Notes from the Future: Missives III

This note is taped to a package of handy wipes near a very sharp fire axe hidden under some old tar paper on the roof of a condominium near the Iron Horse Trail in Dublin.

Dearest,

I will never know if you find this note. If you do, chances are good that you exist in the variation wherein I was able to hide the fire axe. Meaning that somewhere else there may be a Veronica who did not have a fire axe; I hope she survived. She may be reading her note right now, as you are reading this one. Pray for her, as I am asking her to pray for you. Pray for her constantly. It is more potent than you know. 

I am sorry about what you had to do with the axe.  But I am glad you are reading this note. Its primary purpose is to tell you how much, how deeply, and how truly I love, loved and will always love you. Every day, you have become more beautiful to me, and if you are stubborn enough to ignore my dreams and premonitions until you have ended up where you are as you read this, perhaps you will now be stubborn enough to trust your own inner voice no matter what your eyes or fear tell you.

I have spent so long trying to lead you East, it feels like a lifetime. I have played this game of chess repeatedly, endlessly, seeking every possible variation. I did this because I had hope, I have love and I believe that you have a chance.

Head East. That means Diablo is on your LEFT. Use the tarp as added protection on the floor to keep Max's claws from poking through. Keep a sharp lookout for something to row with. The waters will only get deeper. Do not drink them, no matter how thirsty you are. More water is coming, and it will try to push you South, toward Sunol. Do not allow that. If you have to, anchor yourself to something large. Use your belt. I know you're wearing the longer belt because you're still alive. You know why.

Please know that I felt no pain, in the end.

Yours,

Tad

Notes from the Future: The Compound II

June 24

Afternoon

Two Rachels enter, both with the same alarmed but nursey look in their eyes. When they see Nice Rachel, they visibly relax. The older one looks everyone in the eyes, silently, then turns so the camera over the door can see her face. When she turns, it's like she's a different person -- suddenly she's crazy angry and yelling at us and we all leave the room.

In the hallway, though, Nice Rachel falls into step with the Young Nurse Rachel, and we turn left instead of right toward the front door; then we turn right and we're in a large kitchen -- not as large as the kitchen in the other house -- and this one has been converted to double as surgery prep and possible operating room; it is spotlessly clean. We head through this room into a family room beyond, which feels like a lounge or waiting room that could also be a recovery room; before we go in all the way, Young Nurse Rachel stops us with a gesture, enters, and closes a series of privacy curtains to specific spots in their tracking. The result is a little labyrinth of curtains into which she leads us, single file. When we reach the center, we are among a group of small couches and comfy chairs, with a low coffee table between them. We sit, following Young Nurse Rachel's lead, in silence. 

The sound of Older Nurse Rachels footsteps has me on edge until she appears around the corner, checks the curtains visually, then exhales. As she does, all the anger melts from her face and she seems to become a nice older lady. The group relaxes. She sits in a chair left vacant, a hard, plain wooden chair, directly across from me. 

"You are Veronica," she says, and she has the kindest light in her eyes. I immediately want to trust her, which makes me not want to trust her.  I decide to answer in short sentences.

"Yes," I say.

"I thought so," she says, and her eyes twinkle. "He said you were beautiful."

"Who? Tad? -- Edward? Did he speak, was he awake?!" I am standing, ready to push through the curtains and go back to him. I feel a hand on my arm, and it's Nice Rachel, who is sitting to my right.

"He is not awake, stay calm, it is not safe to leave the labyrinth," she says. I sit back down, but I'm getting angry.

"He talks in his sleep," Older Nurse Rachel says, and her eyes seem to smile sadly at me. I immediately want to curl up in her arms and be rocked to sleep. I feel some tears on my cheek and I wipe them away, willing myself to focus on her, as she is still talking: "Though it's more like a trance than sleep. We retrieved these from your car ..." and she produces the six syringes I stuck in his ass cheek in San Ramon ... was it only yesterday night? "Do you know where they came from?"

