It is Monday morning, and I am faced with a dilemma: should I take a bath? Apathy inside my skull wars with my skin's desire for cleanliness. In the end, apathy wins the struggle. Rather, breakfast is in order.

What's for breakfast? Well, let me take inventory. I have a box filled with cans of refried beans. I have a jar of pasta sauce, but no pasta. Garlic powder, soy sauce, hot cocoa mix, salt, mustard, powdered vegetarian gravy, two cans of green chilies, a plastic bag that contains damp seasoned salt.... Breakfast is looking more and more improbable. Finally I discover a bag of dehydrated mashed potatoes. Very well: I shall form the potato material into cakes and fry them in butter.

My camp stove is old. I bought it at a swap meet in the year 1990, twelve long years ago. It and I have sucked and burned the same oxygen, spewed the same poisonous gases, in scores of places throughout the United States. In latter years it has shown a disinclination to work (much like myself). I hold a mild expectation that it will function properly. I feed it automotive fuel from the gasoline container I carry, then I give the stove's pressure cylinder a thrust or three to see if she'll charge. There is no resistance at all: trying to pump the stove's pressure up is much like trying to blow up a dirty sock.

No need to panic just yet. I take out my bottle of gear oil and pour a few drops down the stove's pump. This fails to work. I try a bit more oil, with the same result. Since I'm an "all of nothing" kind of guy, I get out a wrench from the toolbox, open up the priming cylinder, and fill the cavity with gear oil. That ought to do it if nothing does. Pouring the excess back into the bottle, I stuff the priming mechanism back into the stove, screw it down tightly, and try the primer again.

Reluctantly, like an old man with asthma struggling up a flight of stairs, the stove sucks in air and holds it, bit by bit. For every ten pumps on the primer, perhaps two or three results in air going into the fuel tank: the bulk of my effort is lost. Since it appears to be working, more or less (indeed more less than more), I don't mind.

Picking up my flint and steel (I'd happily use matches if I had them), I turn the stove's valve open and wait for the hissing sound, which will tell me that fuel is being squirted into the burner. The hiss comes eventually, so I hold the steel next to the burner and scrape the flint upon it. Sparks fly, but the fuel does not ignite. Six, seven, eight times, fat hot sparks fall upon the burner. On the ninth time the fuel ignites with a tongue of flame that reaches halfway to the tarp overhead. I am pleased with our (the stove and I) success.

Shortly pleased. The user's manual, which has resided inside the stove for twelve years--- I've never seen the need to remove it--- has soaked up gasoline and has caught on fire. It is burning cheerfully. I put my face into the flames and blow.... the burning booklet goes out, and so does the stove's burner. By now the stove is spitting up gasoline like an infant spits up milk. Once again I apply flint to steel, and with a detonation greater than the first, a ball of fire heads tarp-ward. I duck too late, and feel the hair on my face singe.

The owner's manual is on fire again. This time I let it burn. Twelve years without reading it---- I can assume I'll never need to.

I put a pot of water on the stove to boil. I go to my pickup, open the door, stick an arm in the cab, force open the icebox's lid, and rummage blindly and wetly for the butter. I grope in vain: nothing feels like butter. Extracting my arm, I thrust my face into the icebox for a better look. There is no butter. None at all. What's potato pancakes without butter?! My psyche falls into disappointment and despair. I can feel the serotonin in my brain leaping synapses and being reuptaked, to be seen never more.

I have boiling water, so I'll settle for coffee this morning. The problem is, a five-minute search reveals no trace of coffee. I can feel the case of beans staring at me, but I'm so tired, so very tired, so greatly tired, of beans, I'd rather skip breakfast. A trip to Conifer for supplies seems to be the order of the day.

I pour the hot water on the ground, turn the stove off, and place the pan back on the stove---- to keep the glowing embers of what was once the stove's user's manual from blowing out and setting the forest on fire.

