards) followed by a fitful sleep in his soft, fur covered bed. He also looks forward to a subtle but firm 'snubbing' of Dak and Suki, followed by the presentation of his generous wedding gift of his prize hunting knife for Dak and of a set of superb sewing needles for Suki. The gifts will cement him as the 'better man' and that will be just-as-well because he will replace those items with better things from the profit of his new stash. They'll be kiss'n my ass!

He gathers-up the best of the blade-plate and bounds up the well-worn village path. When the huts and cabins of his village are in view, Mook can't help but to stop and think the obvious: No southerners?

The meal with his mother and father was tasty and filling but far from 'gourmet' and even though the experience was filled with genuine affection from his parents and serious attention as Mook described the highlights of what he had seen and experienced during his trip, something was wrong, and it wasn't because Dak and Suki weren't present. Due to the current state of affairs, that fact made the evening even more pleasant for Mook, except when he imagined them both off 'snuggling' somewhere, a thought that is sending him into a silent rage with apparently no end in sight, a feeling that is a painful and growing emotion residing just under the surface of his composure.

The problem he noticed at dinner became apparent when Mook started to itemize the yield that were the fruits of his mining labors, and that's when his father shot him a grave look. At a pause in that conversation Mook's father spoke:

"With the smith stocked up for the trade with the southerners, which now seems unlikely, your labors will be welcome to the village, but they are not really needed. And with you leaving so abruptly, and with Dak to be married soon, the chores have piled up. There are roofs to be mended, grains to be threshed, fruits to be dried, preserves to be prepared..."

"What? Has not Dak pitched in? With a woman to do his sewing and cooking, he should have even more time for chores" replied Mook using what he believed to be infallible logic. His parents looked at him with the strangest, blank stare before they both broke out in complete, uncontrolled laughter. Mook doesn't see the humor, and after his parents finally settled down and had to wipe tears of pleasure from their faces, his father seems to beam as if he can't wait to set Mook straight:

"Mook..., Dak is getting married!"

More laugher follows as Mook just gapes towards his parents, which seems to fuel even more gaiety.

As soft and warm as Mook's bed is, his sleep was anything but fitful. Round and round the thoughts endlessly spin through his upset mind: "Dak is getting married-The chores have added-up-Dak is getting married-The smith is stocked up-Dak is getting married-The grain needs the be threshed-Dak is getting married-The roofs need mended-Dak is getting married, and so on. He woke, still upset, but he must have slept at least a little because he did wake. Another reason he is upset is because Dak had not come home, not that he particularly wanted to face him, but a quick check of his bedding showed that he hasn't been there in days. Mook fumes as he thinks about what this means. Suki's room, where her and Mook had spent so many countless hours, talking, dreaming, just figuring out life, bonding, being comfortable with one another, now Dak shares that space with her and what they do is what Mook longed for on all of those cozy evenings. He can see her in his mind's eye, a vision now only from the past, with her all wrapped in furs and speaking softly so her foster parents wouldn't wake and find out how late they had stayed up together. He remembers how he would sneak out the back after a peck on the cheek thinking how he had life be the tail. What a fool I've been!

Mook's father was right about the smith and his overstocked storeroom. He only got half of what his treasures should have been worth- several dozen lou-um tipped arrows, a new spear and some credit. He used that credit at the tanner where he acquired a new backpack and some new boots that happened to fit him perfectly. The last of his earnings went to the butcher and the miller. Pemmican, jerky, dried beans and rice, dried peppers and potato flour. He snuck back to his parent's hut and gathered his meager belongings, his cloth scraps with his carefully copied symbols, his drawing charcoal, his inkpot and quills, his sewing kit and his prize hunting knife. Sorry Dak, you're not getting this after all.

He slipped out along the rabbit pens near the far edge of the rice patties beyond the corn fields. He was supposed to have been doing his long list of never-ending chores, the gentlemen's agreement that earned a roof over his head, but that deal is off. Now that he can see how things really are, now that he has 'got real' it is obvious that there is nothing for him here. There will be no good-byes. His parents will know what happened and why. A man his age is expected to leave the nest. Talking and planning would be awkward and could fuel misunderstandings and probably angry, thoughtless lashing-out. No, it is better this way, just be gone, gone when you should be, like Mook is doing right now. Dak will have to do the chores after all!
Chapter Four: The Odyssey Begins

By Nightfall, Mook is many miles away, farther south than he has ever been before. He follows the trail that the search party had taken because he knows that it leads to the gap in the pass that marks the boundary into the great plains. No one from his village has ever crossed into the plains, he will be the first. After he crosses that threshold, that waypoint, it will be as if he is reborn. He won't be of the north any longer. He won't be quite a southerner ether, he will be something else, something new, a pioneer. It is a thought that drives him forward, makes him both determined and giddy at the same time. Whatever happens, he won't be fooled again.

He tells himself he is on a mission to discover what has happened to the southerners and that is a top priority, but this is more about making his own way, to make something of himself. Oh, he may return to the north someday, but it will be with a family and a tribe behind him with so much wealth and treasure that Dak and Suki will just gasp as Suki soaks in the mighty truth: You picked the wrong man! That will be sweet!

The trail is plainly marked both from the recent travel of the search party from of his 'former' village and by the many markers of carefully stacked rocks that had been assembled over the ages. The idea is that one should be able to stand at one such marker and see the next. Darkness or weather may prevent this of course, and in that case one must proceed south (or whatever direction) and hopefully when coming upon the next of those markers, that will confirm that one is on the proper route.

There are established trails known to Mook's people that branch off to the south and the west, but to the north, that brings one only to the ice fields, and that route changes every season due to the meandering of the rivers as the glacier's melt and shift. East is a different story- no one goes to the east.

The stories of the east are well established, and they are repeated by the elders to everyone as one of their earliest childhood lessons. Mook, was no exception, but perhaps as a result of an 'over saturation' of sorts, or maybe because of his natural skepticism, especially in his current, dark mindset, he has his doubts as to the accuracy and honesty of these warnings. It certainly looks fine he thinks as he looks off to the east as the sun rises from that direction over pleasant enough looking gentle hills and inviting valleys on the morning of his second day on the trail. Monsters, poison plants and animals, places of steamy death where the snow never sticks; just exaggerated stories to scare children, told so often that the senile old fools have begun to believe it themselves. What corn!

The smug, self-righteous and confident Mook walks with a spring in his step and the two, fat rabbits that he had bagged, each with just a single arrow, seems to reinforce his attitude that he has made the right decision and all of his uncertainty seems to have melted away. The world will unfold before him, his questions and doubts will be answered and chased away. He is the master now. The creatures and the forest are at his disposal and will bow down before him.

But Mook is not stupid, far from it, and an underlying paranoia of just about everything keeps his eyes open for bears, pole cats, snakes, spiders; really, almost anything that could kill him, of which there is plenty. Even a trip and a fall could do him in if he broke his leg or suffered some other injury. Such is the life of the very few people left on the Earth of Mook's time. A time unknown to Mook that is the very tipping point of all human existence. The make or break point of what was once the most dominate species of the planet. Will humanity rebound and return to dominance? Or be wiped-away by lack of breeding opportunities and/or an untimely disease outbreak or any of a thousand other worse case scenarios? But the end of humanity is not currently on anyone's list of possible tragedies. The people of this time are too busy just trying to survive. They can't help but realize that others are few and far between, but this is all they have ever known so it doesn't strike anyone as unusual. And as time has effectively wiped away nearly all signs of the mass-produced city state culture of the joke-time, the state of the world of the far distant past is just not possible for the current population to grasp. But many still wonder as the clues of the past spring up from time to time. The smith's certainly see the splines and keyways of the past on the materials, the blade-plate that they forge into useful tools and weapons. They know that these things were once something useful in ways that they can't comprehend, uses that have been lost to time. The evidence shows plainly that these items were once part of things that were developed for some other use. Objects of motion perhaps, but that is where their imagination falls short. The world of highways, train tracks, bridges, dams, airports and skyscrapers has been literally pushed aside and buried, to be rediscovered perhaps by people of science at some point in the distant future, if the human race survives that long.

Mook's mind wanders as he walks along. He often ponders the original uses of the 'sites' that he has 'mined.' He has noticed, along with the smiths, that those 'things' were something else once, long ago. He pulls a piece of cloth from his pocket. An item that he keeps close at hand not because it is necessary or useful, but because it baffles him so completely. He studies the marks that he has so carefully quilled: VORTEC, 5.8, VVTC, DOHC, SOHC, ECOTECH, TWIN CAM, 24 VALVE and dozens of other symbols. What could it mean? Round and round he spins the markings through his mind. He remembers their locations at the sites where he found those symbols and he tries to make some sense of those correlations. He tries to apply some coordination to the shape of the symbols to the shape of the structures from where they were displayed, but all without success. It is something to think about as he walks and walks. Something that has occupied his thoughts a thousand times when he has had time for such rambling, mental nonsense, but he is stopped cold and he puts the scrap of cloth away as he sees something more pressing up ahead.

The buzzards, crows and ravens squawk and circle up ahead and it could mean only one thing- a kill. Mook adjusts his grip on his spear which has doubled as a walking stick for these past many miles, but now its real purpose takes top priority once again because with a kill, there must be a killer. The mix of dread and excitement fills Mook's senses. Dread, because of the danger that the killer, probably a bear or pole cat, (the thought of another human is so rare, that it doesn't even cross Mook's mind) that could still be close and ready to defend its kill. Excitement, because if the killer is away and if it is still fresh enough, Mook could be treated to a score of meat, and so timely, as he has a powerful appetite worked up.

Moving with stealth and positioning himself downwind, he approaches the kill site. He moves some bushes aside to reveal the source of the smell that has guided him these last few yards. It is an odor not heavy in rot, but of recent defecation, which is a good sign ironically, a sign of freshness. He is shocked at what he sees, a sight of which didn't even cross his mind as possible.

Mook is horrified. The corpse is fresh alright, but it will be no source of meat. Mook had hoped to meet a young girl on this trip, but not like this. Her breast show that she was of age, but Mook is ashamed that he had looked at them. It was just to identify the body he told himself, and he didn't remove any clothing to see them, but he did look. She was so thin and scrawny, and her neck shows a swelling bigger than a fist. White spots and other places void of pigmentation crowd out her otherwise dark, brown skin. Darker brown than any human skin that Mook has ever seen before. Her hair, certainly unkempt, is black as disk powder and is of a tight, kinky curl unlike anything Mook has ever seen. This is not a girl of the south thinks Mook. Could this be a 'monster' of the east? Mook is ashamed that he used the word "monster" in his thought. Although the sight of her is certainly gruesome, she was no monster. This is a girl that died of distress and illness that prevented her from finding food, as her throw-up, containing grass and sticks suggests. The skins of her clothing, though not nearly as fitted and finished as the people Mook knew, still showed some hint of style and a neckless, gleaming yellow of a substance that could only be of the joke-time, showed that she was once someone of some kind of stature. Mook took one last, hard look at the girl. So different from anyone he had ever seen before. Her nose was wide, and her lips were thick but Mook could tell that in life she had a certain beauty. He imagined that neckless was a gift from a suiter, a suiter that would never know what had become of the object of his affections, a thought that overcame him with a sense of sadness. The birds came ever closer, trying to resume their gouging and pecking. That situation filled Mook with anger and he swung his spear at them and shouted at the top of his lungs every insult he could muster.

He buried her not where she fell, but on a quiet, nearby hill under the shade of a tree. Despite her grotesque appearance, he carried her gently, lovingly to the grave that he had dug. After all, this was only the second young girl he had ever met that he wasn't related to. That wasn't exactly true, he had met others from the south but right now, it seemed that way to him for some reason. Mook buried her with that neckless still around that horribly disfigured neck and with her knapsack undisturbed and still hanging from her shoulder. Would there have been clues as to her origin in there? Maybe. Would there be something of value that Mook could use? Possibly, But Mook couldn't bring himself to look, it was like a violation of her privacy. Mook buried her to prevent her body from being torn apart by scavengers as is the way of his people. Her body would feed the earth, but her soul would not even be a factor. No words would be said, no scripture would be recalled because that kind of belief and ritual had disappeared with the joke-time.

The day, the night, the weather, the sun, the moon, the stars, life, death, all that the world is, is 'what is' for what is left of man. Perhaps religion will be 'reinvented' sometime in the future but, based on the current understanding of reality, right now, it just doesn't fit the paradigm of these desperate times.

Mook may have been more disturbed at the encounter with the girl than he had realized as he marched on until long after sunset. One footfall after another under the moonlight. He had lost his appetite and had skipped his midday meal. In the firelight when he finally did make camp, he skinned and roasted his last rabbit. He couldn't help but fantasize about sharing that meal with that girl as if she was still alive and she was his guest. He imagined learning her name and hearing about her home, as if he could even speak her language. He fought to make his mind think of something else, but that effort was in vain. Soon his mind was picturing her in life, her mouth with those strange, thick lips smiling and laughing. He imagined he was touching her kinky, nappy hair and he found it unexpectedly soft and supple. He imagined her smiling, laughing face becoming more serious as he moved in for a kiss. A kiss that became long and extended as his hands roamed and moved until they cupped her breast...

Okay, that is enough of that! Mook is horrified at his own thoughts, more disturbing to him than of the entire ordeal of before when he had buried her. What are you thinking? Get ahold of yourself man! More thoughts like that and 'getting ahold' of himself might be the result! What a sick and perverted thought! He tried to laugh it off and think of other, more important things but after he finally fell asleep, his mind spun with strange, dirty nightmares of a sexual nature.

In the east, during the joke-time, there were some one hundred and eight nuclear power plants in operation. As the government and services broke down as populations became desperate, those reactors were dutifully shutdown but that was not the end of the danger. The waste plutonium fuel rods remained in their storage pools, and if they continued to be submerged in the cooling water, they were relatively safe. As humans fought each other and as the chaos reigned, those fuel rods were mostly forgotten. Most of those reactors were located in coastal areas and over the next few hundred years, the rising sea levels covered those pools and helped to continue the cooling of that spent fuel. But as the glacier ice began to form in the north and the sea levels dropped, the newly exposed plutonium became critical and began to spew steaming, radioactive poison. Many of these hot spots were slowly covered in the advancing ice flows and subsequently buried deep (and not so deep) in the reformed land masses but that only increased the danger. Now the bubbling, spewing death flowed directly into water tables and surfaced as springs and as the headwaters of streams and rivers. Other hot spots spewed away directly into the atmosphere, coating all the land and vegetation downwind in forever accumulating layers of poison dust.

Plants and animals (including humans) still survived in those areas, but nature has never developed any genetic mutations in any plants or animals that will help guard against the invisible poisoning of radiation. Humans absorb radiation in the thyroid in the same way that iodine is usually absorbed from salt and other minerals. Unfortunately, the body can't differentiate between natural iodine and the radioactive isotopes, so the thyroid gets overloaded with the isotopes and the body can't absorb the needed and important iodine, eventually causing the uncontrolled swelling of the thyroid known as goiters. Adding to the problem, gamma radiation interrupts the production of white blood cells, disrupting the body's ability heal itself. Another effect of radiation exposure is the loss of the microscopic, living, probiotic systems required for digestion. Sufferers of even light doses of radiation over extended periods of time, starve to death even if they have plenty to eat because they lose the ability to receive nutrition into their blood and body due to the loss of the complex interaction involving the microscopic enzymes and bacteria of the intestines. Direct exposure to higher doses radiation has an even more dramatic reaction- limbs, genitals and facile tissues swell to many times their ordinary size within days (hours, with a strong enough dose) followed by total organ failure and certain death. Pigment reorganization (white spots of the skin) is a permanent and little understood condition afflicting survivors of radiation exposure, but it doesn't seem to be by itself dangerous.

While most of the spewing radiation may have an elemental half-life of about fifty years, the problem is that they are constantly being renewed by the constant and continued emission of endless layers of new isotopes from the many, out of control radioactive hot spots. How long will this be going on? Well..., this may be the most lasting example of the folly of man. Apparently, in about four billion years, when the sun has used most of its fuel and has expanded into a red giant, and as it threatens to swallow up the earth, some (many argue- most) of the nuclear hot spots will still be spewing largely unabated.

The young have an advantage with regards to long-term radiation exposure due to their healthy, young and strong bodies and because less total time on the earth means that they have been exposed to less overall radiation due to nothing more than the briefness of their lives. So, a live fast and breed early situation would be helpful to ensure overall species survival. Most wild animals already operate in this mode by becoming capable of reproduction within a single season or two. Humans are at a disadvantage in this regard, with the chance of a bright future in jeopardy and directly affected by their actual, and potential long-term radiation exposure. Lucky for Mook and his relatives, the wind generally blows from west to the east in the area that they are living, keeping the radiation exposure mostly to the east.

Weary of the trail and still somewhat rattled from stumbling across the dead body of that girl, and now starting to run low on provisions, Mook has lost much of his swagger. He has become even more careful and has started to travel mostly at night (moon permitting) to be less exposed to watching eyes (of ether man or beast) and because as he is now further south, and as it is also well into summer, the heat of the day has become brutal, hotter by far than his village usually gets. He will be climbing the hills soon, towards the gap that opens into the plains and as he rises in altitude, there will be relief from the heat, but the nights will become downright cold. Before he makes that crossing, Mook has made a camp near a watering hole where he has observed that billies come to drink. It has a narrow approach and he will sit and wait in ambush with his spear. One billy will provide a feast and enough extra meat for his entire journey through the mountain pass.

It took days before the wind finally shifted in his favor and a young Billy warily wandered down the approach to the brook. Mook, by that time nearly mad with hunger, let his spear fly with deadly precision. "Thwack!" The weapon hit home on the blind-sided animal apparently piercing the heart because it didn't take more than three steps before it fell in a heap. Mook gorged like a king for a couple of days as he dried more strips of flesh over the fire to preserve it for later. He made a frame from tree branches to stretch the billie's skin across while it cured as he walked with it attached to his pack. That, and some vigorous washing at the next couple of streams that he came across, and the fur covered hide will provide some extra protection from the cold nights ahead.
Chapter Five: A New World

Mook stands tall as he enjoys the view. Fatigue and worry are melting away. Fatigue caused from the apparently never ending and ever steepening climb up this 'pass' which was hardly more than a goat path, and worry, as in the worry about where and when he would get his next meal. Standing here, high above the great plains which seem to stretch as far as the eye can see, shows that his next meal should be easy. Below him, ether running and raising enormous clouds of brown dust or grazing lazily in groups, are thousands, maybe millions of elk and deer, mostly deer.

Unknown to Mook, the mountains that he had just crossed are the build-up of everything that the glaciers of the recent ice age had pushed south. Under Mook's feet is the remains of several great cities, miles of highways that include hundreds of thousands of cars, trucks and buses. Rail lines, including the stations, bridges and switching yards are packed under his feet and so much more is also included, all hidden away. This is where it all ended up, the edge of the ice flow. Even more completely covered over now because of the ash build-up of the super volcanos that erupted to the west that formed these new, great plains, much of it right over the 'old' great plains that were already here before. All of that has literally made a truly new world covering and erasing the old.

Without wolves or even dogs, and with bear sticking to the forest and pole cats remaining mostly solitary, and with endless grassland available, populations of deer and elk have exploded. They stretch as far as the eye can see.

It will take nearly all day for Mook to make his way down the trail to the plains proper, but once there, he has a fat deer within a few minutes. The damn thing nearly ran right into his spear as he made camp. With so many targets available, and if he would have waited, he may have been able to drop one right in his fire pit! The thought of the southerner's trading a couple of pelts for a fine spear point of blade-plate seems absurd now. Boy, they were taking advantage of us!

Mook had taken a big hunk of the deer's back-strap, seared it golden brown on smooth rocks that he had heated in the fire, then he boiled it for hours with wild onions, carrots and red peppers. The meat was so tender that it pulled apart without even using his knife and melted in his mouth. That night, after that big meal, he slept so soundly that the thunder didn't even register until it was right above him. Even then, he was still nearly too full to move, that was until the rain started. But this wasn't rain like he was used to back at his village, this was something else entirely. He was lucky he heard the roar coming across the flat, nearly dry riverbed and that he had most of his gear already gathered up when he realized what was happening. Fortunately, his camp was just a short way from the trail back up into the hills that he had come down, and with the almost constant lightning flashes to light his way, he sprinted back up the trail like a mad man. With only seconds to spare, he was up high enough that when the wall of water roared past, he remained safe. But the rushing water took away his new goat skin and his other sleeping furs as well as the gutted dear carcass which was to feed him for several more days. Just as he was thinking about how at first light, he would walk down the stream bed and try to recover those items, the real trouble hit.

Lightning, thunder, and rain like this was completely unknown back at the village where he grew up, especially in the summer. But here, the summer is monsoon season, and quite unknown to Mook, this area was known some ten thousand years ago as "Tornado Alley." "Tornado," is a term Mook had never heard and a concept that he could never have imagined. Although later he would recall that some of the visiting southerners spoke once of something they called a "Tube Wind" and they would make a vertical hand gesture when they said that as they looked to the sky, but to Mook and his people, they all thought it was just one of their tall tales.

