Chapter One

With a sigh, I pushed my hiking poles into the sand and swung my pack down next to them as I looked out over the cove. It was a breathtaking vista, filled with rocky, black tidal pools. Chock full of mussles, seaweed and plenty of monkey-faced eels that were sure to just jump onto my pole. With an amazing emerald green just beyond the breakers, it was sure to have plenty of rockfish, scallops and abalone to dive for. Four hours of hiking to get to this oasis and it was beautiful, completely worth the six hour drive and three am wake up to get away from civilization!

Taking a deep breath, now that I was unencumbered by my pack, I let the salt of the ocean air meld with the sound of the waves to continue working the magic that my four hours of hiking had prepared my overstressed body for. Another deep breath and I could feel the stress continue to melt out of my neck and shoulders. Or, maybe that was just the weight of my ninety pound pack coming off my back. That's right, I'm not much into the ultralight model of backpacking. I believe that if I'm only going to get three days off of work, and half of that time is going to be spent driving, I may as well be comfortable. Well comfortable in the camp, hiking with this beast on is, while not yet to the point of getting harder every year, certainly isn’t getting easier. Another deep breath, and I unzip my light, fleece windbreaker that has been keeping the damp mist of the morning fog off of me. The day was just starting to warm up to its projected high of seventy and with the offshore breeze scattering the morning fog it was feeling just about perfect.

Another deep breath while I reveled in feeling the salty air on my face and I got down on one knee to start going through my pack’s bottom pouch for the small collapsible cooler, filled with ice cold local IPA, while it added to the weight I thought it was an acceptable sacrifice to make to highlight the seafood I was planning on enjoying. I had only brought six, so I was going to have to ration them out over the next forty-eight hours. Planning on making sure to finish them before I began the awful trudge back to civilization, or perhaps more importantly, before the ice melted and they warned up. Feeling the ice slush around heavily still I figured it had a good chance of lasting until dinner tomorrow. Either way the high I was chasing this trip wasn't oblivion by alcohol, nope a nice simple catch and cook for forty-eight hours kid free, tech light and most importantly other people free. Standing back up with another deep breath in through the nose I let more stress out with the exhale and pulled my Bowie knife from my right hip, and while it's long ten inch signature blade was impressive, my focus was instead on the bottle opener that came with it on the hilt, a gift from my kids, it was one of my favorite backpacking accessories. With a quick pull and a quiet little snick, my ambrosia was free, and with that and a long pull from the bottle my me time had officially started.

Another deep breath and another pull from the bottle and I started going through the checklist in my head of every thing I needed to get done before I could get into the water. As always trying to keep my loose plan at the forefront of my thick skull, before entropy took effect and everything went off the rails. The closer I could keep everything to the list before the inevitable universe stirring the pot, the better I would come out of its mischief. Taking another slug of the slightly bitter IPA, I surveyed the area trying to remember where I had placed my tent last year. I thought I had picked out the perfect spot the year before, and I still maintain it would have been great if not for the storm higher up in the hills. What was a picturesque view from a sandbar overlooking the mouth of the stream quickly turned into a near disaster as the headwater from the storm cut away the sandwall my camp was atop of. With it nearly taking my camp out to sea in the middle of the night. I had quite the scare in the morning as I stepped out of my tent almost tumbling down into the torrent still streaming out into the ocean.

This year I'm going to do better, definitely not as far back as the grasslands. I don't want to hike that much for my fishing and diving and besides sand makes a much better under mattress the rock or compact dirt. However, I'm certainly not going to make the view main point that I'm going to build my camp around this time. I can bring my plate over with a camp stool and beer to have a nice dinner, so something within walking distance is a must. Putting my tent on the edge however, and giving the universe a second shot at sending me on a short trip out into the middle of the ocean is out for this year. Nope, I don't know how the universe is going to mess with me on this trip. I'm sure it will be a doozy, every time I have made the trip something crazy has happened, but the view and fishing is divine so I keep coming back. I'm enough of a pack rat that I am sure I have got enough stuff in my giant pack that I'll make it back to pick up my kids on Sunday. But if I'm going to have sushi ready when we get back to the house, that means catching the fish now. And that starts with finishing the beer, then taking five minutes to wander around and find the perfect dune that is close enough to the ocean so I can rinse my catch, near enough to the stream for fresh water, high enough create a small bit of a wind break and with enough driftwood to make a nice fire for tonight and tomorrow. Should be simple, another deep inhale and exhale, another long slug of that beautifully golden amber liquid. When the thought hits me, you know what you need, self? You need some fresh uni to help finish off this beer, a little more of a break before you set up camp isn't going to hurt anything.