Not that there's much chance of that. The forest is soggy. Rain has fallen much of the night, filling the tarp over head with 200 gills (sure it's a word, look it up) of water. Rain has also fallen much of the day. My hat is wet. My shoes are wet. My socks have wilted--- there's no better word to describe the effect--- from the dampness, and they sag around my ankles like doughnuts on a stick.

Even though it's daylight, the trip to Bailey takes me 16.6 miles, which is the nighttime mileage required for the trip. Perhaps the flaw in the space-time continuum that I have discovered up here is linked to the amount of light falling on the forest, as the day and drive is a dreary, damp, dim one.

Some sociopath has decided that a vast super-highway must be built through and around Conifer, up here in what is almost still beautiful forestland. Satan alone knows what the hell this psychotic, anti-social lunatic must be thinking, but he or she is having the highway widened so that a far greater horde of people and their cars may come up here. That horde, when it gets here, will merrily shit in the woods, dump their trash along the highway, deface the trees with nails and hatchets, road-kill the chipmunks and squirrels and deer and bears and each other, pollute the campgrounds with screaming brawling braying bawling brats, carve their initials in every aspen they can drive up to (reaching out the window of their cars--- a five-minute hike would nearly kill them with fatigue), and generally turn the place into a sewer. A sewer like, for instance, downtown Denver.

The new highway has to be seen to be disbelieved. I say "disbelieved" because I've seen it and I do not believe it. It's huge, thick, and built to last decades of freezing and baking, snow and rain, big rigs and campers, bicycles and motor homes. Why does the County, City, State, Satan.... whoever is responsible.... need such a road up here? "Tourist's dollars?" It will soon be so crowded up here with people and their transportation devices that no one will be able to get in--- the forest will be full.

As I slowly drive past this new highway, I think about how much dynamite would be required to erase it. Far, far too much dynamite. C4 would do the trick if one had a dozen boxcars full of the stuff. Better to nuke the site from low orbit just to be sure.

Conifer is a lovely place. The supermarket there is usually filled with mountaineers out doing their monthly shopping. One can get almost anything in Conifer, as it's less than an hour drive to Denver--- stocking the supermarket is not a problem.

Take this item for example. I'm holding in my chilled, stiff hands a new pump for my gasoline camp stove. For a mere $9.65 plus tax, my ancient stove may feel as young and frolicky as a filly again.

I buy butter.

I buy crackers, coffee, ice, bread, cheese, tortillas to make the beans happy, cookies to make me happy, plums, onions. I forget to buy matches.

While hunting for food items, I look over the women in the store. Most have nice lungs--- a product of the fresh air and high altitude. Some wear flannel shirts and faded jeans, while others wear dresses and necklaces. I much prefer the women clad in flannel: I think they would make better lovers. The other women, the pampered ones, would no doubt find fault with me in bed. "You're doing it all wrong!" or maybe "What're you doing? You're not finished!" or some such thing. The women in flannel appear to make the best of what they have or can get.

The women in flannel also appear to be far more sexy and desirable. The flannel, perhaps, gives them a sense of hearty healthiness and strength. Or it could be my imagination.

Shopping completed, I look for lunch. My breakfast being such a success, I'm hoping for something filling. Chinese food presents itself.

Inside the Chinese restaurant, I find an empty cave. Not a soul lunching can be seen. I am tempted to yell "Helloooooow!" into the long room just to hear the echo return, but I am thwarted in actually doing so by a woman (girl, that is) who mysteriously appears at my right elbow, asking me if I am here to eat. What, there's an opium den in the back? Craps being shot behind the kitchen, maybe? I say yes, and begin to describe my breakfast but I see she's not interested.

The fried rice was very good. An hour later it will sit heavily in my gut like an anvil, but for now, it was just what I needed.

Back at home (my camp), all is wet, cold, and dreary. This is a Good Thing. The obnoxious hedonist horde has departed, and it is finally quiet and peaceful up here.