Mook just sat there panting, exhausted from sprinting up the hill as he watched the water race by. More water than he had ever seen before, and the noise was deafening. What a minute, water doesn't make that kind of noise and where did my breath go? I breathed out and now I can't breathe in..., "Ouch!" he said as his ears popped, and then his feet left the ground.

The ascension was smooth, almost dream like and he caught the sight of a nearby, duplicate funnel cloud just before he was ripped and torn to pieces like a ragdoll shaken in a dog's mouth.

Pressures in his lungs and nasal cavities became quite different from the air pressures just inches from his face and body, subjecting him to the most excruciating pain and discomfort imaginable which made the feeling of his backpack and most of his clothes being torn away from his body almost tolerable. But as he was being thrown up and back down and as his eardrum was ruptured, and as his shoulder was dislocated, and as blood flowed from his nose and mouth, it was then when he was bashed against the rocks of the cliff face and mercifully sent into the depths of unconsciousness.

Mook woke and it was the beginning of a splendid, beautiful, fine summer day. For a split second, he thought it had all been a nightmare until he took a deep breath, or as I should say, tried to take a deep breath. The pain was excruciating, and all his senses became alert to a level that he had never known before, and not just because of the pain, but because of the realization that he was in real trouble. The realization was that he might die.

His face was covered in dried blood and he couldn't breath through his nose. Nose must be broken. Left shoulder- actually, his entire left side was black and blue. Shoulder, collar bone, arm, ribs, all broken. Deep, dark bruising on both legs, groin, buttocks, oh face it, everywhere! Ears ringing, head pounding, vision fuzzy. This is bad! He tried to sit up but pain, a new and incredible level of intense, deliberating pain racked his entire body to a point that everything went black and down he went. "Pop!" Mook landed on his left shoulder and the pain that he was passing out from, suddenly jolts him wide awake and forces him to scream and cry like a baby. He let fly with all his anguish and at some point, he noticed that he could now breathe in between his wails. Apparently, when he fell back from trying to sit up, he somehow popped his dislocated shoulder back in.

Thirst is what finally got Mook moving. It took hours, but eventually he got back on his feet. Turns out he didn't seem to have any broken bones, a few fractures perhaps, but nothing compound. A firm, painful yank on his nose seemed to pop things back in place although that started the bleeding once again. He moved towards a puddle of standing water. He bent down and his head pounded as he got close to the ground. He was just about to bring his dry, parched lips to the water and its promise of refreshment when he got a look at his reflection. Who is that ugly fellow? He laughed when it dawned on him that it was his image. He laughed hard! I probably couldn't even 'get with' that dead chick now! That thought made him laugh and laugh and after he quenched his thirst, he laughed some more with a crazy, psychotic edge and ring to his laughter.

Mook started to get his senses back and he climbed up a little hill and discovered he had no clue as to where he was. He could see the mountain range that he had entered the valley from, but the exact place and the trail he came down was as gone as gone could be. He probably could have hiked that area for a year, and he wouldn't have found his way back. Face it, he is lost. Not only that, but except for his boots and about half of his loin cloth, he was naked and without any weapons, which was just was well because the game herds seem to have moved out of the area.

He wandered towards the mountains, hoping in vain to find where he had entered the valley and he kept an eye on the creek, hoping to find some of his gear, but mainly he kept to the mountainous side of the plain to stay in the shadows cast by the mountains to keep from getting sunburned any worse. By the third day, he was losing hope. He was so hungry that he was chewing on his belt. It was so cold at night that without clothing, a blanket, or anyway to start a fire, he shivered all night and couldn't sleep. He was covered with bites, cuts and scrapes on top of his other injuries. He was nearly at the end of his rope when he found them, the 'reason' for his mission.

There were five of them total, one up a hill, one stuffed in a ravine and three of them all bunched together in a heap. He recognized some of them, or what was left of them- the southerners, and they were dead, long dead. Dead from certainly before the storm, and as Mook looked them over, it was plain to see that they had been murdered. Stabbed, beaten and with their throats cut. They had been stripped of valuables; shoes, backpacks, bundles, weapons and jewelry, all gone. That was the case until Mook looked closer at the one on the hill. This one was different; he had similar crude clothing as the dead girl that he had come across earlier. He also had the same white blotches on what was left of his rotting skin. But as he used a stick to roll over that corpse, there were two, incredibly useful discoveries; a small bindle attached with a strap around his neck and a spear point of blade-plate, broken off at the shaft and stuck in his chest. In the bindle was a flint and steel and a kit of sewing needles. Mook dug the spear point out of the rotting body and he attached it to a suitable, new shaft made from a straight stick that he had found using wet leather strips made from the clothing of some of the other victims. When the leather dried, it shrank, tightening bond and it ended up nearly as strong as when using disk hair.

Even though most of their things had been stolen, the corpses still yielded some useful furs and clothing, and after some vigorous washing in the creek, Mook now had suitable protection from the elements. The next morning, after finally sleeping with a fire that night, game had started to move back into the area and Mook made a kill with his new spear and he finally had meat for his dinner that night.

Mook wandered for several more weeks trying to find the trail that he had come in on, but it eventually dawned on him that he had been carried at least several miles during that storm and he had no idea which direction that he had actually traveled. Regardless of that, by now he had bagged several deer and he had hides curing and meat smoking and drying back at his camp. His injuries were healing, and his strength was returning and even his face had returned to a mostly normal condition so, except for being hopelessly lost, things were looking up.

They appeared to have entered the area from the east but in Mook's desperately lonely state, he apparently didn't notice, or he just didn't care. Mook climbed a hill and when he was close to them, he started waving his arms like a maniac.

"Hey!... Hey there!... Come here to me there!... Me friend I am!" (I believe I did mention how bastardized Mook's language had become.)

One of the men responded and slowly started to make his way towards Mook as the others with him seemed to suddenly disappear. As the man came closer, he made a gesture as if shoveling food into his mouth and asked:

"You got um grub to eat?"

"You betchem I do! Gots plenty good and fresh I do!" answered Mook as he rubbed his belly with a satisfied grin on his face to help make his point. That is when Mook noticed the white blotches on the man's skin and whizzing in from the side, an arrow hit home and stuck in Mook's tender, left shoulder causing him to wince in sharp pain and bend down just as another arrow missed by fractions of an inch from lodging into his neck. The attackers had moved to his sides in an ambush, pincer move. Why would they do that? Mook asked himself as he grabbed the arrow shaft sticking out from his shoulder and broke it off cleanly while he started running as more arrows flew close on each side of him.

He is cut off from his camp and that was where his spear and bow and arrows are, so, with no chance at arming himself, he ran in the direction directly away from the threat. Running blindly across the fields with no plan or clear thoughts- just get away! He came upon a deep rift where a creek had cut a mini canyon in the otherwise flat prairie and Mook fell head over heels into it, tumbling right to the bottom where he quickly scrambled to his feet. He splashed across the shallow creek and as he started to claw his way up the other side, something gave way and he tumbled into a void of some sort, a cave of some kind, and as he felt something loose, he grabbed whatever it was in an attempt to use it as a weapon or to block the opening just as one of the attackers caught up to him, and to Mook's astonishment, the entire hillside came down, forcing Mook deeper inside the void and apparently crushing the attacker under debris while sealing the opening.
Chapter Six: The Truth

Tons of debris had fallen as Mook scrambled backwards into the darkness, barely avoiding being buried himself. The first thing he noticed after he had caught his breath was the almost total silence, but there was one small noise besides his breathing and his heartbeat, and that was the slight, unmistakable sound of lapping, moving water deeper in the pitch darkness somewhere behind him. Mook felt around and got the flint and steel from his clutch and struck it for a split second of light to view of his surroundings. "Flick," incredible!

The 'cave' that he had stumbled into was of a sort that Mook could never have imagined. The flash from his flint revealed a strange structure of beams and girders, constructed to reinforce the walls of this 'cave.' More 'flicking' showed that the 'loose' item that Mook had disturbed to try and slow the advance of his attacker, was part of that reinforcing structure, a corroded bit of framing that when he moved it, it had started the avalanche that apparently crushed the foe but may have also sealed Mook in, and may have ultimately sealed his fate.

Mook reached out and carefully touched some of the remaining structure and as he had suspected, it seemed to be made of blade-plate, more of it, and all of it in a size and of dimensions larger than he had ever seen before.

He flicked and moved deeper into the chasm, slowly making his way towards the babbling water noise. In only just a few yards, the corrosion of near where he had entered was replaced by more blade-plate framing still in its original and robust appearance with its bright, white coating still smooth and glossy, and it reflected the light from Mook's flint in glorious, startling detail. The surface under his feet is a smooth, finished, gray 'rock' of some kind that was adorned with bright, painted lines, yellow near the walls and red and blue running right down the center of the corridor. The 'walls' appear to be rough-honed 'rock,' but it has a strange, uniform, white and yellow, natural, sparkling color to it. Mook is drawn towards this 'wall' and he is compelled to touch it. The substance crumbles under his fingertips and seems familiar. A taste confirms his suspicions- salt, a mountain of it.

Placards adorn the corridor's walls with the coded symbols of the joke-time: WATCH YOUR STEP, HARD HAT REQUIRED, FIRE EXTENGISHER, and other scripts, all baffling and a mystery to Mook. He has nearly forgotten the danger and the fact that he may be sealed in and that he is probably doomed, as he continues to move ever deeper into the void. He has even forgotten the wound of the arrow tip lodged painfully in his tender shoulder in his current state of overwhelming, curious fascination. What could this place be?

The salt mines of the lower Midwest provided a unique storage potential after the salt extraction operations were complete. Salt provides an ability to absorb moisture, leaving items in that atmosphere free of electrolysis thus preventing rusting and rot. The miles of underground passages and voids provided rooms for a second life as storage units for business and government records and papers, film masters, fine art, really anything that needed to be preserved for posterity. When the world became unstable at the end of the joke-time, people with the means utilized these places in the hope of returning someday for their most prized possessions.

In time, the eruptions of the super volcanos to the west, laid down ash hundreds of feet thick in places, burying any sign of the entrances to these facilities along with everything else in the area. Occasionally, shifting sands, landslides or erosion exposed parts of these constructions and other structures, and after more time, corrosion, oxidation and over-growth tended to eventually erase those breeches once again, at least in appearance, but as Mook (and his pursuer) found out, these breeches are occasionally still rediscovered. This place has triggered a thousand questions as Mook explores, but as he enters a large chamber, one question he has had for the longest time is finally answered. (Sort of.)

The chamber is filled right to the ceiling with so many intriguing and fascinating items, but right in the center is one thing that fills a long-standing, intellectual void and it brings Mook a certain satisfaction. It answers the question that has baffled him for so long and it is wonderful, beautiful, even sexy. Seen ever so briefly in the flashes of his flint, still, it is overwhelming, fascinating, even though it is covered in some kind of sheer fabric. But even its silhouette has Mook in awe. With each flash of light, he can't believe that it is real. It is like dream. He tries to gather up the fabric cover, but it disintegrates with his touch and the fabric crumbles into dust revealing an outer finish that has beaten the test of time and gleams once again for Mook to see with each flash of his flint. What a treat to see that shape and form. So, this what these things were, fantastic! Now that he has seen it in all its original glory, there is no doubt concerning its function. Of course, how simple, how elegant! With the open design of this particular example, Mook can see right into the operating area. The big, round device that dominates the control position is connected by linkage to the front, black disks. The floor pads are used by the feet to coax the relic (somehow) into motion and perhaps, yes, bring it to a stop as well. The small, elegant controls of the panel facing the operator bring it all to life and the needles under the glass faces provide information of all that is happening. Amazing! This time, and for the first time, the silver, jeweled symbols adorning the rear of this, this thing, plainly reveal to Mook their purpose even though he can't understand. It is obviously the name of the device:

PORSCHE SPEEDSTER.

After walking all around the device and flicking his flint to gaze at it from every angle, Mook finally switches his attention to more pressing matters. He examines the perimeter of the entire chamber and he fails to find any escape. The source of the babbling water is from the rear of the chamber and it is a fast flowing, underground creek that spans what would be the passage to more chambers if all beyond that point was not collapsed and impassable. The water appears to be potable and Mook satisfies his thirst.

He spends the next several hours inventorying the things inside the chamber. Tubs, crates and boxes, nearly all of which disintegrate with the slightest handling, spill out once useful and splendid items, but now nearly all those things turn to piles of dry dust if disturbed. Clothes, blankets, bedding, anything flexible just seemed to crumble away even under the most careful handling with all the time that has passed. Mook recognized one item and if he is careful with them and if he sets them up gingerly, and in places where they will not be disturbed, they seemed to still function- candles. Even though they are incredibly dry and brittle, once lit with the help of the tinder dry material inside of some of the hundreds of rectangle objects from the many shelves, a layered substance that Mook managed to easily set fire to with his flint and steel, the candles seemed to still provide light in a controlled and lasting fashion.

In that light he examined the insides of those rectangles more closely. They are packed with the symbols of the joke-time. Some had pictures that are so life-like that they must certainly be actual, real images of sights, captured somehow and transferred to these thin layers. Mook sat for hours close to the candlelight and examined hundreds of these images and correctly deduced that they were actual visions of the joke-time, but he didn't see any of it as a joke. Buildings, highways, ships, trains and the most unbelievable of all; aircraft. No way! Images of cityscapes, with buildings as far as the eye could see. What corn! Where would it have all gone?

The symbols must be a code that captures information, 'talking,' and what stories they must tell, but even as he examined the thin, flat layers inside the rectangles, they dissolved and disintegrated right before his eyes. As fascinating and interesting as these things were, another more urgent condition has surfaced- Mook is getting hungry.

Some items still retained some usefulness even after all this time. Hunting knifes, including one longer then his arm that is sharp enough to shave with. Strange, shiny silver tools, some of which seemed to match the 'pins' of the beams and girders of this chamber and other, smaller ones which matched the 'pins' and 'buttons' (he had no correct names for these items even though he had seen heavily corroded examples of them in his 'mining') of the device, the wagon, the people hauler, oh I give up! (He searches for a clever name for the Speedster but so far, he has come up short.) One tool he does recognize, and one that he has much experience with, are hammers. He sets the biggest one aside with the thought of pounding his way out of the collapsed entrance.

Another thing he discovers and correctly identifies are the dozens of finely crafted and perfectly preserved hand and shoulder weapons of a strange and wondrous design. He fiddles and plays with one until he learns how it opens. He sifts through the thousands of still shiny 'inserts' that have spilled out of their crumbling boxes that litter the shelves and the floor, until he finds some that fit perfectly into the rotating 'holder' of the hand weapon that is currently his focus of interest. He figured out how the hammer must strike the flat end of the 'insert' but to what effect? He wisely kept the device pointed away as he tried to operate the weapon. The five impacts on five of the inserts had no effect but the sixth produced a puff of smoke. Mook, unimpressed, started to open the worthless device again when he heard a strange hissing and he noticed that the 'insert' was releasing a trace of smoke and was definitely making a faint, hissing sound when suddenly, "footh" and the pointy part of the insert flew out of the device with the force of a light cough and with only the power to skip and roll on the floor with not even enough momentum to reach the wall. That was it? What a joke! The bullets, at least the ones that Mook had tried, have lost their effectiveness after ten thousand years.

Mook put that aside and discovered stacks of silver, cylinder shaped, blade-plate (that's a strange use for blade-plate) containers stacked up on shelves and some still had faded images on them that looked like pictures of food. The plate of the containers appeared thin and Mook used one of the knives to pierce a hole in one of them and the smell emitted was rancid. Again and again he tested each one until all were pierced and it is official, canned food does not last ten thousand years.

Mook was becoming desperate. He found what were once sacks of flour, sugar, pasta, rice, and smaller packages and containers that were for condiments and spices, but time had turned each one into nothing but a residue, an element, a stain, a trace coating of what it once was, but Mook licked, sucked and chewed anyway getting some trace taste but no, real nutrition. He tasted the paper of the 'rectangles,' "yuck!" He found leather items and he actually chewed and swallowed some parts of those things.

After several days however, it was clear that Mook was starving, and he was losing his strength. He had examined the collapsed opening that he had entered this place through, but all the pounding with all the hammers in the world wasn't going to budge any of that stuff. The same was true with the flattened structures beyond the rushing water.

He ended up at the edge of that water, surrounded with lit candles staring madly for any sign of fish. There were none. All that he could think of to do was to use that candlelight as he sat there and occupy his mind by looking at pictures in the rectangles (books) and perhaps find a clue as to the secret of the symbols as he waited for death.

Hungry, week and tired, he begins to feel sleepy as the book he is holding slipped from his grip and fell into the water. He starts to fish it out but why bother. I had seen all the pictures anyway. It floats and turns in the current, working its way to the back of the waterway when suddenly it disappears, and is gone. Wait a minute, wait just a ding-dong minute! Mook's mind is spinning, his body gets a second wind of energy. Of course! That'll work! Ha!
Chapter Seven: A Desperate Plan

After the outer layers of the roll of the cord that he had found were peeled away, what was left seemed to have some strength even after all this time. The same was true for some of the bedding cloth that was deep under all that had turned to dust, not a lot of strength, but enough. Mook piled the rectangles (books) into the sheet of the 'good' fabric that he had found and wrapped it all together into a man-size wad and using the 'good' cord, and he tied it all together. The plan was as simple as it was fool hardy, but it is all he has. If it didn't work and killed him, it didn't much matter. He was going to die here anyway if he did nothing. He drags the mass to the water's edge, and he is pleased as it seems to be about the right weight. Feels like dragging a man. He had what remained of the good cord tied to his 'wad' and the rest of the reel is set up to spin off the roll using an axle of blade-plate (a long socket extension from the tools) as the cord payed out.

The bound together wad splashed into the water with Mook's push- the test has begun. All Mook's senses are keen and alert. He watches as the wad bobs and weaves as it floats and slowly makes its way to the far end of the pool and just as he had hoped, the wad picks up speed at the last second and disappears. The spool spins madly, zipping up to a screaming pitch before the cord ran out leaving the empty spool spinning in a blur before it started to settle down.

Good-good-GOOD! EXCELENT!

Phase one of the test is complete. Observing the spinning spool proved that there are no obstructions for at least the length of that cord. (About a hundred and ten feet.) Phase two is to simply wait and watch for rising water. Mook has a mark scratched in the edge of the pool and if the water does not rise, it means that the wad has not plugged up the passage and there is hope that it exits somewhere outside. It is all a fool's gamble, there might be a thousand reasons why the water might not rise, but Mook has no choice, he will exit, or he won't. All he is sure of is that for the first hundred and ten feet, he should stay moving. Whether he is bashed and broken on rocks the whole way, or if he is wedged into a crevasse or a hole and drowns, (or just plain drowns) that is anyone's guess.

Mook has tightly tied all the useful items he could think to his body and what he has chosen is very little. Several exquisite knives, a sewing kit of unbelievably high quality and a large cooking pot is about it. But the cooking pot is pure genius. If he lives through this, he will very much want and need this extraordinary and fine, large cooking pot, but it is how and why he actually carries it that is genius. He has stuffed it thoroughly with all the fabric scraps that he could find that have stayed relatively whole. Then he placed the pot over his head and stuffed all the fabric that he could around the sides of his skull. Last, he looped cord through the handles of the pot and around his chin and back through the handles and down under his armpits and back and forth over and over and over again. He looked ridiculous of course, but the measures should save his noggin from being bashed to bits on rocks and leave him with a highly useful cooking pot if all goes well.

Enough time has passed. The water level has not risen. He has double, triple, quadruple checked his gear and is improvised 'crash helmet.' He gets in the water. Cold! He makes his way to the far end. He feels the increasing flow past his legs as he gets closer to the far end. He plans on tucking his arms in close to his chest for protection (his left shoulder is still tender from being dislocated and the arrow point he dug out didn't improve things all that much) and he hopes to keep his booted feet out in front of him to deflect himself off of any obstructions. He inches his way closer to the far end of the pool and the hydraulic forces around his legs are immense, he can barely stay standing, so he takes a deep breath and...

A tenth of a second later, Mook realizes this may have been the stupidest plan possible. First of all, his plan to use his feet for control and for some measure of impact protection was insane. There was no control whatsoever. Second..., well, there is no second. Mook's 'helmet' made a fine, 'drag chute' as it caught the current and it flipped him violently around pulling him along by his head at breakneck speed (literally!) through the pitch-dark void. He heard and felt two or three collisions on his cooking pot crash helmet as it pulled him directly into unseen rocks and he seen stars before everything went dark.
Chapter Eight: Lucky Duck

The dented cooking pot was the first thing Lissa noticed as it floated by. As she wades in to retrieve the treasure, she saw the strange bundle wedged in some branches of a beached log. She marveled at the fine pot before she tossed it up on the riverbank for a more thorough inspection later and she began working the bundle free from the branches. It is made of a sleek, sheer fabric and it is bound together in a fine cordage, both of which were made of materials that are fantastic in quality, and such as she had never seen before. But as fantastic as it appeared, the slightest tug and the sheer fabric tore as easy as a dry, dead leaf, spilling the rectangles out in droves. What the...? Her thought is cut short as she catches a glimpse of an image on an open page of one of those strange rectangles of a bejeweled lady wearing a bosomy, ballroom gown. Never in a million years could she have imagined that a woman could be so beautiful and that clothing so glamorous could exist. I must be seeing things she thought and as quick as the image appeared, the current tore the fragile page loose, folding and flipping it away, never to be seen again.

