Lost...

[mnaz]

Have you ever been lost? I'm not talking about existential "lost". I'm talking about actually not knowing where you are on the face of the planet, in stark sobriety, with no recognizable landmarks to bail you out and critically-limited resources at your disposal.... a state of quiet terror.

I remember when I first acquired my truck.... an old pickup with a cracked canopy shell, five-speed stick, and a stout four-cylinder motor.... because that is what I require. I ignore the fat-ass truck wars.... three-hundred-horsepower solutions to hundred-horsepower problems. And those slogans.... "Official truck of an American Revolution", or.... "Hummer, like Nothing Else".... which speaks volumes. Enter the Overkill Hall of Fame....

My truck is the sort of ancient rig where I must get out and lock the hubs before I can get power to the front wheels. But this tends to introduce me a little closer to the trail as I go, especially when it drops into deeper sand or deep ruts of clay or fine silt, which kick up monstrous plumes of white dust.... cheat left or right to avoid high-center and roll up the windows in a tailwind. The deep ruts tell of ranching. The herd must be looked after, rain or shine. And rain does take a toll on clay, turning it from hard dessication to forms of brown jelly, where extra horsepower and a running start might actually make a difference....

I couldn't wait to drive deep into magnificent empty space. I wanted to be immersed in it.... a vague spiritual gravity. When I first took my truck off-pavement, I little understood its capability to penetrate the void.... perhaps too deep. I gauged passage across each canyon and basin, but I knew little of the sum of their parts.... how they stitched together into a larger mosaic, or how my great divide might turn on me before I realized I had crossed.

In retrospect, it nearly adds up. One must try to grasp the breadth and width of eastern Oregon oblivion. Even most ranch hands settle for naming the nearest four mountain peaks and memorizing a stream of mile markers into the nearest approximation of a town. I had ventured this way the year before, when I first sensed the power of it all, though I concede that I first sought the realm as a product of rebellion. I wanted to disappear. I sought refuge between lines and points. Hell, I wanted to slip underneath the grid.... so far that I couldn't be certain if the same physical laws applied. My choice of road was inspired by a storekeeper's offhand remark.... "a very long drive through nowhere"....

It is eighty miles from that store-- the last proper store-- to the next gas pump, which I had counted on. But this time it was out of gas. It is another fifty miles to the next pump, but in between, at a cruel twenty-five-even split, was my jumpoff point for this trip. I pulled aside when I got there. I walked out on the cracked pavement and lay down on the centerline. One should take advantage of such an opportunity. I noted the esthetic limitations of sky-blue and the lesser heat of expired asphalt. I had to make a decision. I could head out now on five-eighths of a tank or submit to a dubious fifty-mile detour to top off the tank. I took the only path which made sense.... straight out into dust.

I began to negotiate the mosaic, link by link. It was hard passage, but I had time. In fact I was swallowed by it. I had evidence of its suspension everywhere. The path languished in a powder of several brilliant playas under a rounded mahogany ridge, stained by rosebud mineral streaks, until it began to snake upward into a canyon where the walls closed in.... dour, unsympathetic stone, the color of turrets. The path became a steep, rock-strewn morass, but I locked the hubs and squeezed through before the walls could finish me off....

I abruptly regained space..... time is useless without this substance. Canyon dissolved into basin, and trail fell back into relaxed two-track chalk and a wealth of simplicity. The vista returned, coated in muscular sagebrush, deep into a gray summer hibernation, which more closely resembled the medieval rock with each passing mile.... hillside crenellations and weathered sentries, held at bay by the scope of their assignment. They could only watch....

The trail edged higher, nearly imperceptibly, and hills took on a thicker subtexts of expired grass.... brawny earth, infused with gold.... luminescent and transparent, like the backs of passing lions. The dour intervals of medieval rock stood out more than before, and I took the weathered sentries for granted until I found myself atop a rim.... atop the great slab from which the desert is sculpted.... whereupon I was launched across a vast arm of the sagebrush sea, packing dangerous momentum. But I gripped my sense of direction tightly, though the trail splintered in many directions.... more routes to greater blankness. I stayed with the trail and ignored its minor branches.... or so I believed.

Multiple miles forward, the map showed a southern fork toward Nevada and the highway. I needed that road. I tried three possibilities but they dead-ended several miles into each attempt. In fact none of the branch trails I came across squared with the map.... they made no sense. Perhaps I was off-course. I might have taken a wrong fork.... perhaps several. By now the sun was down.... no need to burn more fuel tonight. I set up camp on a side trail and took a strong pull of whiskey to cool my nerves. But I wasn't yet into panic. I still had the same trail which brought me there, if necessary. It would be a hard run, but I figured I had just enough gas left....

I arose with the sun, next morning.... crisp, pristine stillness. And my anxiety also rose. Morning light hardly clarified my position. I pored over the horizon for landmarks, noting only a couple of far-off peaks. But I found nothing nearby to guide me. I was adrift on that ocean. Since fuel was low, I thought it risky to pursue the Nevada route any further.... better to start my long retreat. And so I turned back. I began to retrace my prodigious path. At that point, I only sweated the arduous task.... and fuel. I knew it would be close. But I had my exit route; the only sure thing I had left.

But my sure thing began to drift off-course once again, past an unfamiliar knoll and a cow camp which I did not remember. I doubled back to the last fork and tried the other side, but it suddenly dead-ended at a watering hole, three miles in. I doubled back even further and tried another branch, but it too dead-ended. At this point, I fought a wave of panic....


to be continued..... (Sorry, ran out of time)

[hester_prynne]

Damn Mnaz, this is incredible to read. You've left me adrift in your beautiful sea, and I wait, in full literary agitation, and pleasure, for the hopefully neverending, next chapter.

salute
H

[mnaz]

Thanx Hes....

This experience goes back a few years..... I'm doing some "channeling" with this one.... but it is a true
story....

Hopefully I'll have the ending by tomorrow.......
if the library is open, that is....

[mtmynd]

great read, amigo... a great read. i will look forward to the continuing saga, knowing you are now safe enough to recall the events.

[Arcadia]

I discover a word yesterday (I have no idea of its pronunciation) reading in a literary magazine an Updike article about Max Ernst. They word is "dépaysement". The definition according to McNab and Updike:

. estar fuera del propio país, exilio, desorientación
. sensación que todos experimentamos al llegar a un lugar por primera vez, cuando el asombro y el nerviosismo agudizan y alteran nuestros sentidos.
. agotamiento y desorientación de viajar como recurso para una nueva percepción

I enjoy reading the dépaysement or whatever!
Saludos,

Arcadia