Rain falls upon an otherwise mirror-flat lake. Ducks and crows stand, arm to arm (so to speak), on the edge of the lake looking for worms and bugs. The sky is iron gray, filled with what looks like thick smoke--- low clouds that wander cat-like through the trees, along the ground, and in my hair. The tree trunks are dark, almost black, while their limbs are a dark, wet green. Not even a whisper of wind disturbs the forest. The ducks, crows, chipmunks, squirrels, and other permanent residents are preternaturally silent. Everyone wearing fur and feathers have gone to bed early today.

But not me. For some reason I feel the need to yell; to scream; to break the oppressive silence. It's too unnatural. The silence is different here than in the desert. In the desert one can hear one's own breathing, one's own thoughts. Here, now, the dampness, the caressing clouds, the dripping pines, somehow muffles the sounds I make. The wet trees seem to engulf me, strangling the sounds I make while they are still an inch or two from my body.

Absurdly, I wish to dance. I wish to run from one tree to the next and grope it, taste it, rub my back against it. I wish to build a fire and soak in the heat, breath deeply of the smoke, and take a heated stone to bed with me. I want to fling myself into the lake, and yell at the biting cold.

But I do none of these things. Why not, I ask myself. I am very much a creature of my time, my period in the history of humanity. In a word, and I choke on it, I am too civilized. Just thinking the word, let alone acknowledging that it applies to me, makes me shudder. The word makes me think of domestication. Of being less than human. Of being part of the bewildered herd. I shudder again, and it is not due to the damp and cold.

What, indeed, has civilization done for us lately? Well, let me think. A year ago--- anniversary in two days--- some criminal sociopaths highjacked passenger jets and flew them into New York's World Trade Center towers. They did this to please god. While the smoke belched and the flames leaped, a hundred thousand people praised god for the success of that crime. At the very same time, a hundred thousands other people thanked god for the lives that had not been lost at the Pentagon crash. A few hundred thousand prayed to god to prevent the same crime in the future. A multitude vowed to god that revenge would be successful against the other people (who had prayed to god in the hopes of a very large body count) who planned and executed the abominable crime. Is it civilized to wreak havoc and destruction upon ignorant, innocent, unaware women, men, and children? Is it civilized to believe god wants (first) that destruction and (second) that retribution?

Indeed, is it civilized to crave the mass destruction and eradication of those responsible? I see in every town and city I pass the countless USA flags on cars, walls, billboards, fence posts, tee-shirts, kitchen windows. Then I think of Nazi Germany. National pride, taken too far, is dangerous: it has far too often in the past resulted in holocaust and horror. When we cheer and pray and party at the news of our enemy's defeat, are we being civilized? Of our enemies, we do not see their torn limbs, their crushed and burned bodies; we do not hear the wails of the lamenting men and women and children. If we could observe, face to face, the misery and horror we inflict upon people in the name of "justice" (revenge), would we still be civilized enough to ignore their misery? Could I wave a USA flag in the faces of the maimed, the broken, the crippled, the grieving? And if so, would this be a sign of national pride on my part, or a sign of my criminal, barbarous, savage, uncaring, callous indifference to the suffering of strangers?

Personal pride in one's accomplishments is a boon to society, as it drives people to do their best. National pride, group pride, race pride--- that terrifies me. Those who have been killed, those who have been maimed, in the defense of the United States must be honored and remembered for their sacrifices; those who currently fight in the defense of the USA must be respected and rewarded for their sacrifices as well. Returning savagery in the face of savagery does none of these things. Rather, it mocks and makes hollow those sacrifices, that effort. Crowing with glee over the bodies of our enemies does not show respect for our dead, our maimed, our fighting men and women: only our tears, our love, and our prayers can do that.

The rain starts to fall again, breaking the silence. The night descends so quickly I do not notice. With night, the temperature drops ten or fifteen degrees. In front of my ten-watt twelve-volt light bulb, my breath is visible as a miniature cloud: it joins a larger cloud a few feet away, which in turn joins its sisters and brothers who are cloaking the forest. My breath, now widening and spreading over the land, is felt by ten thousand trees, fifty billion pine needles. Raindrops fall through my breath on their way to the carpet of pine needles at my feet.