The girl scooped, cradled and tossed, rescuing all she could, even if it seemed to be only little piles of mud. She had never seen anything like these things before, no one had. She even ran down the riverbank and waded in to retrieve the ones that were getting away. "Oh no you don't" she said to herself as she grabbed them. Within minutes, she had the bundle and what she could save of its contents safely on shore and then she closely examined the cooking pot. How the...? She thought as she looked at the detail of the pot's construction. The smiths of the north didn't make this. Dented or not, this is by far, the finest pot she had ever seen. She was about to gather up her treasures and bring them back to camp when she had another thought. Maybe more has washed up and she walks upriver to investigate, keeping a sharp lookout.

Not far up the creek, she seen it- a heap of drenched, soaked matter curled up and baking in the sun, just out of the water and up on the riverbank. She thought it was a drowned bird, a goose or a duck, but as she got closer, it was bigger than that, and it was breathing. What the...?

It was a big day for Lissa. Her entire clan sprang into action as the "Duck-Boy" (the name that came to mind and that suited the drenched, wounded young man) was carried into camp along with the strange treasures that were found near him. He was delivered to the tent of the medicine man.

As the medicine man worked, everyone gathered around the books and marveled at the pictures one by one as the pages were carefully turned and examined. Such scenes of grander and splendor were simply overwhelming and quite unbelievable to these simple folk, but try as they might to preserve and save them, by the next morning the soaked materials had swelled and the ink had ran until it was all just a mush of gray porridge, all within just the time span of that one day. Even so, all of it was carefully dried in the sun to be used as tinder for fire starting if no other use could be invented and even then, sometimes an image would still appear as the material was pulled apart and the entire tribe would gather and gape at it before it was put to flame.

Lissa tended to Duck Boy under the direction of the medicine man. It had been days since he was found and if he didn't wake soon and drink some water, he would surely die. She had washed the young man and treated his wounds with a salve that the medicine man had prepared, and she decided that he was not such an ugly duckling. He was about the same age as her and the lack of suitable mates made it important that he must live. She had already decided that his fate was to live, and for him to be her mate, so she tended to him with a vigor that one might reserve for a beloved pet. This mindset is not unusual for her or her people, after all she found him and that meant he belonged to her, to do with what she willed and wanted. Whether Mook went along with this plan was not her concern. If he resisted, she would trade him for a pair of shoes or a new coat or whatever. That is their way and if he knew what was good for him, he would cooperate. But first, he must live.

Mook opened his eyes to a cloudy, fuzzy, painful vision of light and color. His throat seemed swelled to a point that he couldn't swallow. Moisture seemed to be pouring in, being forced somehow by a gentle hand but he could not respond, and his eyes closed once again, perhaps for the last time. Gentle, soothing assistance and support was suddenly replaced by something else, something abrasive and unpleasant. Something that Mook wished would stop so he could return to the dreamy state of unconsciousness that existed for him as he hovered between life and death. But like the beating of a drum, the force continued until he realized that his face is that drum.

Lissa had seen his eyes flutter and as she was instructed by the medicine man, she began to slap his face as she called out for him. She must bring him back to the living with brute force or he would not last another night.

Slap-slap-slap, "Come on you stupid drown duck," slap-slap, "You want-be feed for bears?" Slap-slap. Finally, Mook opened his eyes and he has in his vision the stern, round, pudgy face of the person that is pummeling him so. What is happening? Why is this happening? What did I do to deserve this? His swollen, parched throat suddenly opens and Mook takes a deep breath and the abuse stops. His vision is far from clear and his hearing is just registering some chaotic jumble and when he started to close his eyes again. Slap! His eyes open wide and for real this time.

Even in this dream state, he can feel intense pain throughout his entire body as the cup is placed to his lips. The pudgy, round face assumes a pleasant, attractive quality as he manages to harness the muscles to swallow the cool, refreshing liquid down his tight, dry, useless throat. The face administrating the life-giving nourishment smiles broadly and Mook has found a love for that vision as he falls into a sound, fitful sleep instead of the death coma of unconsciousness of before.

The dream is warm, pleasant and 'pillow like' in a strange way that Mook has never known before. He has soft, quiet visions of food, and of people gathered around him who are interested in everything about him. He slowly wakes in a womb-like embrace that is so snug that he can hardly move. That is fine with him because it is soft and comfortable in this embrace, in this place, and besides, his slightest movement seems to bring only sharp, shooting pain, as if his entire body is sprained.

"What'a, can't move right first little drowned duck? Bett'a take it easy now" said a girl's soft, breathy whisper directly into his ear.

Strong but gentle hands work out the kinks and knots from his wrenched muscles with a practiced precision, beginning with his legs and they move up and over his entire body, slowly and completely, leaving nothing without due attention. Mook has never been so pampered, so comfortable, and he can't help but savior her every touch. Many pleasant, hot, breathy moments pass before he realizes that he is naked, and under blankets of soft furs somewhere, and it is a surprise and somewhat shocking when he realizes that his masseuse is also quite naked and under those fur blankets with him. Soft light is filtering in and with that light, he can see her, and he watches, trance like, her warm, soft, round, body heaving back and forth and up and down as her hands perform their magic. As she lifts him slightly to work the sinews of his back, her breasts brush against his chest with her every thrusting, pushing movement of her strong, soft hands and even in his painful, malnourished and injured condition, Mook's unencumbered manhood responds. Lissa notices that reaction and grabs ahold with a smile.

"Duck Man mate-ready so soon I see!" She guides him into her, but with a mixture of surprise, shock, pain and weakness, a token performance is all Mook can muster before a twitching, spastic, trusting movement, of which he has no control, takes over his actions and it seems to be originating from somewhere deep in his body, from a place he has never known before, and it is followed by the powerful, awkward but immensely satisfying draining of his loins, and in an embarrassing mess, Mook passes-out with the warmest, greatest pleasure that he has ever known.

"Dat okay my little duck, when strength return, I show you what to do" she said softly and with an eager sincerity and proven determination.
Chapter Nine: Suddenly a Husband

Lovestruck Mook, his strength building everyday due to all the 'exercise' that he has been getting, and now with his outlook and confidence peaked, as if he has solved what were only mysteries before, as if he has mastered a new game or solved a puzzle or just learned how to play correctly with a new toy.

He is trying hard to fit into his new clan. There is some gaps in the language, and Mook is side tracked with matters involving his new, physical experiences, and he is finding that hard to keep private, but that is not the problem as Mook wants desperately to share the knowledge of what he had discovered back in that cave. He believes it is a breakthrough in understanding the big picture of understanding all things, the secrets of the world, but as this tribe has never done any 'mining' and the mysteries of the 'sites' that Mook has so wondered about, those things have never been much of an issue for this tribe. Only the strange cooking pot, the knives that were tied to Mook, and to a lesser extent the images that were in those books are of any interest to these people and that interest seems only on a level of entertainment. What is of interest to them is where exactly is it that Mook had come from. (Besides the fact that he is obviously from the north.) But as he was nearly instantly knocked unconscious, his underwater travels may have been a hundred feet or a hundred miles, he just doesn't know. But what is most important and urgent to this tribe, is what he may know about the dangerous people of the east. He had mentioned that he had contact with some of them and when they heard that, they weren't interested in hearing about anything else. Their lives depend on extracting any useful information possible.

This tribe has also grown-up with horrible stories of those from the east but for these people it is much more than stories from the elders meant to frighten children, it is life or death. They listen to Mook's account, absorbing every detail. They believe from all his information that the dangerous monsters must be only over in the next valley towards the east, less than ten miles away. With Mook now well enough to travel, a decision must be made; retreat to safer lands or stand and fight.

Ten thousand years have passed since the last known war, but current situations and conditions cannot be ignored. The fact that Mook was attacked even after offering food is strong testimony and to ignore the growing threat from those dangerous and certainly violent, and obviously sick 'people' could be folly. The dilemma of what to do next is as old as man:

"We be thrice da number, an we must be a act'n before da number of da enemy grow."

"To be a kill'n? To solve da problem? Where it a be'n to end?"

"It a be'n to end when they a be'n all dead!"

It is a debate that might also be as old as man. Back and forth it goes until one of the oldest members of the tribe offers information that changes everything:

"Far to da east, but before da poison, I know a place, a place be'n a steep valley, a 'pinch place' dat all from da east must pass to enter our place. We cane stop dem dare! No more cane day come to da flats! On da udder side day stay, an we live in da flats, we live in peace!"

"What? To hold dem? But more an more day will come. We be'a stuck dare, forever!"

"I stay." Mook said as he stands up in front of his adopted tribe.

"I stay at da pinch place, an I be'a bring'n others, from my old place, to protect da flats, for us, for peace."

The tribe is stunned and silent as the thought is pondered. Could it work? It is known that the people of the north prefer to remain in one place to farm and smith, would some of them be willing to move? To guard and protect? Mook knows that his old village is very near a saturation point regarding their current population level. He also knows, firsthand, how important it is to maintain a healthy (and friendly) population out on the plains if for nothing else, then for the purpose of viable mating partners. Mook has taken a big risk to declare that some of his old village would be willing to move, but it is a calculated risk.

The plan is honed and perfected over the next few days: An advanced party will use stealth and camouflage to move out ahead of a main force that will carry the supplies, and that main force will be ready to drop those supplies and reinforce the advanced group when it is required. As the enemy is dispatched, both forces will continue the advance until the reach the very edge of the plains and then they will assemble at the pinch point. While defending that place, Mook and a delegation will return to the north where they will explain the situation and return with a permanent contingent to man and fortify what will be the new, eastern stronghold.

With a stable manufacturing city to the north and a military stronghold blocking the threat from the east, and with the growing, nomadic tribe exploiting the resource rich plains, which in time, will be able to provide additional manpower for defense of the stronghold and will help keep them supplied until they become self-sufficient, the arrangement should provide generational security for the north and the west and could provide leverage for an eventually treaty and trade agreement with the east. The 'people' of the east may be sick and are certainly monsters, but if they are willing to stay in their place and with their own kind, there might be some use to be found for them. (Do you see how racist beliefs may start? Believe it!)
Chapter Ten: The Campaign

Mook joins the frontline squad, the 'pathfinders' they could be called. They start their campaign following the same river that Mook was discovered in. They climb around a waterfall that Mook must have certainly spilled over and it is a wonder that he had survived that. Actually, getting knocked-out quickly was probably why he is still alive. Being unconscious and submerged in the ice-cold water prevented him from taking a breath while under that water. In fact, taking that final plunge over the waterfall is probably what snapped him back into breathing again.

A few miles up past that waterfall, the water seems to disappear under thick foliage and large boulders. Mook knows that under all that is the underground waterway that must lead back to those fantastic objects of the salt chamber. Someday, in the summer when the water is at its lowest, or better yet, if the water's source could be discovered and diverted, he will try to make his way back up and in there. That is something to look forward to sometime in the future. But right now, they appear to have entered the same mini canyon that he had stumbled into as he was being chased that day, before he was swallowed up by the earth. He finds that collapsed hillside from before and the pathfinder's go into maximum alert as they carefully pick their way through the small canyon and they remain hidden as they peak up over the edge and into the plains proper. It is not long before they see the smoke from a campfire.

Now it is 'on.' This tribe has been hassled and harassed more and more over the recent years and each of them have a number of personal injustices and grievances to settle. Their prejudices, biases and bigotries have long since grown beyond any hope of a diplomatic settlement where anything resembling an 'equal' arrangement might be settled upon. Their opponent's status has been declared 'sub-human' and they are hardly anything more than animals to them, and that fact demands this action and will trigger little (if any) remorse.

The human race, so near to being completely extinguished from the face of the earth, and yet once again, what is left of it is on the brink of war. Isn't it amazing? Perhaps that is not the right word. Isn't it disgusting? That might be more accurate. But here are the humans, just at a point of making a comeback when a situation rises and weapons are prepared, tactics are developed, plans are made, and action is prepared to be taken. This time there is no 'King's honor' to defend, no religion to assert, little in the way of assets to procure, only abstract notions of security, pointless satisfaction of revenge and retaliation and just plain old hatred drive them to kill. Past grievances have brought their blood to a boil and only vague visions of an idyllic future will calm and soothe them after the blood is spilled.

So, here we go again. Man has a second chance, a last chance perhaps, and this is the path they chose to follow? Is this our future destiny? Are we genetically hard-wired this way? Why is this the way it must always be? Don't you just want to reach ahead and plead with them to find another, better way? Explain to them that their foes are 'ill' and need treatment and education to rise out of their ignorance? Ha! Who do you think you are? God? Shame on you! You have no right to interfere with their affairs, its none of your business! They will fight and kill and die and you might as well enjoy it. It might as well be nothing to you but entertainment. Perhaps it is God's entertainment. Could that be why we do it? Is that why we are here? To provide a measure of bloodlust for a bored and weary deity? Are we all suckers to be pulled into a joke, so the big man can have another, hearty laugh? Will I be cast to hell for writing these words? Will you join me there for reading them? If that is the case for you and me, for all of us, we might as well go down swinging, so in that light I say to any entity, power or spirit waiting to be entertained:

FUCK YOU!
Chapter Eleven: Attack!

You know what is ahead. You have been warned and yet you continue reading. What is wrong with you? Do you thirst for gore and mayhem? Do you tell yourself that you just want to see what will happen? Don't kid yourself! You're just as human as anyone in this story, just as human as anyone in history. If you think you are somehow above it, an evolved and cultured person, educated and enlightened, reveling in superiority, well think again meat bag! If you were in their shoes, if you were pushed into a corner, with your life on the line, all that haughty 'enlightenment' would fly right out the nearest window! You think you are better than the average soldier, sailor, cop, criminal or hitman? Really? How about with a gun in you're face? Maybe being chased by a frenzied mob wielding machetes? Would that change your tune? Pleasantly promised a hot shower and promptly lead into a gas chamber? Worked and starved to death? Fate of your loved ones leveraged against you? Dignity slowly chipped away? All hope dashed? I could go on and on but face it, if the chips were down, you would be stabbing, slicing and slashing with the best of them. Welcome to the human race baby! You might as well enjoy it.

The scouts snuck around the enemy camp and made an accurate count of their foes. They have the numbers and surprise on their side. Mook stood ready, shaking slightly in fear and awash with grief and tribulation. It is all he can do to keep from vomiting. But when they rushed them, he was right there with them. The surprised, shocked, dumfounded looks on their faces were horrible to witness but they did it, their duty was fulfilled. It was easier than Mook thought it would be. The burden shrank with each slash and thrust until he reached a point of disappointment when they were all subdued. There was a moment of guilt when it was over, a pang of remorse when he looked over the bloody scene, but that was mostly because it was so ghastly and gruesome. But it was the elation of their complete success that was the lasting effect. The bonding and trust of the shared action proved later to be even more important. Now they were something bigger and better than what they were before. Now they are a band of brothers, a team, and a force to be reckoned with. And that people, is why it happens, and why it will keep happening. We will never outgrow it. If we did outgrow it, if somehow, we managed to forget about these things, some other group would come along and remined us of what is what. Just ask the people at the end of the joke-time. They learned their lessons as their life faded away in a pool of their own blood. Sometimes, it sucks to be human.

Mook found his old spear and that proved that they had definitely attacked the right group which delivered a certain, added satisfaction. They searched the bodies for valuables and decided to bury each one and also all of the possessions that they didn't take which will leave no trace left of them, it will be as if they never existed and that somehow made it all neat and complete.

It was still a long way to the pinch place and two more small groups were encountered before they reached that destination. Both of those groups were carefully evaluated from afar but as they clearly showed the signs of the 'poisoning' of the east, they were dispatched without remorse and now with increasing efficiency.
Chapter Twelve: Hold and Fortify

It took some looking, but Mook found what he had hoped to find as he scouted the area of the pinch place. A trail of black disk powder stained the cliffside. Following it up, it led to the tell-tail round, black image just behind the loose sandstone. He had found a 'mining' site. Not only were there flat fields suitable for crops and herding, a fast river for the smith's water wheel and to run the millstone, but also the promise of blade-plate in the area. Everything Mook needed to entice others from his old village to join them here.

The extra weapons from the vanquished were added to their own and were staged in hidden caches at strategic lookouts and suitable attack points. Ingenious hand and footholds were found and/or cut into the cliff facings that allowed quick access to those attack places for those in the know, but would leave chasing attackers baffled as they would have to test and try each approach in dangerous and time consuming climbs while under fire from above.

They worked fast to stockpile enough food to ensure that they could remain on defense for an extended period if required. They found another tight pinch point farther up the valley and caused an avalanche there to slow any approach through that place and did the same directly below their manned, observation and attack points. With all this preparation, they had the means to stop and hold at bey a force much larger than themselves.

As winter was approaching, cabins were built, and firewood was gathered. Now it was determined that Mook could safely return to his former village and those that remained should be able to hold the fort.

This would be a dicey and anxious situation for this normally nomadic tribe. Usually they would be far to the south during the winter to enjoy a warmer climate and follow the game that wintered there, but as they returned to the prairies after the last winter, to hunt the game and to visit and trade with the northerners and for relief of the summer heat, that is when they were ambushed by the growing number of the monsters of the east. They lost many people, more than the four bodies that Mook had come across. They were forced to suspend their annual trip north as they were harassed and abused and forcefully pushed west. They lost valuable planted areas during those unplanned detours. Plans were hatched to dispatch the invaders long before Mook was discovered but the idea to block the plains with fortifications, permanently manned with the assistance of the north and supplied from the west, that was considered a master stroke of genius. Hopefully Mook can convince his former tribe to assist with that plan.
Chapter Thirteen: A Long Trip Home

With the group on the warpath towards the east, the pass to the north that Mook must have come down was pointed out for him when they came upon it. He recognized the trail and even the place of his former campsite. With the new fortifications that they had built in the east still largely undermanned, it was decided that Mook must go back alone. If he hurried, and if he was lucky, and if he was persuasive, he just might be able to bring back reinforcements before the first snow fell. He would have plenty of time to think of what to say to his former villagers to entice them to move to the new place in the weeks that it will take him to get back up there. He must convince at least a quarter of the village to join him, half would be better. The weight of the task ahead for Mook is daunting. He might be in way over his head. What was I thinking? I have no pull, no influence, I may not even make it back!

It is dangerous trip, especially when travelling alone, look at all that had happened to Mook while coming down here! But if confronted by hostiles back at the fortification, they would need all available hands to fight. That would include women and children. He thought of his dear Lissa, her round body even rounder now because of the bulge of a child on the way. She sure has gained the weight! Not that she was so slim before. There are several other girls that are of age in his new tribe and he will use that fact as an enticement for the single men of his old tribe to join him. I wish those girls were a little thinner and a little taller and a lot prettier. He decided to keep that thought to himself. Like there is any other choice for them! Ha-ha!

Autumn can be a dangerous time to travel. When the leaves fall and the grasses stop growing until the spring, there is less for many of the animals to eat, that, of course, is why the deer and elk move to the south following what is left of the grasses. Normally, Mook's new tribe would follow them, but not this season. The billie's, in their thick winter coats, get extra ornery with the lack of food and with the increased danger of attack from pole cats, they guard their trails in the mountains with a vengeance. But it is the bears that are the most treacherous.

Bears have only one thing on their minds at this time of year- food! Fattening up for their winter hibernation, they will eat nearly anything and everything and will go to great lengths and take great risks to satisfy their insatiable hunger. Add to this the fact that the momma bears cast out their yearlings at about this same time of year and you have a dangerous and unpredictable situation. Mook keeps his weapons ready and his eyes open. The markers of stacked rocks guide his way and he enjoyed fine fall weather as he makes good time moving all day and through most of the night when the light of the moon permits it.

When he reached the sight where he buried the body of that starved, young girl, he decided to make camp for the remainder of that night and prepare his evening meal. He couldn't help but wonder about her, what was her motivation? Was she running away? Was she cruelly cast away from her tribe because of her illness? Or because of a lack of food or a combination of those two things? Or was she scouting ahead? Perhaps tasked with reporting back to her people on the numbers and strength of the northern village, in preparation for an attack? Her 'people,' don't make me laugh! Already a cloud of bigoted prejudices dominates Mook's thoughts and shape his worldview.