"I got them from a friend who works in a pharmacy, and at a hospital," I say.

"And you believed they were Morphine, yes?"

"Yes. I -- wasn't thinking clearly, I just wanted him to be pain-free," my hands are shaking a little. Do they think I was trying to murder him?

"We do not think you were trying to murder him," Older Nurse Rachel says, and the room goes still. Everyone is watching me. "Yes, everyone is watching you," she says, smiling again. And now I'm in one of Tad's weird-ass stories where old lady cult members can read your mind! "I'm older than I look, but we are not -- or were not intended to be -- a cult," she says, still smiling. I blush and then feel the color drain from my face, like it's blood monsoon season.

I sit completely still, and realize after about a minute that I've stopped breathing. Max, on the other hand, has curled up at my feet and gone to sleep. Must be nice. Cozy fucker.

Older Nurse Rachel laughs out loud suddenly, and I jump.

"Oh, Veronica, dear, you have nothing to fear from us. Breathe and listen, no matter how strange and far-fetched our tale will seem to you; breathe and listen, and you will see the truth borne out in time," says Older Nurse Rachel, and I can't help it: I'm breathing and listening and someone hands me a cup of Chamomile tea with honey and I sip it and relax just a little. 'Breathe,' I remind myself, and Older Nurse Rachel nods approval.  She looks down for a few moments, going utterly still, seeming to gather strength.  Then she looks up at me and her eyes seem to blaze with blue intensity, just like Tad's Mom and sisters and his Aunt Mary.

"My name is Mother Henrietta, and I have been the Abbess of this Monastery for the past eighty years," she says. 

I feel my breath stop mid-exhale. 

She nods at me, I breathe again. 'Okay,' I think. 'She said she was older than she looks,' I sip my tea and breathe again, ready for whatever comes next. 

Mother Henrietta's smile deepens and she says, "We have been waiting for your Fiancé -- or someone very much like him -- for three hundred years.  Nice Rachel, be so kind as to catch that mug," and even as I'm hearing this I'm aware of the world tipping backwards like I finally got the swing to go all the way around the swingset and

Notes from the Future: Missives II

This note is tied to a red fire bucket on the roof of some condominiums near the Iron Horse Trail in Dublin.

Dear Veronica,

If you are reading this note, you are on the roof, hopefully with Max, and you've found the red fire bucket. Note that there is a small stack of supplies here. Put every note from me in the ziploc bag in the backpack. Do that now, then read the rest of this note.

I am glad you are still alive. As you tied Max near the ladder outside the first floor, the last of the barrier between the lake of fire and the canal broke, and flaming water came pouring into the canal. The more water that came in, more of the barrier disintegrated.  You can probably see it now, how it has already reached the back of the condo, and you will hear some screams soon.

The screams are from the others in the first floor back condo. They will probably come toward the roof, because I forgot to tell you to block the door in my earlier note. I am sorry about that. There is mace in the backpack, along with a knife. There are three of them, four if you did not kill the one from the hall.

Because of the nature of time travel and probability, there is a chance that I left a fire axe on the roof as well. If I did, you will find it when you need it most. Please forgive me, I cannot be more direct.

No matter how fascinating the water is, do not turn your back to the way you came up here; stand firm and wait. Above all, make Max stay. They will take him if they can, and you will not be able to save him.

I know you've done some possibly horrible things to get away from that mountainous hill (question answered), and if you're here now it's good that you did those things. But I feel obligated to tell you that you did not have to go to such extremes in every case. In this case, right now, however, you are perfectly prepared. I would suggest macing these fuckers and cutting their jugulars asap. I am sorry that they look like children. I am even more sorry that they look like our children. I can only tell you that it is not true, and that in time this memory will fade and you will question whether it really did happen at all.

You must survive. You and Max must get as far East as you can, and in the tarp under the backpack you will find your only possible salvation.  First, though, you must survive them. They are coming. Put this paper down, stand back up and face the roof you climbed up. Do it NOW, Veronica!

I promise you, there is a sliver of hope.