Water has depressed the tarp above my head so far that it is resting on the top of the tent. My urge to save the water is great: I'm used to the desert, where discarding this water would be, if not a sin, damn stupid. My desert way of thinking is not appropriate, not needed here. In the desert, the first item of clothing I put on is my hat--- it's suicide to wander around hatless, even for an hour or two. The sequence is usually hat, pants, sock, sock, sock, sock (I wear four when hiking), boots. Here at the lake, the sequence is: damp shirt, damp pants, damp socks, damp shoes, damp jacket, damp hat. In the desert I strive to limit body heat; at the lake I try to conserve it.

It is very dark. I turn my little light off, and the darkness flings itself at me like an assassin. I can almost feel the darkness entering my nostrils.

I am alone, and I am lonely, but that's an old song, an old feeling. People are vexations of the soul: fine enough to have around, but only when they know when it's time to get lost. A woman would be very welcome, but consider the problem: what woman would wish to join and live the life I live? I seek out the desolate places, the harsh environments, the geology that merrily maims and kills the unwary, the incautious, the unprepared. I like the sun when it is doing its best to murder me. What woman would enter my world, knowing that some day I will walk into the desert and (if I am lucky) die out there? Women tend to have more sense than hook up with the likes of me--- there's no future in it.

The cold has bivouacked in my toes, has a foothold (so to speak) all the way up to my ankles, and is planning on capturing the knee territory. I would go to bed, but it's too early. I would cook dinner, but the curtain of rain has cut me off from my food supply--- the back of my pickup. Making a sandwich would be a wet, cold effort, too great to contemplate.

With nothing else to do, I surrender to the cold and wet by going into my tent and wrapping my chilled body in blankets. Far into the night I lay awake thinking, trying not to think, listen to the rain, listen to the tarp belch water at regular intervals, and wish I were sleeping. Sleep doesn't come. I'm so very much awake I could run a marathon. I could rodeo, climb Mount McKinley, assemble a Pontiac, and then wash a Scout troop's dirty laundry and still not feel sleepy.

From twenty feet away, in the back of my pickup, I hear the cookies calling to me. "David," they call, "come eat us!" The sound is plaintive, as soft and soothing as the call of a dove. I would go get them and ease their loneliness with my presence, but it's raining outside and I'm dry and warm. I ignore the call.

The Call Of The Cookies becomes more importunate, unrelenting, persistent. "David! Come here! Eat us!" To ease their suffering, I must comply. I unroll the blankets from on top of me. I take off my socks so that they do not get wet and muddy. Zipping the tent open, I stick out one naked leg, pivot my ass out, and haul out the other leg. It is so dark I cannot see the card table I use for a kitchen; it is so dark, I'm not totally sure I know which direction to go to rescue the cookies from their loneliness. I take a reasoned guess at direction, and strike out into the dark, black, inky forest.

The first thing I encounter is my kitchen table. The encounter causes my camp stove to fling itself to the ground with a crash; the frying pan and dinner plate, not wanting to be left behind, follow. I am heartened: this encounter lets me know I am headed in the correct direction. I am also worried that the rain might injure the stove. Using my bare feet, I try to find the stove: no luck. Somehow it has managed to elude me in the dark. Perhaps it has evolved legs and has run off. The plate and the frying pan come readily to my feet.

Continuing on, letting the stove fend for itself, I find the front bumper of my pickup. Dragging my left arm along the side of the vehicle, I stumble my way to the tailgate. I am now standing in the freezing rain, wearing a sodden tee-shirt and nothing else, staring into the bed of my pickup, pondering how to find the cookies. It is so dark, I could have wandered into a coal mine and be twenty miles deep within the Earth. The only solution that comes to my mind is to grope and paw, like a bear ransacking a family's SUV, until I feel something cookie-like.

I've had a Close Encounter of the Bear Kind before. It was just two years ago, August 10th, right here at Wellington Lake. It was around two-thirty or three in the morning. My 813 friends up here camping with me had long since gone to bed. The starlight and moonlight illuminated the forest from a clear, crystalline night sky. Standing ten feet from my tent, I was unloading my bladder when I heard sounds of grunting and snorting. I thought it was a wild pig, and I was ready to run away screaming (wild pigs can be viscous), when I saw that it was a small, black, fuzzy bear. Now, I have no fear of bears. This is because I'm completely ignorant of them. In cartoons, bears are always friendly. So I said, soft and low so as not to frighten it, "Hello, there."