When his former village came into view, Mook reflected on how uneventful the trip had been. The bears and billies he came across, luckily, seemed to pay him little notice and were mostly going in other directions. Rabbits and quail were plentiful as well as patches of wild onions, potatoes and carrots. He was looking forward to what he hoped would be a somewhat pleasant reunion with his former friends and family and he was surprised at the reaction of the first townspeople he met. Troubled expressions, downcast eyes, and a hurrying away as if bad news must be spread as Mook arrived. It certainly wasn't the warm greetings that he half expected and had hoped for. Things have changed, something has happened.

"Well-well look who it be! Come back to suckle da village teat?" Dak said as he centered himself in the village square so his demeaning insults would be witnessed by all. Mook, blindsided and wounded because of his brother's words, that were obviously much more than a lighthearted ribbing. No, his body language and attitude displayed something more, an anger, a blame about something that must have developed while he was away. As if all that was bad that had happened since he had left, had been squarely and conveniently placed on his absent shoulders.

"What?... No!"

"Don't be a think'n you be a sleep'n in your old bed tonight, it be gone tanks to you!"

"What?"

"Dats right! You a skipp'n out on ya chores an Father must mend da roof!"

"What?"

"Fell right down and broke is neck he did! Do'n your work he was!" Dak said this as he advanced on Mook, to be right in his face as he spoke.

"What? Why was he up there? Why didn't you..."

"An Mother, so disturbed wit grief, the lamp a burn'n so close to da bedding, half da town burned an many dead! All your fault!" Dak said this as he poked Mook in the chest with his finger.

Mook had been through a lot in these past months. His trials and tribulations had changed him. He wasn't the 'side kick' anymore and he wasn't living in Dak's shadow as he was before. He is his own man now, and he is a man who has killed others in battle, something that Dak hasn't done and that fact may have guided Mook's reaction and his next actions. Off went his pack and down went his spear and before they hit the ground, a punch landed right on Dak's nose.

"Why you little shit!" Dak said in a muffled voice as he grasped his bleeding nose. In the next second, Mook had been tackled and Dak's hands were around his throat, and Mook was gasping for air. Dak's face was red with fury and his nose was already swelling as blood flowed and he had a certain, condescending look of control on his face but he underestimated his younger brother and as his free hand located the knife still hooked on his belt, it was pure instinct that thrust it up, and it was pure chance that it landed in Dak's chest in such a way that it pierced his heart.

He didn't mean to kill him. The entire town, drawn to the square by the confrontation, including Suki, must have realized that. But there is Mook, covered in his brother's blood, knife still in his hand and his brother, with a look of total surprise frozen on his face, his lips turning bluer by the second, was dead.
Chapter Fourteen: Surprising Turn of Events

"These things happen," Suki said that to Mook as the village buried Dak the next day. These things happen? No they don't! Thought Mook as Suki waited for a response to her statement, the first words anyone had spoken to him since the 'incident.' Even when he was brought food, good food, the best in the village, and when a family led him to a bed, the best bed, and as he was left with their entire cabin at his disposal and they stayed somewhere else, no one had dared speak to him or even make eye contact. Mook looked at Suki but he was at a loss for words. He could see the hurt and pain in her eyes. She certainly wasn't there to forgive and forget, but yet she was there, standing close to Mook, waiting for something, some kind of response, a starting point perhaps. The spell was soon broken however, as another approached.

The next most senior man of the village now that Mook and Dak's father had died, was the father of the family of smiths, and he informed Mook that there would be a meeting that night after dinner. It was clear, even if he didn't actually say it, that his presence would be mandatory. Until then, Suki would bring Mook up to date on things, but not right away. First, she led him to her old room, that special place of peace and comfort of those so many years in the past. She told Mook that although her and Dak had been trying hard, Suki was not with child. Then she rose on her knees on her bed, the bed that Mook had imagined so clearly, and so often, of her and him together, and when she let her clothing fall, it didn't shock Mook for more than a fraction of a second. Her body, thin, tanned and so perfect, trumped all the misgivings about her being with her brother or the fact that a woman with his child waited for him at the prairie fortress.

Years of lusting desire pushed him closer, and in a flash, he was feasting on her fruits shamelessly and with growing anticipation and genuine, pent-up longing. He preformed ruthlessly, taking control at every twist and turn, like an animal, a beast of physical prowess. Suki didn't know what had hit her or who this person was, and more importantly, where he had been all her life.

Later that evening, Mook entered the meeting with a look of confidence in his eyes. The hours with Suki and the trials of the trail and the action on the prairies had changed him. He was a leader of men now and with one look, everybody could see that. Mook's father had been a leader, the 'big man' of the village. When he died, Dak forced and bullied everyone to be his replacement but his authority was never completely established or accepted. Instead, the town evolved into factions of those who wanted Dak to lead and those who searched for another option. One look at this new and improved Mook had both sides considering a new path. Suki's goo-goo eyed, longing looks towards him while she was at his side went a long way to cement any indecision, surely her apparent, absolute devotion was based on something.

The elders started the meeting by recapping the recent hard times of the village and the tribe but Mook cast all that aside as he declared what was what. He clearly and forcefully laid out the threat of the monsters of the east and the plan already underway to deal with that threat. He didn't stutter, mince words or ramble. He looked everyone in the eyes as he spoke and by the time he was finished, these people probable would have followed him right off a cliff and praised him as they fell to their deaths.

The factions established before helped draw the lines of who would stay and who would go. Many of those who decided to stay agreed to come on the initial offensive to ensure success, then they would return in the spring if they were not needed further. Time is of the essence, so weapons, food and clothing were gathered quickly and within just a few days, the large (by the standards of the day) group headed south, down the well-marked trail with their spirits high and their objectives clear. They could be heard and seen for miles which kept them from surprising any animals, but with women and children in tow, progress was rather slow. Mook decided that he would go out ahead and travel at night when possible to arrive ahead of everyone and make sure everything was as ready as possible for when the others that follow would also reach the destination. At least that is what he told everyone.

Oh shit! What am I going to do? Mook had been sleeping with and now he is traveling with his dream girl not far behind him. They had bonded physically, and they had been reinstating that bond several times a day ever since, and Mook wanted that to stay that way. This is what he had always wanted, and how it had actually happened, that was not important, or at least it wasn't all that important to him anymore. What had happened had happened, and it couldn't be undone. He had never been happier, but Lissa and her family, they wouldn't see it that way.

Monogamy wasn't much of a problem in these times due to the scant population levels. If one was lucky enough to find a mate, it was assumed that they would stay together out of respect and to maintain the fidelity of the family and the tribe. The concept that one would pursue another when already involved, wasn't usually even considered as few relationships were based on anything other than practicality and for anything less than procreation. Physical attraction was a luxury hardly ever even considered. The young were attractive, the old were not. Soon, the young became old so what did it matter? Mating was about shared responsibility and successful outcomes. This was not an era of fashion, and breeding was about providing help for the tribe including assistance of the elderly. For a man expecting a child, a lover was a selfish concept and considered beyond contempt.

Mook hoped that by going ahead of the group, and when he is by himself, he could figure a way out of this mess. Between thinking that he should have kept his mouth shut and stayed with Suki in the north, and other thoughts such as he would very much like to see his child with Lissa grow, and that life with her could also be pleasant, the only plan he managed come up with was a strange, improbable and impossible fantasy to forget them both and continue to travel south.

No one he had ever spoken with knew what was really to the south. There were rumors of a vast desert, but how wide it was and what was on the other side? No one had a clue. These thoughts lingered in the back of his mind, but he shook them away. Forget that! Must stay focused! Easier said than done.
Chapter Fifteen: The East

When the next group from the east reached the steep valley that opened to the prairie, and after they had transverse a troubling and suspicious landslide, only to be ambushed later down the valley at another 'landslide,' the ones that got away went back from where they had come from to report these new developments. That started a chain of events and initiated actions in a host of ways.

First of all, these people of the east were not all monsters. Many that did make their way west were considered social outcasts and had been banished, and for them it was 'good riddance' due to their criminal and violent natures, and many others were just plain sick and had nowhere else to go, but that was not a fair assessment of the conditions and circumstances of the entire eastern area.

Actually, population densities were much higher in the east at this time then they were to the north and especially compared to the numbers of the nomads in the plains to the west. Also, access to the treasures and resources from the joke-time were quite abundant in the east and were mined prodigiously.

Second, the nature of the poison 'hot-spots' were beginning to be somewhat understood and it was learned that they, and the areas downwind should be avoided, meaning that stable populations were thriving in the many other areas that are away from those dangerous places.

Third, when reports of the ambush in the steep valley that led to the grasslands were received, it was these western contacts that were considered the monsters- not them.

Regardless of who were monsters and who were not, an ambush along their boarder was unacceptable and it must be dealt with quickly and forcefully. The leaders of the east already had defense forces organized, and they didn't hesitate to move against the west to nip any trouble in the bud. They arrived at the pinch place within days and in mass, and with their greater numbers and with actual military training and tactics, they completely and efficiently dispatched the dug-in holding forces of the western nomads.

Before finishing them all off however, they learned of the mission to recruit reinforcements from the north, and they moved to deal with that treat as well.

Mook is so wrapped-up in his love triangle 'dilemma' as he hiked down the mountain side of the last part of the trail and into the flatlands of the prairies, that he didn't realize that by then, there were hundreds of eastern fighters hidden all around him. He was allowed to move right on through those hidden forces so as to not blow their cover as they waited in ambush for the main, northern force that they knew from their interrogations that was on the move and heading their way. They must have thought that Mook was an advance scout. If Mook could be dispatched without alerting any others, he would be, if not, what harm could one man slipping through with no clue to their presence do?

Mook noticed that the trail appeared to be much more well-worn then it should have been but in his rattled state of emotion, he failed to put two and two together. He has no idea just how close to death he currently is.

The moon is up early that night and is plenty bright. Mook, his mind still spinning, just isn't that tired or hungry right now so he kept moving until late into the night. He has no idea what a good choice that was. By the time he finally makes camp, he is just far enough away that his pursuers had given up and had turned back around. He has no idea of the carnage currently unfolding behind him.

In the weeks it takes Mook to reach the fortress of the pinch point, he is no closer to figuring out what he will say to Lissa than he was when he started. Oh well, I might as well enjoy these last few evenings before the others get here and everything goes astray. He bounds towards the fort looking forward to a hearty meal and what could be one of his last, relaxing evenings with Lissa. Oh Lissa, what have I done? You don't deserve this!

He stops at the last possible point before he will be seen by the sentries. A few more steps and Lissa will be bounding out in all of her plump glory, ready to share her affection and Mook must put on a convincing act. But what after that? What will she say when Suki arrives? What will they all say? The thought makes Mook hesitate, he is frozen with indecision. He searches his brain one last time for a way out of this mess but nothing new comes to mind. He takes a hard look at the fortress as if that will fix anything. But something is not right. Mook has a bad feeling in his guts, a feeling other than his infidelity, a feeling he can't explain.

Smoke is rising from the camp, but not from the usual fireplaces. Something is unusual about that smoke; it doesn't drift away as it should, it just kind of lingers near the ground. He drops his pack and his bedroll and proceeds on foot with his spear at the ready. After some distance; That's not smoke. After a while further, and when the horror dissipates: I don't have to worry about what to say to Lissa. The smoke? Massive swarms of flies. The horror? Savagely mutilated corpses, including Lissa's.
Chapter Sixteen: Bad to Worse

Gathering his gear, Mook makes a run for it, back the way he came. The extra worn trail makes sense now. How he evaded them on the way down here is a mystery, but he must warn the reinforcements if it is not too late.

It's too late.

The pass that opens into the valley, is littered in corpses, including Suki's. The only thing left to do, if it is not to late, is to somehow try and pass the approaching horde to warn those left in the northern city and help them put up a defense. He is almost about to reach the village, but again, it is too late. The butchers have killed everyone there and have just started their victorious return, packed with booty from their plunder and pillage. It is all Mook can do to stay ahead of them and remain undetected.

After days of constant moving, it is all an exhausted Mook can do to keep trying to put one foot in front of the other. He has not eaten in days. Only shear terror, anger and remorse keep him on the move. He has over-thought his stressed brain into a state of blankness. Every aspect of what has happened has spun in his mind into a big helping of nothing. He might as well be asleep on his feet and if he doesn't stop and rest, he will pass-out and fall to the ground. But he doesn't dare stop, how can he stop and sleep with the horde army so close behind him?

He reaches the pass to the plains once again. He bumbles down the path into the prairie in a blur and from his numbed brain a thought comes to the surface. Yes, that's what I will do. Many miles further after a detour, and now well off the path that leads to the east, he finds a hollow by a creek and collapses. He can't go another step. He is completely exhausted.
Chapter Seventeen: What Next?

Mook wakes and he isn't sure if he has slept for two hours or two days. His dry, pasty mouth hints that it may have been two weeks. He is in a daze. He isn't even sure where he is or how he got there, or why. But as he shuffles off to the creek and drinks, it all comes back to him as a living nightmare. Seething in boiling anger, he spins plans of revenge around in his mind. Yes! I will gain my strength and with stealth and cunning I will slay them all one by one! Pick them off when they are alone and in their sleep! Yes! YES! HA-HA-HA! That's what I will do!

No, you won't. The voice of reason has arisen and has set him straight. Now, Mook just sits here. His grief has him overwhelmed. Finally, one part of his plan makes sense: Must gain my strength. It takes him all day to bag a bag a measly gofer and he is so famished that he eats it raw. With something in his belly, he remembers his plan of before he fell asleep. Yes, that might work. In the coolness of the winter, he will try. There is nothing left here for me now, only despair and heartache.

He will make his way, away from all he has ever known and that will be the easy part because all that he has known is gone. It will take him weeks to cross the vast plains, and as he is doing just that, he runs into the wintering game herds. With a supply of fresh meat, he does build his strength. Also, he had stumbled upon some of the plantings of the nomads and he has gorged himself on the fruits and vegetables and he has stored much more away for travel. They won't need it. He keeps moving, forever moving. He must attempt to cross at this time, the dead of winter, but even now, the heat of the day this far south is intense. He moves mostly at night and during the day he finds shade or makes shade by burying himself in the sand. He subjects himself to near death a hundred times, but he doesn't care. What is more privation and suffering? That is his life now. When it all becomes too much, he thinks of the tender times with Suki, or even the pleasant times with Lissa. At least I had that! Some live their entire life without tasting such pleasure. I am so lucky! He thinks these thoughts as he is otherwise close to starving and parched with thirst and it distracts him from his suffering and gives him hope.

But somehow, he seems to always run across just enough of what he needs to stay alive. Not nearly enough to be satisfied or anywhere close to being comfortable, but as he is about to succumb, he discovers many basic truths; such as crickets contain moisture, or that bone marrow retains nutrition even after bare bones have dried-out in the sun and a hundred other disgusting facts that seem so logical when one is so close to death.

But eventually, the endless sand turned to jungle. He has made it. He had crossed the southern desert and it nearly killed him a hundred times. One thing for sure: I'm never going back; that would certainly kill me! Now he has water, animals to hunt and fruit from trees. But for everything that is good, there is a hundred things that will kill him, and he hadn't penetrated the jungle more than a few miles before he had been bitten by a poisonous snake, punctured repeatedly with poison thorns, had eaten poison berries and had drank stagnant, contaminated water. By the time he was found, even the alligators had passed him by as too toxic to eat.
Chapter Eighteen: Mook Learns His Lessons

The witchdoctor just shakes his head. The gringo has ingested enough toxic bango berries to keep an entire village wasted for a month. Add the snake venom and the nettle gashes and whatever he had been drinking and even if he can keep the fruit wedges that he has been force-fed down, his mind may never function properly again.

For days now, Mook's world has been nothing but a spinning blur of color and sound. But the spinning began to slow with the reaction from whatever was put on his tongue. Now he begins a journey of flying high above the land, looking down on the lush, green jungle. He revels in barrel rolls, back flips and loop-dee-loops. The sun is blue, and the water is orange and the trees are pink, wait! No, their striped, zig-zagged, plaid, those aren't colors. They are now!

When Mook sleeps, he dreams these things. When he is awake, he sees these things. When he is fed, he tastes these things. As he breathes, he is inhaling and exhaling these things. Finally, he sleeps, and he has a dream that he is sober, and that his sight is clear. Next time he wakes, his head is pounding and except for some lingering 'rainbows' and 'vapor trails' that follow things that move, he is now seeing the real world, and he hasn't a clue of where he is or what has happened. But the people seem friendly and again he is fed, and it is something tasty and sweet.

For three weeks, Mook has been in this hut being made to drink and being force fed as the entire village, and even people from neighboring villages have poked their heads in to see the man who had wiped his memories away, whether he wanted to or not. Mook didn't know that this is what had happened. (How could he?) But it turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

Now he is a blank slate, and as he goes out with the men to hunt or with the women to gather fruits and berries, it is pointed out what is good and what is bad and as he has no other memories to conflict with this new knowledge, he has become photographic with regards to recall and he quickly learns these important lessons. He is also quickly picking up enough of their language to get by with, all with a rather bizarre and upbeat personal zest and vigor.

Within a year he is functioning very near normal. In two years, he is not much different from anyone else of the tribe except for his gringo (Anglo) appearance. But the medicine man is not satisfied. He knows if he doesn't remember his past, he will be destined to remain a simpleton, forever locked-out from a deep and fulfilling life. The witchdoctor must wake him, and he has developed a strategy that might do the trick.
Chapter Nineteen: Savage Therapy

The 'soup' is a vile mixture formulated to purge the mind, body and spirit. The 'purging' is defined by violent vomiting. After many bouts of repeated 'purges,' Mook is ordered to inhale the thick, sweet smoke from the witchdoctor's long, ornate pipe. A moment later, all that is beyond the length of his own arms has become a blur. He is handed what should be some familiar items, his old, useless and rotten boots, his fantastic, factory-made knife from the joke-time and his spear of hammered blade-plate, each item is placed in his hands for his inspection with his now fuzzy, narrowed, drug induced vision.

<"How did you obtain these items?"> Asks the medicine man in his native tongue that consists of so many clicks and pops.

<"These things have always been"> answers Mook, now competent and capable in that same language.

<"What is your name?"> Mook is confused, he doesn't understand the question.

<"My name is what I am called."> A logical answer.

<"Everyone has a name, except you. Why is that?"> Mook finds this line of question unsettling. Is this necessary?

<"Where are you from?"> The medicine man's voice is becoming demanding and Mook wishes to be left alone, but that is not going to happen. Instead, just outside of his clear vision, a circle of drummers that had been assembled begin to play. There tempo starts slow and methodical but sharp, harsh and serious.

<"What is your name?"> The drumming interferes with Mook's thinking and before he can form an answer, he is bombarded with more questions as the tempo of the drumming is increased.

<"Where are you from?">

<"Where did you get these things?"> Whatever that smoke was, it is making Mook's face sweat as the drummer's tempo steadily increases until it reaches a fever pace and an even more abrupt pitch.

<"What is your name?">

<"Where are you from?">

<"Where did you get these things?"> Stop it-stop it-please STOP IT!

<"What is your name?">

<"Where are you from?">

<"Where did you get these things?"> The boots, his knife and his spear are pressed into his hands and as Mook tries to drop them or set them aside, they are forced back into his grasp and the questions repeat over and over again while the drumming has increased to furious levels. Mook wants it to stop. He would like to lay down, and as his body weaves and wobbles, hidden hands grab his hair and pull his head up straight and keep it there. The witchdoctor jumps forward into Mook's narrow field of vision and gets right in his face and he is now wearing a brightly colored mask depicting an exaggerated, evil, angry face and in a growling, shouting voice:

<"What is your name!?!">

<"Where are you from!?!">

<"Where did you get these things!?!">

The witchdoctor repeatedly shouts his questions over and over until Mook breaks down, and in a pathetic, sobbing voice, he finally finds and screams an answer:

"Mook! My name be Mook!"

The drumming suddenly ceased, and the masked witchdoctor steps back out of Mook's foggy field of view. Snorting and sniffling, everything suddenly floods back to Mook while he thoughtlessly caresses with his hands the items of his past that are piled in his lap.

"Our village is far to the north, across the great desert and across the grassy plains and over the mountain pass. Our smiths pound the blade-plate that we mine, and we farm crops and raise rabbits for meat and fur. The women sew clothing from the skins they cure, or at least that is what used to happen. All of that is gone now." Like a dam that has burst, Mook pours out his repressed, regrettable memories with passion and emotion as the natives listen patiently. Mook eventually regains his composure and his words become more even and structured as he reminisces, and it strikes Mook as humorous when he stops. He has been talking in his native language. These people don't understand a word I'm saying! Well..., they may understand one word:

<"Mook? Your name is Mook?">

Mook and the tribal leaders meet for several more nights as his knowledge is shared. It is remarkable that during Mook's drug induced poisoning and the 'blankness' that followed, he became receptive to new concepts and learned a second language. If those exact conditions could be reproduced, a dramatic and useful learning system might have been stumbled upon that could be utilized in the future. But the truth is that Mook is lucky to be alive after what he has been through, and he is lucky not have suffered brain damaged. (That is, if he isn't actually damaged and he just doesn't realize it. But then again, aren't we all a little damaged on some level?)