Yours no matter where or when,

Tad

Notes from the Future: The Compound

June 24

Afternoon

I am being given a tour in preparation for indoctrination. Once a Rachel is allowed in to the Compound, she may not leave. Nice Rachel tells me this is the only way. They are not certain what to do with Max, because he is neither a Rachel nor an Ezekiel, having been neutered at an early age. The Prophet will decide, eventually, but the Prophet is sleeping right now. He sleeps all day in order to be at the roadblocks at night. He is guided by spirit to attend specific roadblocks and exact his toll. Everyone here is pretty, even the men.  Nice Rachel told me that many of the people here have been welcomed into the fold because they had revelations at road blocks and were guided by spirit to submit themselves to the Prophet. She told me this back on the mountain thing. She called it a Tor.

The Prophet doesn't know about the Tor. He's never been beyond the Garden. Nice Rachel and her two bearded Ezekiels have had to stage some large distractions to keep him from going through the Garden. I am amazed that there are so few who know about the Tor, but Nice Rachel explained it as we came back down the path.

"So many people here are new, and terrified, that they won't go anywhere outside of where they should be. Consider that before the earthquake there were thirty people here. Now we have over a thousand and the numbers are climbing," here she paused at the shed near the grape arbor. "From this point on, you're being indoctrinated. As long as you are being indoctrinated, you are safe. The Prophet does not Spread His Holy Wordseed with any women who have not achieved Full Rachelhood, and that could take months."

"I don't have months," I said. "I've got to get Edward and our car and get out of here."

"If he could walk, if he were conscious, I would say go now while the Prophet sleeps. But he's --" and here she paused again, then looked at me, eyes wide and a finger to her lips, leading the way through the grape arbor and back into the garden.

She shushed me because of the people coming into the garden from the other end. A tall thin lady with short grey hair, a short fat bald man and a very plain man of middle height who appeared to be made of boring. I found myself consistently forgetting he was there, even when he was looking right at me.  Sorry, a tall thin Rachel, a short fat bald Ezekiel and a plain, eerily forgettable Ezekiel. I keep forgetting.

The grey haired Rachel said, "A woman's place is under the Prophet, Rachel!" It felt like a smackdown, and I could feel Nice Rachel stiffen as we approached; but she smiled and her voice was pleasant.

"A woman's place is indeed under the Prophet, Rachel," she said. Stopping right in front of Iron Rachel, Nice Rachel smiled and looked directly into Iron Rachel's eyes. This was intense. Iron Rachel blinked and stepped back, suddenly, kind of like she'd been poked in the brain. We moved past them and the two Ezekiels with Iron Rachel looked confused. And scared.

Now I'm being given a "tour" and we seem to be slowly moving toward the other house on the property. I follow Nice Rachel's lead and allow one of her bearded Ezekiels to open gates for us and also to push me back against a fence at one point when Rachel breathes, "Watching." The Ezekiel shouts at me, "Your place has no place until the Prophet decrees! Your place has no place until the Prophet examines you!" Max is growling at him, but he ignores it. Then he takes my face in his hands and I think he's going to kiss me, but his thumbs are over my mouth. It's that fake kiss from, like, second grade. Nice Rachel whispers, "No hands," as I'm about to pretend to get into the kiss, and I let my hands drop to my sides. I only raised them a little. If we're being watched, I hope it wasn't noticeable. Nice Rachel is petting Max to calm him.

We look at livestock pens, we see an improvised schoolhouse set up in a pavilion-style tent, like something from a weird Puritan wedding school. The girls all hold hands with a boy and the teacher smacks their hands with a long, whiplike stick. She shouts, "None but the Prophet!" The kids drop hands. The girls are in tears, the boys look angry and conflicted. In one livestock pen, there is a little boy among the pigs. He is in white underwear, tidy whities -- but he's so dirty, that neither word applies. He is oinking and squealing, and I see him watching us from the corner of his eye. His skin, where not covered in mud and pigshit, is horribly sunburned.