The bear screamed. It screamed like a little girl. It screamed like a little girl who had been inhaling helium all afternoon. It ran away from me, crashing through the trees and brush, wailing in stark terror. The next morning my camping neighbor asked me who was in my tent with me last night, wondering what her name was and if he knew her. "Sure was a screamer, wasn't she?" he asked. Even though it did not boost my reputation as a lady's man, I told him the truth--- I had startled a bear. He laughed, thinking I was kidding. "No, really." I wasn't believed.

By some miracle, my hands fall upon the box of cookies inside the bed of my pickup. Success feels sweet! I make my way back to my pickup without incident, wipe my feet on a bath towel, and squeeze back inside.

Munching cookies, I wonder about the dark. Suppose it never gets light again. Suppose some trickster god, Loki or Coyote perhaps, has changed the Universal Constants just to be amusing. What if pi is no longer roughly 3.14159 but now, instead, exactly 3? Would a circle still be a circle? If not, what would it look like? The cap on a bottle of beer is round: if pi has been changed while I struggle to sleep, would my bottle opener still work? What if, while lying here in my blankets, the charge on the electron (1.602 × 10^–19 coulomb.) had been changed? Would I know it?

I eat another cookie. It is very dark, and I cannot see what I am eating. Suppose the speed of light (299,792,458 metres per second) has been changed, and photons from the sun never reach me here in my tent. Must I grope like a bear for my food from now on?

Several years ago, a ignorant, uneducated savage who called himself a "Creation 'Scientist'" (i.e., evangelical Christian Creationist) actually insisted that yes indeed, the speed of light has "decayed" and is no longer "decaying." He called this (imaginary) phenomena "c-Decay." He wished to explain why the universe has starlight, galaxy-light, and nebula-light fourteen billion years old, when his beloved Babylonian / Sumerian mythology (Genesis I and Genesis II in the Bible) tells him that the universe is only about 10,000 years old. Rather than believe direct observation, he decided to find or manufacture evidence to show that the speed of light was vastly faster 10,000 years ago.

And he did. He found ancient references to the speed of light, and noted down the value for the speed found within those references. (His earliest found estimate was, I believe, around 400 years ago.) He then plotted the estimates made throughout history from 1660 to 1960 and discovered that the estimates were getting slower and slower. Ignoring the fact that until around the year 1940 no accurate methods were available to measure the speed of light, this "Creation 'Scientist'" insisted that the historical estimates were in fact accurate, and that the speed of light, c, is not constant, but is in fact decreasing.

The mind boggles at such "logic." This silly sod was claiming that the current speed of light is 0.000000625th of what it was 10,000 years ago, and this explains why the universe appears to be 14,000,000,000 years old.

Why did he stop there? What if the speed of light is still "decaying?" If so, in a week we would see light pouring out of our flashlights like water from a garden hose. Since he realized that would be too easily tested, he concluded that c is "no longer decaying."

This is the "Creation 'Science'" that churches wish to "teach" in public schools in the USA.

I've had enough cookies. If the sunlight never returns, I will be content enough with the half box of cookies remaining, and the jug of water at my feet. The rain pounds without mercy on my tarp. For every 36,434 drops of rain that strike the tarp, 22 seep through the plastic and drop on my tent. Of those 22, three find their way inside the tent. One drips near my feet, one drips on my chest, and the third joins its sisters and brothers in a tiny pool near my right hand.

I think about the beliefs that make fools of people (I include myself under "people"). I think about starlight, polarized moonlight, logarithms, the square root of negative-one, why the vacuum of space is not empty, and what I'll have for breakfast at daylight. If, indeed, there is still going to be daylight. I ponder why most people can sleep, and why many cannot. I wonder if other people think too much.