Mook is welcome to join this tribe and he is encouraged to do so because his second language, and his knowledge of blade-plate, and other useful things are seen as beneficial, and because they have taken a shine to the crazy gringo but Mook has reservations.

With his growing knowledge of the jungle, he can see the wealth available here and the promise associated with those riches. Plenty of food, good water, and a warm climate means easy living, but it also means, for Mook at least, travel possibilities.

No one here can tell him what is further to the south. "More of the same, right?" is their answer. The fact is, no one here has traveled further then to the next village. Why should they? They have nothing there that isn't right here, except for maybe a mate, and even that is kept close so that children and grandchildren can be shared with relatives. But Mook is interested in the bigger picture.

The tragedies of his family and his botched attempts at fathering his own children may have, for now at least, tempered and spoiled his desire to settle down. But Mook has bigger ambitions. The sights he has seen, and the wonders that remain to be discovered, the questions he harbors, all that plays a role in his decision to do what he does now. He prepares for what is to come. His weapons, his pack, his bedroll, the clothes he wears and the stores he has chosen, have been guided with an increasing, growing knowledge based on the unique, expert experiences of the one who may be the only man on the earth so completely qualified.

The good-byes are heartfelt and genuine but not really understood by the natives. Why would one risk danger when peace and security are right here under his feet? But this crazy gringo has a far-away look in his eyes and he is determined to make his own way even if it brings only disaster, suffering and death. Which is what he seems to want. Just look at how they found him! Many of the natives suspect he has certainly been "touched," their term for lingering brain damage. His desire to travel, regardless of the danger, although perhaps admirable, seems to display just such a trauma. Good luck Mook, you crazy gringo!
Chapter Twenty: On the Move

The news of his arrival seems to have been proceeding him, because with each new landing at each new village, he is treated as a celebrity. He uses the rivers and the help of the locals to transport him with their canoes or rafts. Everyone wants a look at the man whose tales of travel seem to have grown with each retelling until it seems as if he has departed from the planets and may have visited the moon before he arrived here. Food and women are pushed upon him with only a look at his knife and a story of a faraway land required as barter, but as he travels further into the jungle, the actual starkness of the current world population catches up with him and soon there are no more canoes, rafts, villages or villagers to greet and assist him.

He finds himself one day on a high ridge, looking out over seemingly endless jungle, bordered by high mountains to the west. The jungle provides reliable supplies of food, but traveling is slow through the brush and can be dangerous floating along the rivers where rapids and waterfalls can appear out of nowhere. The rocky foothills at the base of the mountains promise easier passage, at least where the brush is low, and the good visibility there could provide important warning against approaching predators. He decides to utilize these promising foothills and he will stay on a general, southwest course and stay above the thickest parts of the jungle.

Mook is in his element now. It is clear in his mind what he wants from this world. He has decided to dedicate his life to exploration and adventure. It may appear that he is running away and escaping the traumas of his troubled past and that may be the case on some level, but he has tasted enough of the normal, average, predictable kind of life to know what he is missing. He feels he knows what he is doing. There is no hesitation or remorse about it, not now anyway. He can focus on the mysteries of life. The mysteries of the world. What is beyond that next mountain? What happened to the past with its books and pictures and the wheeled transportation chariots? Where were those chariots operated? What made them go? What of the cityscapes that he had seen pictured and what of their bright lights? Where did they go? What happened? What do the symbols mean? How do you understand them? These are the things that occupy his mind and as he travels to seek the answers, the truths.

The great desert to the south of the great plains that was beyond the village that Mook had started out in and that he had already crossed, consisted of what used to be called the American Mid-West and Mexico. And in those great, nearly endless shifting sands, all obvious signs of the cities and other infrastructure that were present before, in the joke-time, had been covered and hidden as those places had fallen and crumbled after the ten thousand long years that have passed.

Many factors, including the barely perceptible, but ever increasing intensity of the sun's energy as its fuel is slowly burned away, and the ever shifting weather, due in part to still high carbon dioxide levels, and the changed ocean current patterns and many other factors have created and enabled this continental inland desertification to progress. Mook had passed through that area and on to what we currently call South America without taking any notice of what still might remain of the once prominent Panama Canal, which had long ago mostly disappeared under the expanding jungle.

South America was spared the flattening and reshaping of the expanding ice sheets that happened in the north, and also had escaped the burying in ash of the great plains due to the volcanic eruptions, but the reality of the fact that some eighty percent of the human population of this continent lived near the coastlines, coastlines that were inundated by rising sea levels, which led to the displacements and the conflicts of the desperate masses, especially of those masses from the cities. Even in the remote, desolate inland areas, far from the expanding ice flows and erupting volcanos, people unfortunately did not escape the disaster and the violence that marked and defined those times.

But deep in the rainforests, pockets of humanity survived and, in many cases, remained virtually unaffected. Tourists, social workers, oil prospectors and others, just sort of slowly stopped arriving in many of those places, and the tribal way of life once again became dominate. That was the case with the tribe that Mook had stayed with. They didn't seem notice the end of the world, and if they did, they probable didn't give it that much thought.

Mook made his way south, staying on the edge of the foothills and keeping the jungle in sight. For the first few weeks, he occasionally spotted what he believed to be smoke from cooking fires deep in the jungle, but after about a month, even those became only a memory. He is completely on his own now and that suits him fine. He scans the endless foliage from a high ridge and claims it all as his own. So many new sights occupy his curiosity and he felt that now he has time to explore every new encounter. For example; when he sighted a sure-footed, thickly furred beast, (a relative of the billy, but apparently not nearly as mean; a creature that we would call an Alpaca) he tracked it for days just to observe its behavior before he killed, skinned and ate it.

Other strange animals capture Mook's attention. He had noticed many 'rooted up' areas and he finally observed what was causing the disturbances. A grunting, snorting beast that was more snout then face had been turning up the soil, gleefully finding roots and tubers as its curly tail wagged. The beast (a Tapir, which is a kind of wild boar) roasted nicely. Mook steered clear of another beast he stumbled upon, a 'pole cat' that was completely black in color. (Probably a Panther.) But the strangest animal he had observed was the biggest rat that he had ever seen. (A Capybara.) It must have weighed over fifty pounds. He decided not to eat that particular beast.

Mook repeatedly faced great dangers on a regular basis. Injury from falls, attacks from dangerous beasts, venom of poisonous plants and animals, disease from insects, foul drinking water and hundreds of other surprises and sudden, dangerous situations, but he kept moving on, growing more used to these kinds of trials and setbacks as time went on. All of it is just the result of the life he has chosen. If he is killed, so be it. Everybody dies sometime. Besides, just about anyone who might really miss him is gone. He will satisfy his curiosity with a clear conscious, what has happened in his past has cleared the way for his choice of a future. But he is careful, he hasn't any death wish. Actually, the opposite is true. The more, new things he discovers, the more questions he has, and the more he desires to answer those questions. And to answer those questions, the longer he must stay alive. His yearnings grow exponentially, increasing his will to live and his level of overall satisfaction with each 'somewhat' solved mystery. But he is not immune to loneliness and at every new plain, valley or summit, he keeps a hopeful eye out for human settlements. It is a long time before that hope is realized.
Chapter Twenty-One: The Mountain People

So startling is the sight that Mook feels he must remain hidden so as not to disturb or startle this man that he is seeing and spoil this astonishing vison. No way! You've got to be kidding me! This can't be real, can it? It has been so long since Mook has seen another human that he may be a little apprehensive, but the sight of this one is presented in a way that Mook could never have imagined. He remained hidden in the brush as the man, a short, squat, older fellow in a colorful, flowing poncho, wearing a round hat with a large brim, passes by with an apparently pleasant, happy expression on his face. Mook imagined what might be the reason for his apparently good mood. A loving family waiting at his destination and the promise of a hearty meal when he arrives? A pang of remorse and even some jealousy accompany that daydream but the strange and bizarre sight that he is seeing right now is most overwhelming, but not because of that thought.

Mook was so close to seeing an image of something similar as he flipped through the pages of those books when he was trapped in that chamber of the former salt mine, just a page or two away, several times, of a picture that would have prepared him for this sight. Books that may as well have been dedicated to this sort of thing, filled with drawings, paintings and photographs of men (and women) doing what this pleasant looking, older fellow is doing. But nevertheless, a view of something like this had alluded him. And those views would have been mostly of a creature that has long since been eliminated from the face of the earth, (as far as anyone can tell) but the practicality of what Mook is seeing now fills him with wonder and a desire for a similar 'situation.' Imagine, no more walking!

The man rides an Alpaca, an animal Mook had seen in the wild but that he never imagined with a man sitting up over its rear and holding a loop of rope that appears attached to a mouthpiece that the beast seems happy to (or at least used to) have in its jaws. Fascinating! Also, a cargo of bags, rolled furs, pelts and blankets are tied to the 'seat' that the man sits on. The creature carries him and his gear! No wonder he seems so content! Mook must have this.

High up in these mountains, so high that the air is thin and Mook struggles for breath at every exertion, he has been following the well-worn paths that he had found, and he has observed the scat which litters the trail. Trails that are wide in places and show evidence of human construction and maintenance. But not necessarily construction of the joke-time, but possibly of an even more ancient period than that. He had abandoned his plans of staying near the edge of the jungle when he came upon these pathways. The going was just too tough anywhere else compared to these trails, but they led forever up, higher and higher and apparently, eventually, over the mountain range and to the other side, which wasn't his original plan, but, then again, what was?

He follows the man for as long as he can, remaining out of his sight as he tries to satisfy his curiosity as to how exactly he controls the beast. Eventually, that fellow out-paced Mook, but later, he finds himself on a ridge that overlooks lower portions of a path that switches back and forth below him, and he sees several others that are also riding the creatures and they are roped together with some of the beasts piled high with cargo only; rolled textiles and bushels and bags of grains. I must make contact with these people if I ever want to learn the secrets of their beasts. What ease they promise.

Again, he remains out of their sight- for now. He must learn all he can about these people, especially if they are hostile. They don't seem to be. No weapons are displayed. They seem not to be wearing any protective armor or carry any shielding. In fact, there clothing looks light and comfortable, made of colorful, woven fabric and not the stuffy skins that Mook still wears. The natives of the jungle had similar textiles, but they and Mook wore so little clothing in the hot, muggy jungle that he hadn't given much thought to outfitting himself more completely in that type of attire. But for these gentle looking people, their intricate, complex weavings appear to be of a drastically higher quality, and display bright, vivid colors of red, yellow and orange, and are decorated with woven-in geometric patterns of green, blue and brown hues, and the clothing appears to be an obvious improvement over Mook's clothing, far more suitable for this climate and conditions.

They travel on their mounts at a gentle, unhurried easy-going pace, but it is still faster than Mook can maintain on foot, especially at these high altitudes. His breath is labored, and it has been this way ever since the air thinned, and since then he has had a nearly constant headache.

The small caravan has passed him and left him in the dust, but he catches up with them as they had stopped and made a quick camp in a little clearing among manicured fields of a green, bushy shrub. The elder of the group is tending a fire were a large, fired clay cooking pot hangs that is emitting a delightful, spicy scent that hints of a stew, and that reminds Mook just how hunger he is. Mook notices that the others are gathering handfuls of leaves from those bushes and are binding them together in bushels with string.

Hunger, fatigue, loneliness and their utter lack of any aggressive demeanor, leads Mook to his spur-of-the-moment decision. He conceals his spear and his bow and arrows just off the trail behind some rocks and under some brush and he makes his way towards the gathered men. There are five of them total with seven of the beasts, of which two are loaded heavily with their gear and supplies. All five of them share the same short, stocky build and the look of their round, chubby, brown faces hint at a family resemblance. They range in age from just a boy, to quite elderly. Mook approaches them in the universal body language of a friend (he hopes) with open, outstretched arms, palms forward and open, with a friendly grin on his face as if he is glad to see them. (He is.)

The men freeze and gape at Mook and their activities have suddenly stopped. The old man tending the cooking pot leaps to his feet with a puzzled and a slightly cross look to his face as he bounds towards Mook without reservation. Standing toe to toe with Mook, he rattles off a series of statements in a foreign tongue as he sizes up the strange, dirty, unkempt traveler. Mook stands at least a foot taller than anyone in this group, but the old man is not the least bit intimidated by that fact. Mook can't help but look towards the cooking pot as he tries to make some sense out of the gibberish he is hearing.

"Hambriento be el Gringo?" The old man said after a pause with a questioning inflection to his voice.

Gringo! That is what the natives of the jungle called me!

"Yes! I be Gringo! 'Mook' El Gringo!"

The entire group appears stunned for about half a second and then they all erupt in laughter, and not just a little snicker, but the full throated, side splitting, red faced, foot stomping kind of laughter. After which they all repeated "Mook! El Gringo!" Over and over they say it, with more fresh laughter following each time it is repeated. Finally, the elder repeats his question, this time while rubbing his belly and making the gesture of putting food in his mouth:

"Hambriento? See?"

"Ya! Much ham-bri-en-toe, yes a..., see!" The men roar once again with laughter at Mook's attempt of their language and he is eventually guided to a seat at their camp. With a friendly, jovial spirit, Mook is given a bowl of the stew from the pot and he is handed a piece of a crispy, dry bread for dipping, and he eats with increasing, unrepressed vigor. Hunks of braised and broiled meat and some kind of soft-boiled millet, several types of beans and other vegetables including a delightful white potato of a type Mook has never tasted before, all in a spicy, chili sauce base. It is the tastiest thing Mook has eaten in months, years even, maybe ever! Mook eats like a pig, he can't help himself. His frantic shoveling and his apparently ceaseless appetite baffles and entertains the men and they give him much of their own portions, apparently just to see how much "Mook El Gringo" can eat, which is a lot! Immediately after the meal, the men kick back and pull their wide brim hats over their faces and close their eyes, the siesta has begun.

Mook joins them and falls fast into a deep, dreamless slumber. The first such sleep for him in quite a while. He has been plagued with headaches and restless sleep since he had climbed up to these high altitudes, an experience he had never known before because he is over twice the elevation that the pass to the plains from his village was. After about an hour, the elder of the locals is shaking him awake.

Mook opens his eyes and the man can see the distress in Mook's furrowed brow, and he shows Mook a wad of the green leaves that they had been gathering before.

"Medicina dolor de cabeza" he says as he stuffs the wad between his cheek and gum, as do the other men. Mook does the same. Not much taste.

The old man stands next one of the beasts, the one the boy was riding, and pats the seating space:

"Volver conmigo?" It is obviously an invitation to ride, Mook looks towards the boy.

"Yo voluntad caminar" the boy says flatly which must mean that he is okay with giving up his mount. Mook had already decided to travel with the group, why not? But first, he holds up one finger in what he hopes will be recognized as 'just a minute' and he runs up the path and retrieves his weapons. Upon his return, the men must inspect his blade-plate spear point and they are in awe. They each must touch it and test its edge which leaves them all impressed and amazed.

"Wait!" Says Mook, as he again holds up his finger and he pulled off his pack and starts digging through it. He finds what he is looking for and he presents it to the old man on his open palms and while bowing down so there is no mistake that it is a gift. The man and the others are absolutely dumbfounded. The stare wide-eyed with mouths agape. Never had they seen anything like this before and that is why Mook gave it to him. If this doesn't keep him in their good graces, nothing will. Besides, he has kept the largest one. His gift is a spare knife from the salt mine chamber, a perfect relic from the joke-time and possibly the most valuable and useful item (besides the larger one that Mook has kept) on the planet.

As they hit the trail, the men treat Mook like a Rockstar. The gift has had the effect that he had hoped for, and the wad in Mook's mouth also has had an effect. His mouth has become numb and he has temporally lost the feeling of taste, but suddenly, and for the first time in weeks, his head is clear and without pain and he feels no fatigue in his body, no hunger, no sleepiness, amazing!

Within a few hours with the boy walking ahead and leading Mook's animal while holding the reins, they reach the summit and began to descend the other side. The top of this rather unremarkable plateau, though high in the thin air, is still much lower than the surrounding summits and unlike the other, higher peaks, this one is free of ice and snow. Down more switchbacks and over some more of the ancient, but still impressive stone bulkheads and bridges, the mud brick, thatched roofed structures of their village come into view.

"El aldea" announced the old man with his arm outstretched towards the tiny, but pleasant enough little hovel.

Mook's strange appearance with his great height, and the unusual material of his spear point (he has long since used up his arrows tipped with lou-um and had switched to chipped, stone points) and the fantastic craftmanship of the knife he carries and the knife that he had given away, has made him the center of attention of this little enclave, but that didn't last long. Soon he is pulling his weight, sharing in the day to day chores, and quickly picking up the local language.

Their village has been long established, as is their general way of life. They farm terraced hillsides with a complex irrigation system that is largely craved right out of the solid rock. Also carved in some places of that solid stone are symbols of a script that in the rare places where it is still legible, baffles Mook much the same way that the symbols of the north did, even though these are so completely different. Here, simple images of fish, turtles, birds, spiders and other depictions from nature are mixed with lines, dots and geometric shapes and they must record important events and histories but when he pointed them out to the locals, they just shake their heads no and say, "mucho olvidarse." (Long forgot.)

These people have no metal tools, but they have developed impressive fired clay cooking and storage pots which are lavishly decorated in colorful patterns. They till their soil with hoes made from the shoulder blade bones of their alpacas and bring down small game with stones launched from slings. Mook is especially interested in these slings as he can see the value of the easy to carry leather device and the advantage of not having to carry the ammunition as stones are plentiful nearly everywhere. He practices with the device and quickly becomes a proficient shot.

The clothes they wear are made from the fur clippings of their beasts, after the women spin that hair with help of a jig mounted wheel into long strands which are painstakingly dyed than woven on a "telar." (Loom.) This fabric 'breathes' and is a great improvement over skins in this heat, but it also retains heat, even when wet, a great advantage in the cold of these mountain nights. Mook spends his free time hunting, and his success provides him with something to trade for these textiles. He plans to procure a complete wardrobe, sleeping mats and blankets, before he leaves these friendly people to continue his travels.

Mook expressed great interest right away in acquiring his own alpacas and just as soon as he was able to communicate that desire, the old man immediately gave him two of his best animals in appreciation of the remarkable knife that Mook had given him. Mook learned all he could of the particular quirks and requirements regarding the care and feeding of these animals and he has grown accustom to their handling on his many hunting trips.

Just as had been the case when he was preparing to leave the jungle natives, these mountain people couldn't understand Mook's desire to leave the safety of the aldea. These people had spent generations building a stable and safe lifestyle, the dangers of the wildness and the unknown is exactly what they had been working so hard to overcome. But as Mook had sufficiently learned their language to the point that he could understand their ancient stories and the myths they told around their campfires while drinking their fermented corn wine and chewing coca leaves, his ears perked up when he heard them speak of the "Santo Nacion" (holy race) that was rumored to live far to the south, where the land ended and the water turned to ice. These were not men, but "fantasma" (ghost/spirits) that rode around on fire belching, round footed monsters and killed with "fuego porra" (fire stick/weapon) along with other fantastic traits including the use of written symbols in "silent talk" between themselves.

This is the kind of talk Mook had been hoping to hear. He equated everything he heard about these "fantasma" to the things he had seen before. The unlocking of the symbols, the round footed monsters, the fire sticks, all the mysteries he is desperate to understand could be just a journey away to the south. But as he pressed them for more information, the mountain people gave him looks of horror.

<"You can't be serious! To reach them you must go around the cliff! Float out in the endless lake! No one can survive such a journey!">

<"Endless lake?">

<"That's right! If you travel south and stay on this side of the mountains, you will see the endless lake before long, and you will understand. The water goes on and on and all who launch their canoe in it, are swept away forever! We have seen them go! No amount of paddling will bring them back!">

Mook takes their warnings with a grain of salt. He has heard superstitious nonsense before, but even so, the villagers don't take their warnings lightly and as Mook is packed and ready to leave for the south, the women and girls wail pathetically as the men just shake their heads.

"Mala suerte (good luck) Mook El Gringo!... El Loco (crazy) Gringo!"

Down the dusty path away goes Mook. He sucks the coca leaf wad and enjoys the gentle swaying of his mount as his gear clanks and rattles around him. What a soothing, delightful way to travel. The men of the village have told him that the road will drop slowly and in about ten days, he will be reach a flat, sandy plain and if he can survive the scorching heat, and if he can carry enough water, and if he is not bitten by a rattlesnake or scorpions, in a week or so, he will reach the Rio llano. (Flat River.) Follow the river west and in a few more days, he will reach the endless lake. It is glorious to see they said, but to go further is madness.

<"Death awaits those who go further! You have been warned!"> They pleaded.
Chapter Twenty-Two: Now Were Moving!

"Death awaits you!" What corn! Simple, friendly, beautiful people, but no sense of adventure. They will live in wonderful, friendly peace, probably for generations until some brutal, blood thirsty race makes their way down here, and then they will be eliminated and replaced. This is the kind of thoughts Mook thinks when he recalls what had happened to his family and friends. It should be no surprise that he had so completely repressed those painful memories and he should wonder if snapping him out of that state was such a good idea.