Suddenly we are down a front path between small Birch trees and through a fancy oak and wrought-iron door, in a more Tuscan McMansion; just as large as the main house, but not as high on the hill. It's cool and dark in here, most shades closed. There is quiet conversation somewhere and the immediate beep of a heart monitor. Max's claws click elegantly on the Terra Cotta tile floors.

In moments we are down a hall and in a room and there is Tad. Hooked up to machines, tubes in his nose, a saline drip -- everything. Max sees him, too, starts wagging his tail all over and doing the anxious dog dance.  I see Nice Rachel seeing me see everything, and we make eye contact. She's a nurse! She has to be. I glance back at Tad and she pushes me lightly on the right elbow, taking Max's lead from me as I pass. I am at Tad's side, looking down at him.

He is pale. Dark circles under his eyes. Heart rate is slow. I want to touch him, kiss him. Nice Rachel has moved to the foot of the bed, where she has taken up a clipboard and has bent her head over it, as though reading intently. Her eyes, however, are on me. The Ezekiels move toward the door, flanking it; I see one glance up significantly, and I follow his gaze. A camera. I glance back at Nice Rachel. She saw me see. She says, "They are watching everything. You cannot touch him, it would tell them that I am not indoctrinating you and we would all be killed."

I can't take my eyes off of Tad, all I want to do is brush his hair from his forehead. I want to make sure he's okay. His breathing is so shallow. "Is this my fault?" I ask.

"No," she says. "You can't have given him six shots of Morphine. He would be in a coma. He's just unconscious. I know you think you gave him that many, but we're searching your car later to retrieve any syringes so I can take a look and see what you did give him."

"Why is he like this, if not from what I injected?" I ask. My vision is blurring from tears.

"I think he's in shock," her voice is kind and gentle. "His left leg is broken, his knee is dislocated, he has severe burns, he's dehydrated and was deeply, deeply stressed when he lost consciousness. How --"

"Wait -- what?! His leg is broken!?" I can't help being loud. I am upset. 

Nice Rachel's eyes get wide and she looks toward the door. The Ezekiel on the left cocks an ear out the door, then shrugs, shaking his head. Nice Rachel exhales, looks at me and asks quietly, "How long before we met you on the ridge did his leg break?"

I think back, and it's all so fuzzy. It seems like it was days ago. "I think four hours, tops. Maybe two, maybe three. It's hard to remember clearly," I tell her. She nods, actually reading his chart now.

I study him again in the silence. He didn't look this bad when he almost died of pneumonia in 2003. Nice Rachel, watching me, moves to the other side of his bed and brushes his hair back from his forehead, stroking his face and combing her fingers over his scalp. I am so grateful someone is touching him, and at the same time I am enraged that it's not me. I almost reach out. She inhales once, quickly, and that involuntary reaction from her is enough to remind me of the danger. I look at her, and she glances at Tad, nodding her head toward him. I understand: talk to him.

For a second I don't know what to say. Then it comes.

"Don't die on me," I whisper. "I'm not as strong as you think I am; the way you write me in stories is not really me. I need you, Tad. I need you in order to appear as strong as you paint me, because my strength comes from resisting you. I know it's stupid, but -- sorry. I'm okay.

         I'm okay.

         Okay.

         If I'm ... pushing back against you, I find my strength. And you're -- such -- a pain in the --

         ... I'm okay. I'm sorry, I --" and I have to stop and breathe for a long time. I need him to hear this. He's not in a coma. He's just unconscious. He needs to hear these words. I'm at a loss, shaking with tears, afraid of what the camera will see.

Nice Rachel moves suddenly around the bed, near me, grabbing Tad's left foot, calling the two Ezekiels to come help her. They move near and stand close to her, kind of hovering over his foot. She looks at me, raises her eyebrows.

Suddenly I see: they are blocking the camera's view.

I touch his hand. He's so alive, even like this. I touch his face, I stroke his dirty hair behind his ears. I want to crawl into the bed and snuggle him. He is always talking about the healing power of snuggles. I want to heal him forever right now, and before I know it words seem to fall from my mouth.

