All-Natural Nightmare, Part 1

“You had to know you wouldn’t be alive to write the best one of these, right?”

I reluctantly conceded the truth in Spa’s quip.  A strong desire to write rules my life.  Lack of legitimate writing talent complicates things.  It requires me to keep my life as exciting as possible to prevent reader boredom.  Turns out mortal peril is a real people-pleaser. 

In between screaming wind gusts and rolling thunder, I replied “You’re right.  But think about the guy who finds the bodies.  His life sucks worse than ours.” 

               Many stories start with obvious fate-goading foreshadowing.  Statements like “The weekend began innocently enough” or “they were such nice young boys.”  Such half-baked clichés have no place here.  We aren’t idyllic nice young boys, and the weekend was riddled with subtle hints to quit and turn back from an early point.  Heeding those warnings would have saved a lot of grief.

               Arriving at a Hampton Inn near Fort Stockton at 1am didn’t bring our spirits down, even though we could have been asleep by midnight had our navigation skills not lacked luster.  Waking before the Sun to stash water at mile 24 of Big Bend’s 35 mile Outer Mountain Loop Trail was met with grins and optimism.  A tree fell directly on our path less than a mile into the journey, and less than 20 feet from the protagonists.  No heed was paid. If any divine message was intended by bloodying Schil’s heels after mile 2 with blisters, then it was completely ignored.  After 12 miles of hiking, even a malfunctioning stove couldn’t turn us back.  Repairs ensued, tunes emanated from Spa’s iphone, and instant rice-and-beans flowed like the Salmon of Capistrano.  We had an answer, it seemed, for whatever this trail threw at us.

               We just. Wouldn’t. Listen.