It is lonely on the road and the mind wanders. Perhaps I should lay-off the coca. The elders warned him that it could be tricky to quit, and that it wasn't needed when not in the heights. I have lost weight, that could be dangerous if food becomes scarce. Mook spits his wad out and he does not replace it. It is only medicine now. He had become mostly acclimated by now to the elevation anyway, and he hadn't been sleeping as much and as well as he should be lately so now is definitely the time to quit.

Mook found himself in a subtle but constant state of irritation over the next several days. Is this the "tricky" part? After a week, he finally slept deeply and started to feel better but now his pack animals were becoming uncooperative: Baying continuously, refusing to eat and drink, stubbornly reluctant to get moving, it all started when they had reached the lower elevations, a situation that has helped Mook in terms of energy and breathing. Perhaps an early rest is in order. He guides his mini pack train into a clearing and after unloading the animals, they seem to settle down and start to graze contently. Mook eats some of his dried meat and closes his eyes for a moment.

The thicker air at this lower elevation suits him, and free from the coca, sleep comes easy now. Mook wakes after a while under the warm sun and a gentle breeze and he is as comfortable as if he is in a soft bed. Thoroughly relaxed and enjoying the moment, he remains still and listens to the breeze rustle the tree limbs and the bushes. So quiet, nice and..., wait a minute! Too quiet! Mook springs up:

"NOOOOoooo!"

The Alpaca have gone! Did I tie them up? I don't remember tying them up. Mook tracked them back up the trail until way after dark but they apparently jumped the trail at some point, and he lost any trace of them. They could be anywhere. Mook cursed himself continually as he made his way back down the trail towards his gear. A stream of could'a-should'a-would'a dominated his thoughts long after he made his way back to his gear and made camp, and after he laid down to sleep, the warning: "Death awaits you," kept him tossing and turning.
Chapter Twenty-Three: Mook Had Been Warned

Mook had to cache what he wouldn't immediately need. He reduced his equipment to a minimum and filled the skin-bags with all the water that he could carry as the trail ahead appeared to be nothing but scorching desert. He had been warned of the lack of water in the approaching area and he took those warnings seriously, although he was supposedly only days away from the river that flows west to the "Endless Lake." That water might be bad.

The land down here in the flats baked under the brutal sun with not a single sign of any shade in any direction. Mook felt protected from that sun in his light, flowing poncho and under his wide brimmed sombrero, but that didn't make the trip pleasant. Only the cool of the evening brought relief from the heat and with the help of the coca, he traveled all night. He would return to his old tricks of when he crossed the vast desert of before and bury himself during the day if he has to. Besides, he should reach the river in just a few days. Four days later, he was still asking himself, how much further? Finally, he spied a line of foliage off in the distance, an oasis that could exist only beside a river. The water had better be good. Mook was running dangerously low of that necessity.

A short time after Mook arrived at the riverbank, he had already caught a decent size fish and he sat in shade for the first time in a long while while he cooked the fish over a fire, he also snared a snake that would feed him tomorrow. Death awaits you- ha! What corn! He had food in his belly and trees to string his hammock on so the scorpions and other creepy-crawlers should be kept at bey and finally, after a restful sleep where he could roll over and stir as he pleases (not possible when buried in the sand) he will have shade to walk in and game to hunt as he follows the river west. Again, he dismisses the warnings of the hill people: So sheltered and meek they are.

The dreams were full of confidence. A cocksure Mook is followed by groups of girls and they hung on his every word as he told them stories that were filled with lies- for some reason. He explained to them how he could read the symbols and how he would pick them up later for a ride in the "speedster" (his dream just flashed the image of the car and the silver script, but in his dream, the girls completely understood) and they would all go somewhere to shoot the firesticks, which suddenly he was doing, and he loaded the 'inserts' and instead of the lame "poof" that he had gotten before, now the ground shook with each action of the trigger. He set the weapon down in the dream and he noticed that the crowd of admiring girls had disappeared, but the ground still shook. Suddenly, he is awake, and the trees around him were swinging slightly, and as they became still, Mook rubbed the sleep from his eyes. What the...?

He paused a moment as he tried to sort the dream vision from his real vision. Soon he gave up on that and decided to get moving before the heat of the day made the walking miserable. He had his pack open and was organizing his gear when he heard a sound off to the west. What the...? A low-pitched growling rumble that he could feel in his guts was growing louder and closer and Mook looked for a tree to climb for a better view but that wasn't necessary as it was upon him in just seconds.

His pack was ripped from his grip as the wall of water slapped him down and he was flipped and spun as he is bashed and rammed by all manner of debris. Blindsided as it approached and caught him, he didn't even have time to take a breath and each collision knocks more wind from him. Something knocked him in the head, and he saw stars as his vision started to fade and narrow. He popped to the surface for a second and he tried to take a breath and in a split-second glimpse, he can see that he is being pushed upriver with the surge of water at a tremendous clip. Back down below the surface, he scraped the bottom hard and dirt and gravel are forced into his face and mouth. Round and round he swirled and spun, trying to snatch a breath each time he occasionally broke the surface and holding it while being forced into the river bottom and all the while being pummeled from every direction by all manner of debris. It seemed to last an eternity and Mook was losing his strength, and the battle, and just as he thought he couldn't last much longer, the raging current seem to subside and he grabbed the root ball of a passing, uprooted tree as it floated past. He scrambled to lift himself up on top of that floating log and make it his impromptu life raft when the current suddenly reversed, and Mook found himself being pulled along downstream at ever increasing speed. Finally, up on the floating log with his upper body mostly out of the muddy, debris filled water, Mook struggled to gain his breath as he coughed-out water and river bottom mud and dirt. As he started to catch his wind, he tried to have a look around and make some sense of what was happening. All he could see was water in every direction. Muddy water filled with floating trees, sticks and branches. He heard a thunderous crash off in the distance up ahead in the direction that he is now moving, he lifted his head high and caught a glimpse of the foamy, white-topped edges of huge, breaking waves and beyond that there was a sight such as he had never seen before- the Endless Lake.

"All who enter are swept away, no matter how hard they paddle." The words echo in Mook's mind as if the elder of the village were shouting them right into his ear. He can already see logs and brush far out beyond the breakers, drifting far away and more debris is being pounded in the heavy surf before it joins what is already so far away. Oh no! Mook's head is on a swivel as he looks for something, anything that will help. On each side of the course that he is traveling, he can see bent over treetops being pushed over in the current. He can see that he is closer now to what was the far side of the river and one tree top, taller than most of the others sticks up above the rolling, churning surface of the racing, brown water and Mook calculates the distance and the current and it looks doable, so he lunches himself off his tree trunk life raft and swims like a madman in that direction. Branches, sticks and even logs collide with Mook's body as he strokes and kicks but luckily, he seems to stay on course. The target approaches and he will have just one chance to grab hold. Continually thrusting his head up to see, he manages to position himself where he will be within an arm's length of the tree's trunk but to his horror, there seems to be nothing to grab on to. He prepares to dig his fingernails right into the bark for a frantic bear hug of that tree's trunk but as soon as he stretches out to do that, he is slugged in the gut and he violently stops. His belly had collided with an underwater branch and with an arm wrapped around the tree's trunk, the current leaves him pinned that way- for now at least.

Four more hours pass, and the current had changed direction six more times, in than out, as monster waves come in and dwarf the already huge breakers that normally crash against this shore. Mook hangs on to his tree. A tree that grows in the river delta close to the shore of the "Endless Lake." He has worked himself up on top of that submerged branch and he has had plenty of time to think of the warnings from the villagers and is beginning to suspect that his alpaca's distress might have been an omen. This could be a place of death after all. It certainly might kill me!

This place is a place of death, but Mook has no idea exactly how much so. The oral histories of the hill people reflect the truth of this place, but even they had forgotten the scale of what had happened here. Ten thousand years ago, at the end of the joke-time, far from where Mook clings to his tree, and far to the south where this desert ends, there was a last stand. A natural barrier of steep mountains that was excavated with machines and explosives to form an even more impenetrable 'wall' that also happened to be in a place where the sea beside it forms strong, natural 'rip-tides' of dangerous currents that largely prevent landings by boats or ships, which was no accident and part of the plan of those who chose this place for their defensive enclave.

The desert seaside of this place is hemmed-in to the east by impassible mountains, forming a 'zone of death' to anyone foolish enough to try to make the journey through here which was what those who chose this place for security intended. A hundred miles span between this formidable river, where Mook is currently up a tree, to where the 'cliff' marks the southern boundary of this place, and no forest or game of any measure is in between those two points. Sand, whipped by high wind is all that one is sure to find here, that, and the bleached bones of those foolish enough to have tried to cross this area. And even if they lived to reach the 'cliff,' all they would find there is death, especially if they put to sea to try to get around the wall.

At least that is what the myths of the hill people reported, but they have never had the motivations that Mook nurses. He has seen the cache in the salt cave from the joke-time and as he has heard the rumors of what the people beyond the wall are about, he will be the one, he must be the one, that will solve the mystery. Besides, he may not have any choice, the tree he is in, is on what was the far side of the river, a river much too wide and swift to be safely crossed back across.
Chapter Twenty-Four: Here Goes Nothing

The water had receded to the point where Mook's tree was finally high and dry, and he shimmied on down. Never had the solid ground felt so good under his feet. He took stock of his situation: He still had the clothes on his back, including his poncho but he had lost his wide sombrero and his pack that included his food supplies and his bedding, and all but one of his water skins. (A rolled-up empty one.) His knife is still tied to his belt and his small bindle, that includes his steel and flint, his last extra knife, his sewing kit and his medicine pouch are still with him. Bashed and bruised as he is, there doesn't seem to be any broken bones.

The earthquake triggered tsunami that Mook has lived through (so far) is something that he would not be able to understand technically, but it is something that he certainly understands now on a personal level. Something else he understands is that it had hit him before he had his breakfast. His stomach growls as he looked around, but as he took in the sights, it looks like hunger will not be a problem for long: Fish! Hundreds of fish of every size and type imaginable are washed up and flopping all around him as the water receded.

Mook spends the next few days keeping busy with a variety of tasks: First, he drags and tosses hundreds of fish into the many tidal pools left behind from the flooding, all in an effort to keep them alive and fresh. Next, he hikes well upriver until the water flow of the river is clear of back-flow mud, and he establishes a camp, hopefully far from any repeat of more of the strange, sudden wave actions and water flows. Last, he gathers sticks and branches to build a shelter from the sun and for firewood of which he will need plenty. Now, it is time to get to work.

Fish from his pools are gutted and filet, than spread or racks built from the sticks that Mook had gathered to dry the flesh over fires and under the baking sun, an operation that is helped by the near constant breeze that flows out to the sea. While that is happening, he discovered a type of conk shell at the waters edge that can hold water, and he scours the beach taking all of them that he can find. He travels inland, and of the sparse vegetation of these areas, he finds a radish-like tuber that is good to eat. The muddy beach also yields a bounty of calms, and they are good eating, even raw.

Within a couple of weeks, Mook is ready to move on. He has shredded a section of his poncho to weave it into twine to attach his water filled shells and to make bindles for the copious amounts of the dried fish, and as ungainly and smelly as Mook now is, he should be able to last a while without starving or dying of thirst.

He zig-zags his travel path from the mountain side, where he finds morning shade as well as an occasional creek of fresh water running down from the mountains, to the seashore where he digs clams in the evening to supplement his food supplies. Mook has trouble understanding why this place had been called a "zone of death" because he has, so far anyway, actually gained weight while being here.

What Mook doesn't understand is that when this truly was a "zone of death," refuges were being forced here from other areas in such numbers that the little fresh water that is available, and the shellfish and other food here, wouldn't allow even a small fraction of the large numbers that were herded down this seashore to survive. With no chance of return to where they were exiled from, their only option was to press on, and unknown to them, this area dead-ended at the 'wall' in the south. Forced and encouraged at one end, only to find it a trap at the other, millions were marched away to a genocide where they passed the point of no return long before they realized what was happening. This wasn't the only place where this was happening. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of similar situations all over the world. Can you imagine the horror?

"Were so sorry. There just isn't anything to eat here but just down the beach (or valley or mountain pass or highway) there is plenty. Just start down that way and you will run into what you need." They found plenty all right, plenty of death! If Mook knew that truth, he would realize that much of the sandy, white beach he is walking on consists of a large percentage of human bone fragments, pounded into powder by ten thousand years of crashing waves.

Mook had found a suitable straight stick and he has attached his large knife to it to form a spear for his protection and for hunting, but he had not seen a single game animal (much less another human) since he entered this area. Even birds and insects seem scarce. But there are times of apprehension, such as when the sudden, monsoon rains produced dangerous flash floods, and when in areas where the distance between the cliffs and the sea narrowed, Mook would find that the rising tide (a concept that Mook didn't understand technically) would have him trapped, and he would have to climb up the sheer cliffs to escape and wait out the rising water. Another thing he does not understand is the concept of saltwater. All he noticed is that it tasted bad, and as he had started off with ample supplies of fresh water from the river that he replenishes from the streams and rain when possible, he correctly assumed that the saltwater was unsafe to drink. He also remembered the brackish water when he first entered the jungle and he had learned his lesson from drinking that.

Finally, after weeks of travel through the mostly never changing and largely featureless surf-pounded beach and barren inland dunes, something appeared off in the distance and it seemed to grow larger and larger as he approached. When he reached its base, it was indeed daunting. Cut into the solid rock of its base is a 'mote' that the saltwater had inundated, a hundred feet wide and a mile or more along the bottom of the cliff face, ending abruptly right into the sheer, rock face in a way that couldn't be circumvented. Large, menacing looking gray colored fish patrolled that mote with their dorsal fins often just breaking the surface of the water. Beyond that was the cliff itself, cut back so that it overhung the mote in a way that any hope of climbing it is out of the question. Mook could still plainly see the marks of the drilling that proceeded the explosives of when it was excavated, and although he couldn't picture the exact process, he correctly attributed those marks to be from the efforts of man. With all of that, the only sensible way to breech the wall would be to simply float around it on the Endless Lake. What's the big deal?

Mook made a camp on the top of a hill where he could study the water that went around the edge of the wall. He had noticed and had determined what the changing water levels (the tide) were about. He didn't know that the moon had anything to do with it but that didn't matter. What mattered was that the water went up, and the water went down, and at a regular interval. Mook gathered some driftwood and prepared for an experiment. The mountain people had warned him that "No amount of paddling would prevent one from being pulled out into the great water" which meant that they must have some basis to believe that, and he wasn't going to float out there just to be swept away, not when there is a simple way to test the water.

The test is simple, incredibly simple. Mook waited for high tide and tossed a piece of driftwood out into the channel. Surprise number one was that it didn't move. No amount of paddling, what corn! Surprise number two, the large gray fish went straight at the floating piece of wood and attacked it with their teeth. That could be a problem! The fish quickly gave up their attack and Mook watched the log with great, scientific curiosity. For about fifteen minutes it bobbed around out there staying pretty much in one place, and then as the water started to recede, the log took off at a surprising clip towards the northwest. Interesting. At the peak of low tide, Mook threw in another piece of wood, and this time (after the sharks investigated) it floated out to the southwest as the water advanced.

Mook repeated this testing for several days until he had discovered two important facts: One, the sharks (to him, "attack fish" as he had never heard the term "shark") seemed to have lost interest because after just a few days, they didn't even bother to investigate anymore when he threw pieces of wood into the water. Two, for about fifteen to twenty minutes between high and low tide, there is a 'slack time' without current. A window of time when a raft could be paddled without danger of being pulled out to sea by the savage ripe tide. But that window didn't seem to be long enough to guarantee his goal of a successful, safe trip and landing at the unknown place around the cliff face. So, Mook prepared more.

He built two rafts out of driftwood that he had collected. One he loaded down with stones to represent his weight and that of his gear, (which was very little anymore) the other was for him. He unraveled what was left of his poncho and braided the threads into a length of rope. He chose a large stone and tied one end of his rope around it. He tied the other end to his rock-laden raft. He used some more driftwood and made a set of oars. He waited until just before the end of high tide before he launched both of his rafts. He towed the rock laden raft out with the current. When he reached a distance where he felt safe, and at the time when he figured the tide had slackened, he threw his 'anchor' stone out of the rock laden raft and left it anchored out in the sea as he paddled back to the shore with his other craft. Back at his observation point, (his campsite) he watched as the current grew and the anchor rope tightened but the raft stayed put. Success!

Now he has a solid plan. He will venture out just before slack tide and drop his anchor. He will ride out the current during the tide change and at the next slack time he will pull up his anchor and paddle further. He will continue in this way until he is around the cliff face and until he finds a safe place around the cliff to land.

He waited awhile until a rainstorm came along and he filled his water containers and after he had replenished his dried fish and root stocks, he was ready. He improved his raft using the best wood from his second, unneeded raft, including building a 'roof' of sorts to protect him from the sun and the rain. When all was completed and ready, and during the change of the tides, he shoved off.

The overall sea levels of the oceans had swung radically since the joke-time, they had rose steadily during and after the killing times and for the first couple of hundred years after that, to a point several hundred feet higher than they were before as the polar ice caps melted due to the runaway global warming. The cliff 'wall' that Mook wanted to circumvent was constructed sometime during the time near the end of the initial disaster, for the protection of some of the last 'civilized' people who were desperately looking for a 'last stand' and to create a bastion of civilization as the world was plunged into anarchy.

With the ocean 'conveyor belts' currents of different temperatures of sea water disturbed, heat that was being pumped into the northern and southern latitudes ceased, and as human produced carbon dioxide stopped being pumped into the atmosphere as the human race withered, the global warming eventually reversed, bringing the radically devastated world an ice age where once again glaciers formed at the poles and advanced the world over lowering the sea levels as more and more of the world's water was locked up in those advancing glaciers.

Mook lives in a time when conditions have been slowly swinging back once again, and the sea levels happen to be near where they were when the wall was originally built, with levels of some fifty to sixty feet higher than at the beginning of the joke-time. But now, world-wide, overall conditions are much different than they were before. What was Mexico and most of the American mid-west is currently vast deserts. Jungles and rainforests, some in traditional areas and many more now established in places that used to be frozen northern tundra, grow large and formidable in a climate that is still one of high carbon levels compared to current conditions and with different plant and animal species dominant then what was there before. They thrive as most of the original vegetation has been permanently eliminated. But here, pinned against the Andes mountains in what was southern Chile, where Mook took to sea, is a place typical of the great desert areas.

If Mook had been a man of the sea, or even a local to this area, he would have known what the dark clouds on the horizon meant, and at this general time of year, (the stormy season) he might have considered postponing a sea voyage. He had no such premonition and he had no clue to what might lay ahead. His evaluation of conditions when the rain began to fall was quite the opposite, all he noticed was a chance to top off his freshwater stores and to praise his foresight for building his 'roof' of his raft watertight with tightly woven seagrass thatching.

Sitting in his raft with his 'anchor' dropped, Mook decided to catch some shuteye as he knew the sunrise would wake him before the next tide change and then he would paddle out some more and then drop his anchor again and then wait out the next strong current yet again. Pulled out to sea, what corn!

He did awake at the dawn of the next day, but it wasn't the rising sun that woke him, it was the howling wind and the white-capped, rolling waves. Mook hadn't lifted his head for a minute before an overwhelming urge deep in his guts had him retching violently over the side. This new and completely unexpected, overwhelmingly devastating condition appeared to be the worst thing that could be happening until he noticed that his anchor cable was limp and that the land had disappeared from his sight.

Shocked, and too sick to evaluate the situation or to even care that much, he lay there in the bottom of his craft sure that this was indeed the end. He had emptied his stomach, several times, and now only sorry, discouraging, angry thoughts spun through his dispirited mind. Every slight, every insult and every personal offence that he had ever endured during his entire life seemed to come back to haunt him with a vengeance. He felt angry and stupid, as well as violently ill and he couldn't seem to stop the self-induced, negative onslaught of depressing thoughts. Deep down he knew it was all just a reaction to the illness, what is the cause? But the longer it lasted, the more helpless and pissed-off he became. Finally, after some time, (days? Weeks? He couldn't be sure) the water calmed and so did his stomach. His mind also cleared. The evil thoughts finally faded until- I'm hungry!

He began to record the passing days with a notch for each one cut with his knife in a row down the inside of his raft. He was lucky for a while regarding the regular rainfall and he kept his water supplies replenished. He recognized that those same storms, with their increase of wave action brought on the 'sickness' and he decided that the condition wasn't fatal, in fact, after a while he was less and less bothered by it. When his food started to run low, he used some of the last of his dried fish as bait and he hauled in fish which he ate raw. At first it was disgusting but he eventually developed a taste for it.