"Edward Hightower, I need you healthy and awake. Max needs you healthy and awake. Your family needs you healthy and awake. But I am the one who matters most. You stay here, in this world, Mister. You stay and heal and recover so you can backpack the JMT with our sons. John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt would not approve of your current status, so you need to stop fucking around in this bed wake up!"  I'm yelling a little by the end, and I realize this, glancing at Nice Rachel and the Bearded E's, but their eyes are alight. 

I think they liked my little speech.

Max liked it, too, apparently. He leaps onto the hospital bed, planting both front paws full-force into Tad's crotch. Tad gasps in his drugged sleep and his heart rate leaps. We wrestle Max off the bed, but not before he licks Tad's face barks three times. We hear footsteps approaching.

Notes from the Future: Missives

This note hangs on a chain link fence near the canal in Dublin along the Iron Horse Trail:

Dear Veronica,

If you have found this note, I am dead and you are lucky to be alive. This was the worst possible route, and you are only alive because of a geographic anomaly which is, even now, crumbling. The fumes from the lake of fire are very bad for you, if not deadly. I wish you had listened to me. I wish, truly, that I was better at inspiring you to trust the inner voice, in spite of self doubt. That doubt has led you here, and if you are wise you will tear this note from the string and take it with you. At this point, I cannot say with any certainty that there is hope of your survival. I do not like to be so negative, but you should have listened to me!  

Go back the way you came, run quickly and keep your eyes open for a ladder on the right, against some balconies of a tan condominium. Move the ladder to the LEFT condominium balconies and climb to the THIRD floor. The sliding door is open. Hold your breath and do not look around as you go through that place, watch your step: the floor is slippery and you do not want to fall down in what is there.

If Max is still with you, and I pray he is because you will need him and he needs us so badly to take care of him, you will have to tie him to the first floor balcony before you go up the ladder. Go as fast and carefully as you can.

When you get out of the condominium's front door, run down the stairs immediately and out the FRONT of the condo building. Do NOT enter the first floor condo. I repeat, DO NOT. No matter how nice it looks, no matter who is there or appears to be there. No matter what you hear or think you see. There is nothing there for you but darkness.

Prop the exterior condo door open with the RED paving stone, it's more solid, run outside and around the building and grab Max. HURRY because the water is breaking by this time. Drag him if you have to, I do not think you will have to. Get back up to the top floor, but take the red paving stone as you enter because you may have to kill the person waiting in the hallway for you. I swear to you, it is not me. Please believe me, even if he appears to know about this note and prove that he is me through intimate knowledge of our life, he IS NOT ME. Use that stone, even if only to knock him out. Get up the stairs, but go into the condo across the hall from the one you came in. I have no idea if the door will be locked or unlocked. I cannot control that. I cannot control any of this, or you would not be reading this note. I love you so much, and if you get this far then you may survive.

If you can get inside the condo across the hall (unit F for Front), you will see that the front balcony has a low-sloped roof to the left of it. Lift and push Max onto that roof, climbing up right behind him to keep him going up and not sliding off. Go to the highest point. Look for a red fire bucket.

Stop reading now and run!

I love you forever, 

Tad

Notes from the Future: Veronica's Journal (Mid-morning)

June 24

Mid-morning

The door opens and it's Menstrual Meg Rachel, my new name for this bitch. She scowls like a scowly monster. I really do think she's insane. She stares at me, I stare at her. She breathes like she's going to talk, then says nothing. I start to ask what she wants, she starts to talk then stops because I started to talk. Finally I point to Max:

"My dog hasn't been outside since we arrived last night. He needs food, he needs water and he needs to shit," I say, hoping to sound like Galadriel when offered the ring. 

She just stares at me, scowls harder, turns around and leaves.

I do NOT like these creepy Mean Greeny bitches. Who locks a dog in a room all night and then won't let him shit? I need a weapon. I need to find Tad, get our car and get the hell off this mountain. That phrase is something Tad would say. Something he told me he said, actually, when he was on Mt. Whitney in 2009, at the end of the John Muir Trail. Wow, he's not here to tell me stories of the JMT, so I'm telling them myself. Comforting and annoying all at once. Just like Tad.

There's another knock, brief, and in comes Nice Rachel.

"I'm so sorry," she says. "Nobody has let you or your dog out to use the restroom. I had thought that someone would think of this, as I was ... occupied. Please. Come with me," and holding the door open, she ushers me past her.

The room beyond is massive. It's a gigantic family room with arena-style, amphitheatre seating built around a giant bank of TV's in the wall on the other side of the room I was in. There are Rachels and Ezekiels everywhere. The Rachels are all dressed sort of Puritan, but it looks more like a community theatre production of The Crucible where everyone brought most of their costume from home. The Ezekiels are all wearing thick, tough work pants held up with wide, strong suspenders over plaid work shirts. Their hair is conservative, and many are clean-shaven.  I did not hear any sound from the TV's because everyone who is watching is listening via headphones. They all seem to be watching a different program, totally focused on one small screen, but then one large picture will form and the bank becomes a giant screen and it's the Prophet, speaking earnestly into the camera. He does not look crazy here, but I only see a few moments as Rachel leads me briskly past the viewers -- mostly Rachels -- and we are immediately flanked by two Ezekiels. These two are not clean-shaven. They have full beards, except that they are shaved clean the exact width of their noses, from their upper lips to their chins, all the way down their throats. Weird.

When I arrived last night, they put a black hood over my head at the gates and didn't take it off until I was in my room. My cell? Whatever. Now that I see what this place is like, I figure someone here has money. Lots and lots of money.  The kitchen is a professional-grade super chef paradise with granite countertops and almost no appliances cluttering them up. Which means there's ample storage. If this is the only house, this is where the cooking happens. It's spotless. And there are women on their knees, earnestly scrubbing the kitchen floor, and chanting. Of course they're chanting. It's time for the morning dose of Creepy.

We go through the kitchen to a back door where Nice Rachel waits while one of the Ezekiels opens the door for her. Before she goes through, she kneels in front of him and I think, 'Oh my God, is she going to blow this guy?!' but she says, "This is my place," and he says, "The proper place of a Woman." Then she's standing and pulling me through the door and her and the two Ezekiels' eyes are darting around rapidly before the door is shut behind us. I was about to say some shit if they wanted to make me kneel, but I have the feeling somehow that I was just spared something and I don't know what to think about that, yet.

Out the back door, we are on a kind of wraparound deck, slightly narrow, very well-built and recently constructed. I can smell the timber. It goes to our right and left around the house but we are at the top of a landing that heads down to the left, which is where she leads me. That landing splits two ways and we go right, down to another landing which splits, and we go left. Max is happy to be outside, pulling a little at the lead. I know he has to go, so I will him to hold it until we're on the ground. These stairways are like switchbacks, and there I go thinking about backpacking and Tad again. Man, I have got to keep it together. If I keep thinking about him, I may not be able to remain calm when they decide to cut me. 

I feel like that's going to happen. But if they wanted to kill me, why bring Max? Can I get him to run away instead of stay? I want him alive if they are going to kill me, but I'm not going down without a fight. 

We reach the ground and in a shady spot right in front of an arbor covered in Jasmine, Max immediately squats and unleashes a thick, soupy batch of what Tad likes to call Conservative Rhetoric. Aauugh, I have to stop thinking about him. It feels like Max is there forever, like he's done, but then more comes out. This only really happens if Max eats onions or some other thing bad for woofies, or if he is supremely stressed. If it's stress, I had no idea. He has been calm and loving this whole time. Hasn't even whined, really.

But we are moving on and one of the Ezekiels grabs a shovel and scoops up the Max pudding (a Tad phrase), and I watch him pour it out at the base of an apple tree and I see where we are --

We are in the most beautiful and well-planned garden I have ever seen. