Fields of Despair

It's been a good break so far. These weekend was positively beautiful! I wore a t-shirt all day Saturday. I took a bike ride, then I walked the dog, then my mom and I went to see my Grandpa, who has alzheimer's, and went out walking with him. It was kind of sad because he didn't seem to remember that we'd been in the woods before and was giving us a tour, but I won't complain since he seemed to know who I was. Then he took us to see some horses down a road near his house and I took pictures of them and let them kiss my hand. I miss horseback riding so much. I think I'll try and get a job at a farm next fall so I can learn to take care of the animals and gardens. This will accomplish two goals. One, me wanting to live on a farm someday so I can live sustainably and have milk and eggs from kindly-treated animals, and two, wanting to ride horses! Because you can't leave them sitting in the paddock all day. They need to run to be healthy. I might not be too good at raising vegetables, but I can ride a horse. =)

Boyfriend and I have done a lot of exploring. For instance, we walked halfway around the Reservoir on Sunday. Granted, most of the trails were transformed into babbling brooks by all the melting snow, but I'll sacrifice dry feet for an adventure any day. We even traversed the canyon when the water was running through and climbed up the opposite cliff face. It was EPIC. We were going to go back to Mordor on Monday night, but then the sky threw up and we postponed it. Instead we played random video games at Ravin's house and ate lots of crap to celebrate her getting old (i.e. turning 20). And then we watched the Swan Princess. Good times.

Since I'm bored and haven't posted in a while, I guess now is a good time to share the story you've all been waiting for. That's right. Mordor. The weekend Schneckleface stayed here, we went to Boyfriend's house for a movie night. Shark and Dick were party poopers and cut out as soon as the movie ended, so it was just the three of us going to this place that supposedly looked like the evilest corner of Middle Earth. Real encouraging, especially since the morals we took away from the god-awful horror film we watched were 1) Don't go to Hull (which is unfortunately the name of Boyfriend's town), 2) Don't hang out with white kids, and 3) Don't have sex. Well, we were breaking two out of three of those rules just going to movie night. We should've known that was a bad omen. XD

We had to walk quite a way to even get to the entrance to the woods because it's private property and we couldn't park nearby. We waited until there were no cars and booked it across the street and up a steep dirt hill. Schneckleface slipped and scraped her hand, but we made it without attracting attention. Then we followed this trail that was covered in snow and we made a whole lot of noise, which made Boyfriend really nervous, but it was nighttime and no one was paying any attention to us.

The woods finally opened onto a rocky expanse that dropped off into a big body of water. If I imagined the water was lava, the place totally looked like Mordor. We walked around a little and chatted, but it was cold and we decided to head back pretty soon. Boyfriend didn't want to make as much noise and suggested we take a different trail back. He said he'd never taken it before, but he knew where it came out, so we decided to follow it.

A little ways into the journey, we noticed something off to the side of the trail. Right away, I knew it was a vehicle. But it wasn't someone out to bust us for trespassing or anything; the thing was trashed. I would say it was about the size of a VW bus, but I didn't want to look at it too closely, to be honest, because I was getting some seriously creepy vibes from it. I actually ran over to cling to Boyfriend's arm and insisted that we walk faster.

A little further on, Boyfriend noticed a chain link fence off to the right of the path. The top was reinforced with barbed wire. I didn't get a good look at that, either, because right after Boyfriend said to be quiet and pointed it out, I heard a rustle. Now, I spent twelve days living in the woods. I know my rustles. I know the little animals make the biggest sounds, but at the same time, I KNEW whatever I'd just heard was NOT a little animal.

I looked at the others to see if they'd heard it. I really hoped they hadn't. I really wanted to have imagined it. But Schneckleface heard it, too, and then we heard a bang. Not a gunshot sort of bang though. I can't describe the sound well because by then I was panicking, imagining the headlines when they found our dead bodies in the woods and how disappointed my parents would be, wondering where they went wrong and hadn't they raised me better than this?

When we heard a second bang, Boyfriend shouted, "RUN!" as if we needed to be told, and we took off. Unfortunately, I suck and was running too close to the left shoulder of the trail, and I rolled my ankle about three steps into my sprint. Great, so I was going to be the one that almost got eaten by the monster, and the others were going to have to turn around and risk their lives to save me. That wasn't the role I'd wanted in all this. At least it wasn't as bad as when I fractured my ankle in fifth grade. I could put weight on it, even though it hurt a lot, so I kept running. I also managed to rip my hand open on some briars and was picking thorns out of my flesh as I ran.

We made it back to the top of the first dirt hill and stopped. Nothing had actually pursued us, of course, but I still had this awful feeling we were being watched and followed. Not to mention we had a fifteen, twenty minute walk ahead of us to get back to the car and my ankle wasn't feeling so great. The side of my hand was stinging a lot, too. Boyfriend and I were trying to figure out what we might have heard.

"The barbed wire was pointing in, away from us," he pointed out. "That means they were keeping something in, not something out." It quickly escalated to a government conspiracy in which they were hiding a monster in the woods for reasons we couldn't fathom. I was quick to add that whatever we'd heard was probably responsible for the mangled bus, hence the sketchy vibes I got from it. Schneckleface, being more practical than us crazy artist types, was like, "you guys, it was probably just someone trying to scare us off the property."

Oh. Yeah. Probably. But our theory would make a better movie.

Soooo I hobbled around for the next three days or so, and now, three weeks later, my ankle STILL hurts, but only if I turn it. I can walk on it fine. Still, I guess I probably need an x-ray. SUCK. Well, our plan is to return to Mordor on Friday, although it looks like it'll be cold and I may suggest postponing it again until Saturday night, which is supposed to be in the 40s. This time we're bringing weapons.

I'm off to visit Ash now. We're going to discuss the stories we're writing and watch some obscure movie by Miyazaki. I dunno what we're going to do when we run out of Miyazaki films to watch. Anyhow, about that story - I'm thinking I'll post an excerpt soon. BUT ONLY IF I GET COMMENTS! You hear? I want at least six on this entry or NO EXCERPT! Hehehe.... bribery. ^_^