He didn't know it, but he was making good progress regarding the distance he traveled as he was caught in unseen currents and with his 'roof' acting as a sail. He had notched an entire side of his raft and began a second row on the other side before things got bad, and then things got worse. He had faced adversity before, such as when he crossed the great desert, but this was something else. He had run out of everything- food, water and hope. Even with the shade of his roof above him, he still managed to get severely sunburnt and his peeling sores became infected and irritated from the constant salt spray. His lips swelled and split. Without food, he quickly became too exhausted to do much of anything, including even thinking. When he slept, he dreamed of food and he would wake up chewing on the wood of his raft. He thought of ending it all, but even lifting himself over the side of his raft was too much work, so he gave up trying. I'll die right here. But he kept marking the days with his knife, it was all there is to do, the only thing he has to live for.

But luck seems to follow Mook. A group of flying fish startled him as one leapt from the water and hit him square in the face before falling to the bottom of his raft. He just looked at it. If I had the energy, I would eat that. Wait! I could eat that! Mook grabs the flailing creature, I remember when I had energy, and he squeezes it until oily blood and some other moisture dripped out of it and into his open mouth. That is soo good! He brings the wrung creature to his mouth and begins to chew. The effort is exhausting, and he almost falls asleep until a morsel is worked loose and with great effort, he swallows it. I remember now, eating, that would be great! There is a long interval, a blank where he is sure that he should be doing something. Eat! You must eat! Still, he is in a stupor and he just sat there and it finally it starts to come back to him, eating that is, and living.

More chewing, tearing and swallowing. His mind is clearing, and his vision focuses, he sees several more fish flopping about at his feet. He gathers them up and tears into them. He has the good sense to save the inedible parts for bait for his fishhooks and that's when it began to rain. I'm saved!

His row of notches grows, and he hooks just enough fish to survive awhile longer, but soon he is in bad shape once again, and that is when a large seabird lands on the rail of his raft. Mook springs like a cat, grabbing it by the throat and he snapped its neck. Its blood is like nectar and the flesh might as well be candy. The scraps make fine bait and every fish caught could be wrung for some more moisture. By now, it hasn't rained for so long that Mook can hardly remember what rain is like.

One hundred and sixty-eight notches surround Mook as he begins to doze-off in an evening of unusual calm. Mook hasn't caught a fish in days and now swarms of the 'attack fish' circle his raft day and night. They bump and probe the raft with increasing efficiency and as the rope and twine Mook had used to lash the vessel together has rotted, and as he has exhausted any spare material, it is just a matter of time. Tonight, I will be your supper, be patient you evil bastards!
Chapter Twenty-Five: Another Chance

The sound woke Mook from a fitful, dreamless sleep. The kind of sleep he hadn't known in months, peaceful and still. I know what's going on here! I'm dead! Then there is that noise again, the roar of breaking waves against the shore. Slowly, Mook raises his eyelids and that itself is a great effort. The blur that is his vision begins to clear away and he can see he is still laying in his raft, but the water is far away, a hundred feet down a beach and it breaks in frothy, noisy breakers. Maybe I'm not dead! A large, fat, apparently tame, flightless bird hops on up into Mook's raft and after using his chest as a steppingstone, it starts to peck away at the fodder around his legs. Instinct compels him to kill the bird, but as he looks around, he sees dozens, maybe hundreds of the animals milling about so there is no urgency. Soon, he will have a meal and he will cook it over a fire for a change.

Somehow, during that exceptionally calm night, the tide gently deposited Mook on this shore and left him high and dry as the water receded. A remarkable stroke of luck because now the water breaks savagely on the rocky coast in a way that would have dashed Mook and his raft to pieces. More incredible luck is evident as he happened to have been deposited below a cave where a freshwater stream flows down to the sea. In that cave, Mook finds shelter and something more- graffiti, lots of it, ranging from the ancient, (scratched into the stone) to the more modern. (Painted in the joke-time or shortly after.) Much of it is symbols (many different languages, all unknown to Mook) but also drawn on the walls of that cave are pictures, including one of a double hulled canoe sporting a large, triangular sail with the image of a man depicted tending a rope connected to the sail, and another man is depicted manning the tiller.

As time goes by, Mook had been studying that picture, mostly in the light of his cooking fires after he spent his days systematically exploring this forest covered island. He has found some remarkable features in this place. To the south, from the more or less central location of the cave, he had found a place of unnatural flatness that is a treasure trove of discarded blade-plate and lou-um, some of it still brightly coated with bright, shiny coloration. Trails of black disk powder led to more mining sites, and Mook found himself in the smithing business after he constructed a forge and bellows.

Farming also becomes important, and he constructed pens and hen houses for the many roaming birds and their eggs become an important food supply along with their meat. The island is a wealth of many types of edible plants and he transplants the best of them to the fields above his cave to be handy for his use and to be close to his water source. But the strangest things he encountered are the many giant statues of exaggerated human forms that litter this island, especially at the top of one of the three volcanic peaks here where most of them had been originally carved and where many remain unfinished. How did they move them?

The current sea level hides many more of those statues that are now underwater, lined up along the former shore on elaborate bases. In fact, Mook floated right over such a display when he was deposited here, an island that once supported as many as fifty thousand inhabitances but now supports only one, Mook. What happened to everybody?

Long before the joke-time, the large population that once lived here seemed to have doomed itself by deforestation brought about by their own hands. Over-population, war and other factors also played a part. It was long wondered by people who had studied this place, just what were the thoughts of the man who cut down the last tree? Probably something like: I've got to build a boat from this tree and get out of here! Long after that had happened, a much-reduced population encountered foreigners who had arrived by ship and they brought diseases that the local population had no immunity against, and what was left of the original population was decimated. But the joke-time brought a new population and modern technology such as electricity, medical care and an airstrip, and for a while, things remained mostly stable. That is until the anarchy of the rest of the world would reach even here.

As the world became desperate, aircraft arrived nearly everyday bringing more and more fleeing refugees, all with the hope that at this remote location, they could escape the horror of the rest of the world but unfortunately, the ships that were to have brought supplies, failed to arrive. Like the rest of the world, conditions on the island eventually devolved into the same orgy of death as everywhere else, resulting in a greatly reduced, but by other measures, what should have been an ecologically sustainable population. So, why aren't their offspring still around? The answer is much the same as most other places; lack of effective modern medicine against antibiotic resistant aliments, lack of food, failure to coexist, but mainly, here at least, it was a failure to establish a viable breeding population. They just didn't have the numbers for long-term sustainability. Imagine the loneliness of the last human. Mook doesn't have to imagine, he is living it, but he is working on a plan to escape that fate and he has something that the last inhabitants of this place didn't have- thick, lush forest.

Ten thousand years since the last living human lived here has brought a slow return of the forests to this isolated island. Mook has the pick of the trees for a project he has planned, and all his efforts are geared towards realizing it. That picture of the double-hulled sailing canoe painted on the wall of the cave may have been the starting point of his plans, and the smithing and food production enable him to continue his progress. With the lessons learned out on the ocean on the way here, Mook has taken time to make sure he has all he needs to make it back across the sea. He thirsts to see what is beyond that cliff wall and to see if it is true that there are those living there who know the secrets of the symbols and who travel in the wheeled wagons, use the fire stick weapons and so much more.

Two years of steady work have passed before Mook is ready to launch his carefully constructed craft. Several technical aspects of the project had proved formidable. Water casks had required a lot of experimentation and after much trial and error, a tree of an especially hard wood, carefully carved out, dried and sealed with the pitch of a completely different type of tree, yielded a water-proof storage pot that stayed watertight and resisted cracking even after being left out in the sun for months.

Material for sails and cordage proved to be a difficult item to obtain and Mook was nearly at his wits end as he pounded, spun and weaved nearly everything that this island could provide without much success. His fishing exploits finally hinted at an answer. He was hauling in one of his long lines, when the fish fighting his pull was suddenly swallowed by a fair size shark. Mook played the beast to the point of exhaustion and when he eventually landed the predator, he promptly clubbed it into submission. Later, after he had stretched and cured the skin, it proved to be a durable and relatively light weight material that when cut into strips, could be braided into a strong rope. The problem was it would take hundreds of the 'attack fish' to provide all the material that was needed.

Mook smithed a large, multi-point, gaff hook which he baited with a single, live chicken. (The trashing of the fowl quickly attracted the attention of the sharks.) Mook spun the hook and the protesting bird quickly at the end of a length of his rope to launch it far out past the breaking surf and the beasts fought each other with the larger ones usually 'winning' the chance to become part of Mook's boat.

Mook has been constructing his twin float craft on logs that are to be used as rollers at launch time, and he has positioned it up a grade from the water's edge to enable that. Two, fifty-foot logs, three feet in diameter, stripped of bark and sealed in pitch, lay side by side, twelve feet apart and they are lashed and pinned together with elaborate cross bracing of the strongest and densest type of wood that the island offered. Mook's mining and forging provided the bits and bracing used at every joint and connection, and when all of that is combined, it should add up to a structure that should be strong, redundant and excessive. His sail is double and triple stitched, and he carries enough extra material for a complete replacement if necessary, and that is also true for his ropes and cordage.

Mook wasn't going take any chances, and that is especially true with regards to food and water. A double row of water casks lined the bottom of the living space built in between the two floats and dried provisions are packed in every conceivable nook and cranny. Last to be added were coconuts, hundreds of them, tied to every available space. Mook discovered their long preservation qualities and the fact that they could provide a drinking source if the water ran low or went bad so he stocked up on as many as possible, including green ones that would ripen as time went by. Last, a dozen hens and a pair of young roosters were penned-up on deck to provide fresh meat and eggs. Mook had prepared several hundred pounds of a feed mix for the birds that contains dried and pulverized worms and insects, combined with coconut meat and husks, a mixture that Mook's experiments showed that the birds thrive on.

A week point in Mook's plan is navigation. He only knew that he should go in the direction of the rising sun to get to where he had come from and he had noticed that the prevailing wind seems to blow mainly in the opposite of that direction. He is under the impression that he will simply travel north or south until he encountered wind favorable to the direction that he wants to go. This kind of simple thinking shows plainly Mook's lack of knowledge and understanding when it comes to travel by sea. Perhaps he is not blind to this void in his knowledge and his optimism might appear to be less then warranted, but he is driven by one cold hard fact; he isn't going to die on this island.

Before dawn, with his birds as company, and on the receding end of high tide, he knocks the chocks loose and he and his ship ride the rollers to a trilling splashdown into the bay and he watches as his home of two and a half seasons grows smaller behind him as the sun begins to rise above the horizon.
Chapter Twenty-Six: Out of His League

Mook is an intelligent man, the proof of that is the fact that he is still among the living. But there is much that he does not know. Starting with the effects of a sheltered harbor. With the sun just clearing the horizon and his island starting to fade from his view, what is a surprise to him is the actual force of the pacific trade winds. Another surprise will be the need for a provision to 'reef' his sail. That is a term for a way to bring in some sail, to better handle a strong wind. Also, he quickly discovers a need for 'cleats' for his boom line, and a way to secure the rudder so he can move about on deck to adjust things, and what about an anchor? He realizes these things as he scrambles about his craft in growing, frantic terror as his vessel spins in circles and flips up on one float and then the other, as his fowl's squawk in protest. It is times like this when he can't help but rethink his entire plans. Hours pass in this state of confused panic until he discovers technics and sail settings that the craft seems to be happy with, but those adjustments yield a course that is in the exact opposite direction of the one he wanted to go. But Mook is so happy that he seems to be finally under some basic version of control, that he just doesn't really care.

Mook figures out the control limits of his craft and discovers how to and just how far he can sail his craft into the wind, and it is quite clear that while he can steer this heading or that, anything even slightly against the wind is completely out of the question. That means that any chance of going in the direction that he originally came from is a fantasy, unless he finds wind opposite from what he is in now.

But there is much more about sailing that he hasn't even contemplated. One of the most important considerations being the matter of currents. With no clue as to using the stars for direction, or the fact that he could be bucking a strong current and that he wouldn't have a clue that he is basically going nowhere. Or, if he rolls up his sail at night when he is asleep, that any distance he made during the day could be all lost at night, and what about during overcast and fog? How will he gauge his direction? He could be spending all his time going in circles and he wouldn't even know it. There could be a hundred other aspects of sea travel that Mook is unaware of but for him, being unaware is probably a good thing. If he new the kind of danger he is in, he would be so racked with worry and paralyzed with fear that he might not be able to function. Better that he is oblivious to the danger. That will help keep his spirits up and his optimism high until he is dashed to pieces by a typhon, or until he falls off the boat and is eaten by sharks or, barring all that, until he starves to death or dies of thirst.

The trade winds blow Mook west and the currents also push him that way as well- for now at least. Long ago, in the joke-time, there were hundreds of islands that he might have encountered on his present course, but now with the sea level some fifty to sixty feet higher than at that time, some eighty percent of those places are mostly submerged. That is just as well because Mook has had quite enough with islands. He realizes now that unless he encounters winds in the opposite direction, it will not be possible to discover what was beyond that strange cliff of the place he was at before he was swept away, and he is disappointed that he will not be able to confirm the rumors that he had heard of what might be happening at that place, but he is also sure that there will be even more adventure lying ahead regardless of what actual direction he might be traveling. Already he has traveled more miles and seen more sights than any man alive and this direction that he travels now, promises as much adventure as any direction.

Mook holds his tiller and it gives him the illusion of control, but without stars or a compass to help guide him, he may as well be still drifting aimlessly in his raft. He weathers several storms and the robust construction of his craft has served him well. He has perfected technics of dropping his sail in times of trouble, of steering into waves in a manor that protects his ship and his crew. (The chickens.) He gathers rainwater with the help of his extra skins to keep his stocks as full as possible. He catches fish and turtles for food. He gathers driftwood when he can and when he has enough, he enjoys a roasted meal. He marks the days and he has established a code to record the weather; a little icon above each mark denoting rain, sun or clouds. But even with all that, the Pacific Ocean is big, bigger than he could have ever imagined, and as his notches add up, his stocks slowly disappear. At one point, there are no more coconuts and only three chickens left, and he begins to worry. Then later, there is little water and no chickens, and he has started to become desperate. Later still, he has lost his strength and he has been chewing on his ropes and cordage and he has lost weight and much of his drive and will, and he is now largely at the mercy of the wind and current. (Which has really been the case all along.) It isn't much longer before he loses all hope and he just doesn't much care anymore. What will be will be.

A typhon builds on the horizon and waves, huge white-capped rollers, pummel Mook and his craft. He takes a position at the rail where he can watch the building, ugly weather approach, but he is too week to do much further preparation. In fact, he can't even think of any preparation needed except for checking that his knife and the small kit that includes his steel and flints, his fishhooks and his sewing kit is tied securely to his person. He slings his bow and arrows across his back, and he holds tight to his spear. All his other gear and supplies have been mostly exhausted.

Mook gets a second wind as the storm increases. He feels an excitement as the wind blast his face. Stronger and stronger it builds. Sheets of rain and forks of lightning are displayed and seem to appear only for his entertainment. He screams at the roaring thunder:

"Come and get me! Is that all you have got? Bring it on!"

The waves break over him, and the sail tears loose and flies away taking half the mast with it and Mook must laugh:

Who needs it?

The pounding lasts an eternity and Mook holds on for dear life, but he is not in the least bit frightened in his current, manic state. He has never felt more alive. He is running on pure adrenaline and this storm is here for his amusement and his entertainment only. Whipped up only to end his boredom and possibly, to end his life.

What a way to go!

Like a cowboy breaking a wild bull, Mook rides his boat as it breaks up around him and he couldn't care less. But then, suddenly, things change.

His boat, loose and flexing but still mostly in one piece, pops out into a strange calm. The storm, dirty and black, rages all around him with its lightning bolts, thunderclaps and howling wind but here, sunshine breaks on Mook's cheek and he has a change of heart. Suddenly, he wants to live, he wants desperately to live. He searches his mind and his craft for options, for direction, and for answers. He feels a strong, steady breeze here in this strange zone of calm and a plan dawns on him and without wasting a minute, he attaches some of his extra shark skin to what is left of the mast and he has enough sail to catch that wind and provide steerage. Round and round he goes, changing his tack as he neared the edge of the calm in a desperate attempt to stay out of the fury all around him. Back and forth he goes, again and again and again. On and on it goes. Minutes, hours, Mook can't tell any more.

Then there is a change. The appearance of one edge of the mayhem starts to look different as does the appearance of the water underneath of him. Sticks, branches and entire trees whirl around him now and it appears that there are treetops poking through the water under him now and then. Suddenly, out of the gloom, he approaches what appears to be a hillside and on it, is what was not long-ago dense foliage, but now, it is nothing but a mass of snapped and broken brush and trees. There is something more, evidence of a landslide on that hillside, and in the mud and running brown water is a wound of sorts, a void, an opening to a cave, a chamber of some kind that has been recently opened by that sliding muck.

Mook's craft grounds against that ravaged land gently, as if it is giving it a kiss and he steps off his boat and onto that land just as calmly as could be. He uses his spear as a walking stick as he forges the thick, sticky mud and he enters the darkness of the newly exposed chamber. He feels his way up a flight of stairs in the pitch dark as behind him, the calm that he had fought so hard to stay in passes, and all hell breaks loose once again. The stairway ends in the quiet, echoing stillness of a great room and Mook collapses in a heap. He is done for, exhausted, spent.
Chapter Twenty-Seven: What's Next?

Mook had entered the eye of the storm and he had ridden it far inland with the help of a high tide and an intense storm surge. The winds and rain that had battered that land mass resulted in raging, downpour fueled currents and savage flooding that had stripped away vegetation and that had caused the mudflows and the landslides where Mook, apparently the keeper of all the luck in the world, grounded against a hillside that had been freshly opened, revealing an elaborate underground construction dating back to the joke-time.

Back then, when this country was at odds with its neighbor to the northwest, huge underground facilities were constructed with the hope of riding out and living through a nuclear war, at least for a handful of the pampered elites. Entire underground command centers, complete with power plants and filtration equipment was constructed, but within a few decades, the folly of such effort and planning was realized, and the facilities were decommissioned and stripped of their equipment. But the rooms and the tunnels remained, sealed and forgotten. But not unlike the salt mine of before, Mook has found his way into this construction and once again, he is protected from danger.

Mook has awakened from a deep, long sleep but he is far from rested. He was week and hungry before the storm, and that prolonged stretch of running on pure adrenaline has nearly killed him. It is pitch dark here and he is cold and hungry, and he doesn't really know where he is or how he got here. The memory of battling the storm and stepping off his craft seems to be an unbelievable dream, a nightmare really. But as his mind clears and as he lifts his head off the cold, hard floor, it all starts to come into focus. He locates the flint and steel from his kit and strikes it. The flash reveals a sight that reminds him of that salt cave from before but several more strikes prove that this is far from the pristine place that that was. But like that place, there are the remains of books, pamphlets and wood scraps that used to be crates and boxes and much of it is tinder dry. Mook starts a fire.

The heat feels nice, and he can see that he is in a room of about twenty by forty feet with no other exit but the stairway that he had crawled up. There is mud that has built up across the floor that has flowed in from holes and vents in the walls and ceiling. There is some debris laying about that has mostly turned to dust over time, but other than for feeding his fire, he sees nothing of any use or value. Soon, he must make a hasty retreat down the stairs as the smoke from his fire has fouled the air. The landing at the bottom of the stairwell was once connected to other tunnels but they seemed to have been torn away in some epic disaster of long ago. Mook sits down there to gather his thoughts as he takes in the commanding view of raging water flowing wildly across a valley of at least a half a mile in width. The wind still rages, and the rain falls heavy as he shivers. There is no trace of his boat, in fact, the point of land that it grounded against has also disappeared, a victim of more sliding, muddy earth. The reinforced concrete of the stairwell that he sits on seems to be stable enough, but he wishes he would have built his fire down here where it could vent safely away. When the smoke clears, he will gather more tinder from that room and build a new fire and in the meantime, he steps out into the rain to gather wood.

China, a world-wide, economic powerhouse by the end of the joke-time, and perhaps due to its long history of inclusion and self-reliance, and with experience dealing with large populations, she held out far longer than other developed nations during the global disaster. As sea levels rose, she absorbed much of the eastern world as their people retreated from the disappearing seaside population centers, but that taxed China to the very limits of her abilities and resources. When things swung the other way and glaciers advanced across the vast continent to the north, the flood of desperate refugees (many, if not most, bent on invasion and occupation, and when that largely failed- destruction) broke the strained balance and the orgy of death flourished here just as it did in the rest of the world.

High populations levels may have prolonged the duration of the strife here just because the larger numbers required more time to be reduced, but disease, famine and the general, changing environmental conditions finished the job as efficiently and effectively as elsewhere. China's southern latitude may have prevented the ice flows from reaping physical havoc, but without organization and coherent, engaged manpower, disaster after disaster plagued what was left. What has most devastating were the cascading dam failures that scoured the river valleys where the last pockets of civilized humanity remained, and those people, the last of the organized and educated, were savagely wiped away in the sudden, unpredictable flooding. It was just such a dam failure that terraformed the valley that Mook now scours for firewood, and his incredible good luck seems to be holding, because as the high water of the storm surge is still draining away, it has trapped a large catfish in a pool and it is a simple matter to scoop it out and stab it with his spear.