So, pushing my glass bottle back into the sand from which it sprang, as I pour a little bit of water around it to help keep the beer cold from the hose of the water bladder in my back, the weight from all of my gear driving it out of the hose. I unstrapped my diving knife from where it hung on the side of my pack and quickly redid it around the inside of my right leg. Unclipping one of my collapsible buckets that was hanging off the bottom of my pack, beneath my folding kayak was next and with a quick flick of my wrist I opened it up. I decided to mosey on down to the tidal pools to see what I could see, see, sea. I swear having kids turns your brain to mush and while they grow older that merely means I delight more and more in embarrassing them and talking to them in front of their friends like they are still six and four. Fortunately for me, while they are still teenagers and hate my guts half the time, I’ve got a couple of things going for me. One, I got them out in the wild early enough that they still love the outdoors somewhat. Yeah, they want to hang out with their friends and my daughter is loving having her first car and the beginnings of freedom that come with that. But, we still have our quarterly trips to completely disconnect, and they say they still love it. Two, not to be immodest, I'm a halfway decent cook and in this day and age even halfway decent, still is plenty better than the fast food and ready made meals that most people stick with. So, we are always the hangout spot with plenty of friends wanting to stick around and mooch off snacks and dinner. Three, apparently their friends think I'm cool, hip, or as the kids are saying it now, and I only really use it when I want to see them cringe, fire. You see I got lucky, yup that's right lucky, lucky to be dumb enough to buy a couple of hundred bitcoin when it wasn't even worth a dollar, and dumb enough to hold onto them for years until they became worth something without managing to throw the hard drive away or lose the password after so many years. And then I sold out rather than holding on before the big crash and it all went back to ones and zeros. That money got me a decent house free and clear and more importantly for me a small plot of land not too far away so I could build a warehouse off the grid for my hobbies… Nope, no, nothing that dark, currently so far I've got a woodworking shop, a small smithy, and a little glass forge, and hopefully if the market continues to go right I'll be adding a kiln and pottery wheel next year. I’ve never been good at just having one hobby and I was lucky enough that I got out in time that I have the means to indulge in many. Apparently in the days of infinite short videos being a huge time sink, getting to actually make videos of yourself learning from a Renaissance Man is quite the pull for my kids friend groups. Which brings us to Four, and honestly it's the biggest one, the one I pull out when I get too “cringe” for them with my dad jokes or when I embarrass them to much with an early curfew, or when my daughter hates me so much and says in that way that only a teenage girl can after you take their car away, to “just die”. Well when they've been pushed to their limits the way only teenagers can get to by having to deal with their out of touch parents who could never have possibly been through anything near as bad as they’ve gone through, I've got to bring out the big card. Card number four, the one to really remind them that no matter how embarrassing they think I am they are stuck with me. I just look them straight in the eye and remind them that, well the judge says I've got fifty/fifty custody and you're stuck with me, unless you want to file for emancipation. Yup, so far good old option Four has been coming up a lot lately, now that my daughter has her car. She has been really pushing up against the boundaries her mother and I've set, but fortunately, no matter how heated our arguments have gotten so far she hasn't called me on it... yet. My son is younger so he's a little easier, the shine hasn't been rubbed out of his eyes all the way. In his case, for him I'm still the one that has the solution to all of his problems and if he gets so annoyed that I don't give him the answer and instead make him work for it, the most it gets me is a “God! Dad, you are the worst” with maybe a slammed door behind him. I'll take that any day of the week and twice on Sundays over worrying that my baby girl is going to not come home, just to prove the point to me that I can't set limits on her. I mean I know I've got to trust that the lessons I've taught to them, and especially her, will always be there in the back of their minds to stop them from doing anything to stupid. Of course, the scariest part of being a parent for me is knowing just exactly how many stupid things I've done in my life to prove a point.

All of that is why I love having these weekends away. Yeah, the divorce meant I still need a part time job to have some money coming in. I could try selling all of my projects, but I'm not enough into the online scene anymore and a craft tent at a fair somewhere would be even more time intesive, so it is better just to give them away as gifts. That means a part time job, but coming from being a cook and then a truck driver, an easy 4 day work week with a measly twenty-eight hours a week is nothing. On the weeks I don't have my kids I get to go hone my crafts, go out hunting and fishing to fill the freezer, bbq up what I have in the freezer, or when I'm feeling my most ambitious I make the trip up here to the middle of nowhere on the coast of California, days from anyone. I get to destress, unwind and meditate in the middle of nature with the freshest seafood, a few pretty cold beers, majestic views, and some of the best diving (in my humble opinion) anywhere in northern Cali.

My side quest accomplished, I left my endless worrying to my hindbrain and started making my way out of the tidal pool with the seven purple urchins I had just popped off of the tidal pool walls and into my bucket. I slid my diving blade back into its rubber sheath still strapped onto the inside of my right calf and quickly made my way through the wet sand over to the mouth of the river and freshwater where I had left my pack. Reaching into the top pouch I pull out a large plastic ziplock with my smaller collapsible bucket and water filter in it. Grabbing yet another ziplock with my feeder hose in it, I quickly set up my filter and filled my bucket that was strictly for potable water up. Another minute filled with swift practice moves had everything disassembled and back into their proper bags minus the bucket of fresh water. Making sure to take care of my diving knife and sheath first. I quickly unstrap it from my leg and give it a quick rinse with a small pour of water before strapping it back to my pack for later. Taking my long fixed blade out I swiftly cracked the urchins shells and using half of the remaining filtered water, I gave them a fast rinse. Looking inside I can see I've hit the jackpot, these urchin gonads are filled to bursting. So sticking my blade in, I scrape out some of the uni and with a small toss of my head, I slurp it off the knife before it can fall to the ground. Slowly chewing to savor the umomi of it I reach down and pull out my still cold beer to wash it down with. After putting my beer back down into its sand cooler, I set my knife gently down onto a small rock next to it and sit down (criss cross applesauce as I would say to the annoyance of my daughter had she been here). I take another deep Breath, in through the nose and out through the mouth.

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Another Breath.

And another.

I've never formally studied yoga or any of the other eastern practices of meditation, or for that matter any western forms of meditation. But, sitting there on that beach, Breathing in and out, letting the beauty of the wilderness wash over and through me taking the stress of teenagers, a lifetime of hard work and a frustrating marriage where both of us were convinced we were right, but more than likely neither of us had the proper answer. I thought about maybe changing my next hobby to learning how to meditate as a better project instead of pottery. But, as always when I was meditating on my own, something told me it just wasn't for me. I know some basic stretches, a couple of the simple breathing patterns and that was good enough in my mind. A simple foundation that relieved my stress and kept me somewhat flexible.

As an avid reader of many of the fictional genres from historical fiction to high fantasy, and xianxia to isekai, I've always wondered if the yogi's and boudda’s where the path to magical powers on this planet of ours. My brain, which always enjoyed arguing with itself when no one else was around to fill the role of opposition, quickly picked out its two stances. The whimsical part of my brain always brought up that it was certainly not the lack of mystical energy in our world that is stopping people from becoming cultivators able to walk on the air and hurl fireballs… no that can’t be it. It must be that they aren't meditating properly to gather the energy. Therefore I shouldn't let myself be sucked down their dead end path of peace and fulfillment. Standing on the shoulders of giants only works if they haven't taken a wrong turn and ended up at a dead end. I will always choose to forge my own path, my failures no one's fault but my own. The other counterpoint to that being my successes are all the sweeter.

“Hah” I said quietly, Of course it's that. Forty-five years on this planet and I’m sure that this will be the trip to do it, I thought with a grin.

“Forty-five years” I murmured to myself, “and still dreaming of magical powers”.

With a quick shake of my head my logical side didn't even bother countering such a weak argument. With a small laugh I agreed with him and I picked up my knife and scooped out some more of the uni. A couple of sips of beer and scoops later I emptied the last of the shells. Tipping the bottle high I waited for the last drop to drip onto my tongue, and with the nectar sadly gone I once again had the same thought I had every time I came out here, “If I just chuck the bottle out into the ocean, all I’m really doing is just returning the sand back to its source. Also maybe the bottle would make a good home for some fish or crustaceans that are just scared and looking for protection from some sea monsters swimming out there.” But no, silencing the devil on my shoulder I quickly rinsed the bottle out in the salt bucket and then poured a little of the fresh over it before packing it into one of my packs' many side pockets. Brushing off my pants I sighed, I told myself I'd give myself five minutes to relax before I found a campsite and began to set up and instead I’ve probably gone closer to thirty minutes.

“Come ON!” I said to myself while giving my head a couple of swift raps with my knuckles. “Work before play, if you want to have the time to dive for dinner tonight you got to stop daydreaming. If you want to get to the catch part of the catch and cook. Just stop wasting your time and get your chores done before you relax. If you would get on your kids about it you've got no excuses for doing it yourself.”

Quickly dumping my saltwater bucket out I gave it a quick rinse with the fresh before clipping it onto my pack, another small pour of the water onto my bowie and a swipe on my fleece sleeve to dry it, and back into its home on my hip it goes. Looking into my water bucket I see there is not much left, so I decided to tilt it up to my mouth only for it to splash all over my face as the loudest and most violent thunder I've ever heard or felt ripples through my body. Looking up I stare in awe as I see the sky rips in half above me, my body stays frozen while my mind shoots into overdrive. Quickly throwing out possibilities one after another. A lifetime of reading fuels my imagination and I try to figure out what's going on. Quickly discarding the basic I must be dreaming; Either it is and I'll wake up from the nightmare soon; Or it's not a dream, and willfully ignoring reality however strange will undoubtedly be a quick nomination and acceptance speech at the Darwin Awards. While I may like to think that I am clever, Ricky Gervaise I am not, so let's just go ahead and skip that hollywood dinner shall we. With the decision to go ahead and treat this nightmare as real for the foreseeable future I decided to move onto my next decision to stay or run. Looking up at the blackness of the void slowly ripping down I realize that looking hard enough I can see clouds on the other side, by now it has ripped down to ten and two respectively with the twelve being straight up. Some quick WAG's thrown out in my brain I decide that maybe I can dash quickly enough to get out of the bubble that seems to be coming down around me. Two more thoughts flash through my brain as I feel the sweat start to bead at my brow from the overclocking my processes are going through my thoughts. Or, maybe it's just terror. I've heard it both ways. The first being, that whatever this is and however small of a chance I have of getting out of here, I've got to go all out to take it. I'm not abandoning my kids for whatever this nightmare egg that seems to be forming is (yeah when you say it like that it seems like an easy decision), even if I’m maimed or killed going through the black wall. Better to know that I died giving it my all to get back home, than abandon them. The second thought being that as big of a PIMA that it's going to be to get back to my car (assuming it still works). I'm going to have to abandon my pack, there's no way I’m going to be able to swing it on or carry it football style and make it out of this giant ball of doom that is closing in the distance. With that, the third thought quickly replaces it, by noticing that I don't seem to be in the middle of this nightmare stadium. Instead it seems like I am closer to standing in left field if I stretch my imagination to overlay the incoming nightmare as a professional stadium. And with that last thought, my brain tells my body to kick its butt into gear, turn and let's book it for the cheap seats. I.E. the woods beyond the grass that I had hiked out of, just a short forty minutes ago.

And then, with the thought trying to force my body to turn and run for both the metaphorical and literal hills, I felt despair. Such a true despair that I had only ever felt twice before in this life. With all of the worst moments in my life flashing through my head only two had been greater than this, but both of those had quickly been fleeting as the universe backed off of its sick joking. This nightmare seemed unlikely to reverse course as quickly. No, apparently the third time's the charm and the universe was done playing games. Neither, seeing my baby boy turn blue in front of my eyes, just two days home from the hospital before the miracle of cpr brought back the color to his cheeks again. Nor, seeing my daughter fall backwards off the jungle gym, crashing to the ground, while I dashed towards her, before she jolted back upright miraculously okay. No, always before there had been some hope, some other card left to play, some sign from the universe that the absolute worst hadn't come to pass, that it was just a dick not an asshole.

NOOOOOOOO! My mind screamed silently, as it tried to force my body to turn, but nothing came out of my mouth and my body refused to move. An immense pressure seemed to radiate off the blackness that slowly crept creeping down the sides of the sky. That pressure had me held perfectly in its grasp. Immobile like a mosquito, trapped in amber, yet still held alive seeing the lumberjacks ax coming straight for it. Nooooooo! My mind screamed again, slightly softer this time. This isn't how this ends! I refuse to accept it! No, my mind said firmly there is always hope, Hope the last, the smallest, the most powerful and the absolute worst of the evils of pandora. Quickly more thoughts flashed in my head. This might not be the end, maybe this is a transformation cocoon and I will spring forth from it forever changed for the better. My mind, always the optimistic pessimist that it was, quickly ran through all of the books that I had read searching for the best scenarios to keep me with my family while simultaneously throwing out awful ones too horrible to delve into.

BREATHE! The main part of my brain said to silence out all of the terror and hope running rampant through my overly fertile brain. BREATHE and remember your touchstone. The thing you think of first, both in all of your bad times and all of your good. With a metaphorical breath, as my lungs were still locked by the god-like pressure holding me still. I thought back to my grandma who passed away when I was a child. The most amazingly loving woman with so many grandkids that she managed to spread her love to as close to equally as humanly possible. I remember her telling me to “Always remember, God grant me the Courage to change the things that you can, the Serenity to accept the things that I cannot and the Wisdom to know the difference. Now Grandson, it’s not the way the official prayer goes.” She said while shaking her finger at me. “But that's the way we say it in this family. Err on the side of Courage and be Serene in your failings, knowing that Wisdom only comes through many failings.” With a couple of raps of knuckles to the top of my head, she continued with a small smile. “And with as smart and stubborn as you are, young grandson. Wisdom will undoubtedly be a long time coming. So know, I will always continue to pray for you. I will be praying that you have the Serenity that you need, until Wisdom finds you.” She said with a hug and kiss onto the top of my head.

Another metaphorical Breath and I let go of the fear and anger that was raging through my mind, trying my best to focus on everything I saw the walls of doom reach nine and three as they continue to stretch from the zenith inexorably closer to the ground and water like the world's most terrifying Tezla slowly shutting its doors on my time left on this world. Continuing to push the fear out of my mind, I slowly went through my peripheral vision, looking for any possible clue to help me escape this nightmare forming around me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a tern slowly flapping its wings outside the walls of shadow. Slowly, like it was stuck in glue, its wings moved the slightest fraction of a span in its downstroke. Telling me I was clearly delusional in my that I would have been able to escape by running. With that final nail in the coffin, I took another deep metaphorical breath, and with as much willpower as I could bend to the task, abandoned courage and strove for serenity. Unable to move the slightest twitch, I accepted that this was happening, and there was nothing I would be able to do to change it. As the peace of mind inevitably started to take effect, I took another Breath and instead did my best to relax into the pressure. Like a small five year old, going completely limp in your hands, in an effort to stay at the playground just ten more minutes. I tried to see if I could overpower the pressure, by forcing it to hold, my certainly not that overweight, two hundred and thirty (ish) pounds. Unfortunately, whatever was holding me in place, as the blackness reached down to eight and four respectively. It was completely unphased by my flawless rendition of my son’s toddler jiu jitsu, which he had used on me with great success when he was younger. Giving up on that tactic, and with the small amount of time I had left, before the shadow of doom reached the ground. I decided to switch it up and see if there was any possibility that I could feel whatever energy that was holding me in place. Like gluing a strong magnet to my finger and holding over a wire to feel the current. If I decided that if this ball of darkness was going to take me, then maybe while I wouldn’t get the meal, at least I could get a nibble. Focusing all of my thoughts into my left hand, I did my best to again, metaphorically close my eyes. As the pressure wouldn't even grant me that small favor, I focused all of my attention into my index finger. Not trying to force it to move, I instead bent my mind to trying to understand this force holding me in place. Neither feeling hot nor cold. It was instead, what I could only imagine, as being in a cross between a sensory deprivation chamber and encased in resin, would have felt like. Perfectly absorbing whatever energy I was putting out, while giving no tactile feedback, it continued to hold me in place. With one last Breath in my mind, I strove with all of my might to feel something. Anything that would give me, even the smallest insight into this force, that defied reality as I knew it. As the walls of shadow finally reached down to touch the ground, trapping me into what will forever ruin any of the fond memories I had, of a certain show from my childhood. I felt something in my mind snapped and with the last of the light of earth reaching through the crack on the bottom…

My left index finger moved, just the slightest quarter of an inch.