The rain had stopped, and the sun was trying to poke through the clouds in places as Mook sliced the still sizzling slabs of catfish steaks and it melted in his mouth for a satisfying bliss he hadn't known for so long. He spent the next several days eating and resting with most of his efforts geared towards tending his fire. He kept a view towards the valley below, and the profound thing he noticed was that the river, that at one point was nearly half a mile wide, had now receded to a width of less than fifty feet.

If any other humans share this valley, they remain hidden. With Mook's campfire spewing smoke, which in this now still air should make his presence known for miles around, yet he hasn't seen a single sign of anyone else. Which after his isolation on Easter Island, is a disappointment, even if contact with others might pose a danger.

In the ten thousand years since the joke-time, there have been dozens, maybe hundreds of communities established here in this fertile valley. They fished the river and they hunted the water deer and the other game, planted and harvested crops but one after another, they all met pretty much the same fate- a disaster of being swept away by flooding. Once, complex canal systems and dams prevented that kind of tragedy, but without central planning and established, organized, educated manpower, all of that infrastructure had long ago ceased to function. Even the ruins of those once, grand capital projects have almost completely vanished with the march of time. After each massive, 'hundred-year storm' the land rejuvenated and eventually a new group stumbled upon this inviting valley and others, only to repeat the fate of the group before. It is much the same in the valley above this one and the valley below, and the one above that one and the next one below and on and on and on. So massive and complete is the devastation of each flood, and as sparse that the overall population is, and with no one to warn the next group and with no written warnings to heed, the cycle continues over and over. Eventually, when a stable and large enough population finally takes hold, the current status quo will likely be overcome, but that could still be very far off, and if Mook wants to make contact with others, he may have a long wait. If he wants safety, he will have to live away from the flood plains, no mater how lush and fertile they seem to be.

The ruins that Mook had literally stumbled upon have proven to be an excellent camp home to ride out the winter. High enough to be safe from the many flash floods that rise without warning from the many storms of this time of year that can be centered far upriver but eventually devastate this valley and all that are below. It also offers a commanding view that can provide him early warning of intruders and advanced notice of herds of deer that enter the valley and that helps with his hunting. With the shelter of the large room cleaned-up and outfitted for his needs, he has found a safe and stable home that has the protection that the other homesteads down in the valley of the people that had settled here before lacked. But even with all those positive virtues, other than a base for his operations, Mook uses this place only as a staging area as he prepares for further travel.

Pelts of deer skin have been stretched, cured and sewn into clothing, blankets, bags and a new backpack. His bow has been restrung and a quiver of replacement arrows has been manufactured. A new spear has also been fashioned and his best knife is in a new sheave and is back around his waist. The warm spring has already brought new plant growth to the formerly stripped riverbanks and Mook enjoys the pleasant, temperate weather of this area. He has located and harvested great quantities of edible roots and berries and he has dried them and along with his dried meat, he has made a large supply of pemmican.

Surviving the great storm that had brought him here, and with his awareness of the danger that the flash flooding brings, Mook will not travel along the river valleys that casual observation points to as the way one should go with their promise of ample food and water sources along the way. Mook is an advanced world traveler now, perhaps the world's leader in that regard and he will not fall in the trap that regularly claims the lives of so many others.

After climbing the largest peak in the area, Mook has looked around and he has decided which way he will go. To the north he had seen snow-capped mountains that rise as far as the eye can see. Cold, dangerous, not for me! To the south, deltas of wet, swampy rivers fork endlessly to what must eventually become the sea. Muddy, slow going and frankly, I've had quite enough of the sea, which is a thought that ruled out the east as well. Why would I go that way? That's the way I came. Been there, done that.

Rolling foothills of dense forest beckon towards the west and it calls to him. There is no real reason to leave this valley and eventually others will come here but that isn't Mook's way. He is a travelling man. He may not have started out that way, but he has found his calling. He is still relatively young and perhaps when his body ages, he will settle down wherever he ends up, but until then, he will remain on the move with the goal of answering his many questions about so many subjects; such as the wheeled vehicles, the written symbols, the firestick weapons, and whatever is over the next hill. I won't find any answers staying here!
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Let's Talk

Mook will be traveling for years to come. He will face death and find adventure over and over and over again. He will meet others, he will live and love, possibly leaving offspring, he will raise more questions, find some answers, settle down, perhaps even grow old, but this story is about much more than just him. It is about the future, our future. A future bleak and depressing, or natural and inevitable. How it is perceived, depends on your point of view. What will happen depends on the choices that we make today- or does it?

The fact is, we don't know. Our science, our computer models, our knowledge, is all, still, in its infancy. To predict a future based on a past that excludes modern realities, is pure folly. The Earth never had the factor of global industrialism thrown into the mix before. And not just increases in carbon dioxide, but many other new and foreign elements and substances pour into the environment now and only an oracle using magic powers (or an imaginative writer) can accurately predict the long-term outlook. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep trying. Little by little we whittle away the nonsense and slowly approach the truth. The question is whether we will be able to stay ahead of impending catastrophe and implement useful solutions and fixes, or will we be overwhelmed and blindsided such as the world that Mook will live in will be.

Let's examine some current trends of the world of today. Are we making progress? Or will we actually be referred to as the people who lived in the "joke-time?"

Today, there is a strong and growing movement, especially among the young, to accept global warming and to act at reducing our "carbon footprint." They (and all of us) have been warned and guided by those who have made it their business to sound the alarm and to lead by example- or have they? Made it their business? Yes. Lead by example? Well..., a look at Al Gore's two hundred room estate from space (one of several he owns) and one might find a different answer.

But wait! His efforts and others have spread the word and brought about huge carbon reductions- or have they? Spread the word, perhaps. Huge reductions (or any reduction) well...,

A rally or conference of thousands of like-minded, motivated people must be a step in the right direction, right?

In terms of the hope and the solidarity of a feel-good, special event, a reinforcement of shared values, togetherness, appreciation and to facilitate advanced planning, all that is all well worth the carbon footprint of the transportation, the Event Center heating and/or cooling, the trash and toiletry concerns and other impacts of such get togethers, or is it? If that "planning" only concerns the next big march or rally, and when all those impacts are added together and factored into the big picture, well... Last time I checked those events still featured parking lots filled with cars.

But we can't sit around and do nothing!

Really? Why not? I would like to explore the option of doing just that- nothing.

We get up, shower, shave, get dressed go to school, go to work, go shopping, go-go-go! How long has this, on-the-move society really existed? A hundred years? Humanity survived long before that, but I don't hear much talk of any return to that way of life. A time when your work in the shop, office or farm field was just steps away. When a factory or building project included housing and even meals. Entertainment such as theaters, dance halls, bowling alleys, restaurants and of course, bars and pubs were often included, even mandatory with those plans, and naturally, with room and board often included to help attract the labor force.

But now, a superhighway leads from the housing tract and you will join the other lemmings in your shiny metal box, and what's more, you wouldn't have it any other way. If you want a mate, a husband or a wife, a family where your kids won't be ostracized, you must join in. All the marching, slogans, chanting and hand-written banners in the world aren't going to change any of that any time soon. Don't believe it? Just wait until all the young, idealistic activists are with families of their own. It happened to the hippies, and not all that much has really changed.

Oh, that won't happen to us! Were different, were smarter than that!

Oh, please! Every generation has said that! Every generation thinks they care more than those worn-out, old fuddy-duddies from before, it's just human nature. We won't be tricked and swindled into war. (And we are.) We won't waste and pollute. (And we do.)

That is so cynical, so pessimistic, that is not us. How dare you!

Oh, you want proof? Some examples? That, my friends will be easy! So, buckle-up kids!

Why it will be called the Joke-Time:

Planned Obsolescence:

Purposefully making products that will be fashionable or functionable for only a limited time in order to encourage repeat shopping trips, encouraging turnover and multiple sales, a perpetual 'hype cycle' that may have helped Detroit sell a lot of Chevy's and Ford's during the fifties and sixties, but it may not be a sustainable system as we go into the future. And it is more than just cars that fall into this marketing trap.

When I turned on this computer to write this story, a computer that worked perfectly until it 'timed-out' and needed to be connected to an outside source (the internet) just to continue to function, I was then informed by a start-up message that soon the operating system would not be supported any longer and I would need to update to the next, latest and greatest system. I promptly hit the "learn more" icon where I was informed that not only would I need the new operating system, but my computer (or any older computer) won't work with the new system.

What a surprise! But what really pisses me off is that the message had this up-beat, 'lucky-for-you' vibe expounding on all the latest and newest features that the change will give me. The world will be at my fingertips and if all I want is a tool for writing, well then I must be stuck in the stone age, and with my dinosaur-like, short-sightedness, well, I guess I should just as well just die!

My mechanic says my garage kept, low mileage, mint condition automobile is old enough now that it is also "no longer supported" and that I am on "borrowed time" if I don't replace it soon. Funny though that he has a fifty plus year old vehicle (several actually) in perfectly fine condition. When I inquire about that he boastfully clarifies:

"That car was made before computers and there are specialized companies that reproduce every single part so that repairs can be made indefinitely."

"If I hold on to my car long enough, won't that be the case for my car as well?"

"Ha-ha-ha! Please sir, todays cars aren't made to be repaired, hell, half the electronics are buried under welded construction, you know, for energy absorption during a crash." Perhaps with all that built-in safety, I might as well just mistake the gas for the brake and my insurance will give me another new, disposable car! (Just kidding! I think.)

What about my television? In the last few decades the entire system had become obsolete five times! Then my niece gave me a new, flat screen monster and guess what? Nothing was compatible with what I had before. As a result, the cable guy was at my house three times and even though I pay a new, large bill, it stays off almost all the time. And then there are the realities of popular entertainment formats. Violas turned into records then to 8-tracks then cassettes then CDs then I-pods then the cloud- all that is new is progress, but all that is old is waste. Video started with BETA, then VCR, laser disks, DVD, downloads, etc. I have similar stories regarding my cell phone and video games follow a similar progression. One replaces the other in a logical but wasteful secession and no one feels the least bit guilty about it.

My washer, and then the dryer went bad after only ten years, (the ones that those replaced lasted twenty) my 'new' refrigerator lasted sixteen years. (That one replaced the one I inherited from my parents that still worked fine when I gave it away after fifty years!)

But the new stuff is better, made with environmentally sound methods.

Let's examine that statement and compare it with reality: In the first place, if it is truly better, wouldn't it last longer? I guess I should check the definition of the word "better." Second, there must be a carbon footprint regarding the disposal of my old equipment. Is that factored in? And if the new factory is better, I'm sure it wasn't constructed without adding to the world's carbon levels. How many units must be made before everything evens out? Wait, that's not how it works. You're not supposed to ask those kinds of questions.

New cars are much more efficient:

My neighbor bought a popular, electric hybrid, and while I don't mind his smug, self-righteous attitude about that, I was surprised that after only seven years the battery needed replacement and just that part cost some $4700 dollars! So, he traded it in on a new, full electric model. I asked him what he would do if that battery went bad and he confessed that from now on, he would just trade it in on a new one every two or three years. Then he lectured me on the virtues of using clean, electric power like I should give him a metal or something. I didn't have the heart to tell him that we share an electric grid that uses coal as the power source. I wonder if when factoring in the manufacturing of his new car (including the high-tech battery) and the refurbishing of his trade in, (including the manufacturing of the new and the disposal of the old battery) has the world gained or lost ground? Compared to a car that is sitting and not being used or being repaired or in need of being disposed of, (my car) I feel okay about my carbon footprint, thank you very much.

I might be able to start a new slogan: If it was made in the past, it was made to last.

It is one thing to complain about things and quite another to propose solutions.

Okay, fair enough.

Let's revisit and rethink this situation of packing it up every day and hitting the road. Wouldn't a short walk beat fighting traffic? Imagine the extra time that could be spent with friends and family. The reductions of stress. The time for those chores that have been stacking up or the hobby that you wanted to undertake. Oh, the joys that could be realized. The healthy, happy lives that could be possible if that commute could be eliminated.

Workplaces could be required, zoned, to have homes nearby. Schools could resemble the one room schoolhouse of the past. One in every couple of blocks, with the benefit smaller class size and locally sourced teachers and determined, local and effective community involvement.

Technology could be mandated for the use of home offices and perhaps most radical, the work week could be halved, doubling the available jobs on the market and also more than doubling the time off where people might be able to stay on top of their affairs and would have the time to study important issues and to be involved with their families and to care for the elderly and perhaps even absorb some of their wisdom.

But that would mean living with less income.

Which brings about what might be the most important aspect of preventing a world such as the one that Mook lives in; you wouldn't need as much money if you didn't need to replace everything so often.

Making things that last a lifetime: (Or longer.)

I have a set of tools that started with a collection from my dad that I have added to. They are from the Snap-On company and they will certainly outlast me, of that I am sure. My mechanic has a collector/muscle car (several actually) that he is very proud of that with careful care, it will also last several lifetimes. In my kitchen I have pots and pans, silverware and other things that will remain perfectly useable and the same is true with other things throughout my home. Then there is my home itself, with its lifetime roof and lifetime, never paint siding. And lifetime warranty, energy efficient windows, etc. Why can't we demand that kind of performance of all our products?

There will need to be a sharp decrease of overall consumerism (what might be called 'waste' consumerism) as 'vanity' purchases will have to be discouraged, but with the hope of the future of the world on the line, the color scheme of your kitchen or the features of your phone would and should be looked at as petty problems. But we seem to be a long-long way from being anyway near that scenario. Sure, things like this could be a simple, elegant solution and if the people, the masses go along with it, it might even work.

Whoa! Wait a minute, everybody must live that way? You think millionaires and billionaires will play along? Get real!

Why must every revolutionary idea hinge on the us and the them? The haves and the have nots? But what if the flaunting of wealth became unfashionable? Due to the numbers- the very few rich versus the majority- the middle class and the poor, a social condition like I'm describing could become a possibility.

Oh, the rich could stay behind their closed doors, hunkered-down in their gated communities, but that type of life kind of defeats the purpose of being rich, doesn't it? Imagine if bragging about your speed boat went the way of boasting about sexual conquest has during these 'me too' times. That would be sweet, and fine with me. (I obviously don't have a speedboat and I have never been the type to kiss and tell.)

Due to inconsiderate behavior or just plain bad manners, the inability to brag safely and openly about, well..., for the rich..., everything, could bring about an immediate and complete cultural power shift. Imagine, the rich becoming public caretakers of their own estates, much like the royal families of the U.K. Just trusties of the art and the architecture, for the enjoyment of the general public and for historic posterity. If that proves too much of a burden, they are free donate their estates to the public and live a life of low-impact leisure. Perhaps they could study or produce art or do anything they please, if they keep it low key and low impact. (Ouch!)

Okay, now I'm just having fun, but if well-made, long-lasting, high-quality goods could greatly reduce our global, carbon footprint and slow the onset of a climate catastrophe, and if less work and more free time might improve our mental health and our general pursuit of happiness, and if fad and vanity purchases could be discouraged, shouldn't it be considered? It's a no brainer!

Much more might have to become unfashionable and out of favor, or at least examined critically and eventually a lot of it will need to be swept into the dust bin of history to prevent a climate catastrophe. Many of those things are loved passionately such as stadium sports and concerts, but unless they would be attended by those who only walk there, and, well..., really any event or pastime that features a parking lot will be under scrutiny.

Road trips?

Sorry.

Even if engines are converted to hydrogen?

It takes energy (a lot of energy) to make hydrogen.

Even hydrogen made from hydroelectric power?

Maybe, if there is enough left over after more pressing needs. (There won't be.)

Nuclear?

We can't even figure out what to do with the nuclear waste we generate now, and just look at Mook's world about what happens when we build things that we can't walk away from. That includes caches of biological weapons as well. Can you imagine what havoc those will cause in wild and unsupervised future? (Yuck!)

Unless the human race embarks on a complete and through turn about in the way we live and the way we use resources, a future such as what Mook experiences is what is in store for our descendants. It won't happen tomorrow or even for our children or even for their children and there is a good chance that the momentum and awareness of today will fade like a boy who cried wolf or Chicken Little, who declared that the sky is falling, but it will happen, and if our heroes remain the latest Hollywood heartthrob or professional sport star, and if the focus of our lives is the latest shoe fad or phone app, then when it comes, we will be as blindsided as ever, maybe more so.

The Earth will remain here, and life will continue no matter what we do or don't do. The human race will probable even survive, but perhaps only in small pockets and there is a good chance that it will be with a nearly complete loss of what technology that we have learned and accumulated to date, but we will advance through the time ahead and we will learn our lessons over and over again in the next three to four billion years that our sun promises to provide us with energy, so whatever happens will happen, it's no big deal. You, me, your kids, my niece, we will all be long dead before the shit hits the fan. Their kids, well..., that could be a different story. The real and lasting question will be if today is remembered as the turning point of when we as a species turned it all around and provided a stable future for our descendants, or is this time today actually destined to really be remembered as the joke-time?

So, when I say that we should do nothing, what I mean is that we should do less. Not less prevention and awareness, but less everything! We are not going to build our way out of this problem, that will just add to the mess. A complete evaluation and turn-about of what we consider 'hip' and permissible will be required and if a sharp reduction to our GDP makes that impossible, then that system should be replaced. It is just one of our inventions anyway. If something that we have initiated is obsolete and is in the way, then it can be discontinued and removed from use. I don't see the problem.

Theoretical physicist Max Planck, who helped lay the groundwork for quantum theory once said: "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." With that in mind, young people, who have the most at stake regarding the future, are far more receptive to new ideas because they have the smallest stake in the status quo. The challenge will be to keep them focused and interested as they transition into the humdrum of middle age.

What's it going to be?

In closing, let's examine a simple, sobering truth. Imagine that everything and more that I have suggested is demanded and executed, and people embrace a less wasteful and more environmentally sound world and a scaled-back lifestyle, will we be able to continue our fast-pace, latest and greatest, upwardly mobile, on-the-go way of life?

NO!

If you think we will be able to stop and turn around global warming, then you got another thing coming! The only thing we even have a chance of preventing is a global killing spree, and even that is a long shot. Until we are ready to abandon coastal cities, abolish wasteful life choices, including senseless, recreational travel and the inefficiencies of global commerce and embrace locally sourced goods, until we take steps to avoid an anarchy where established systems breakdown until everyone is gathered around a campfire each night, and even if we did manage to avoid all of that, we will still will face massive changes. The difference will be our reaction to those changes. Will each generation kick the can down the road until it is a bloodbath and a free-for-all as the strong eliminate the week for what little is left? Or will we take the steps and except the reality? Will we phase-in the changes until we all live sustainable lives? Including the rich. Or will we cross our fingers and take the chance that we will think are way out of this? Will we progress with our technology to a point where we find solutions exactly when they are needed? That, I'm afraid, is the path we will most likely take, and it is a very dicey proposition. But if we could do both, reduce our footprint and keep advancing and searching for technical answers, that would be our best bet.

Good luck world, we're going to need it!
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Back to Mook

What happened to Mook? What didn't happen to Mook? He ran into a violent gang a few foothills over from his temporary, underground bunker home. They were a group descended from violent Russian stock and he was nearly killed, but a timely attack of their main enemy, an Asian, martial arts wielding warrior tribe, provided a diversion that allowed Mook to escape, and he fled deep into the bamboo forest where he eventually befriended a starving tiger by providing him with some meat. That big cat become a traveling companion and he shocked and amazed all those that they ran into including some Monks of a lost, Hindu temple where he and his tiger stayed for a great while, and Mook learned their ways including much of their written language.

He continued east with his tiger and they eventually wander into a little Greek village where he becomes smitten with a widow and her son. The tiger leaves him, (the call of the wild demands that the beast must return to the jungle to find a mate) but the son, actually a young man, becomes Mook's new travelling companion.

Further east to the ocean and then north, up the coast, they eventually find a seafaring race and board a crude ship, and after much adventure, danger and hardship, they arrive at the South American continent where Mook, by this time growing old, and his companion (by now also a seasoned traveler) find that place beyond the wall, but all that was rumored to be there of the last of the 'civilized' humans, proved to have ended and disappeared long ago.

Before Mook died, he told his adopted son, Herk, about the strange items and treasures in the salt cave up north, beyond the great desert and Herk traveled that way, back across that great desert looking for the place, but he never found it. But he did end his days with the nomadic people of the plains, and he fought with them in their never-ending wars with the invaders of the east.

As the years turned into decades and the decades turned into centuries and as the centuries turned into millennia, there was a replay of much of the most notable of human advancements, including many of the same basic turning points of before, such as the discovery and manufacture of gunpowder and guns, sea travel and the rise of world trade, organized governments, industrial and manufacturing ages and other familiar waypoints right up until their scientists declared that excess carbon dioxide was changing their climate. But to many that declaration was greeted by the statement:

"What corn!"

The End
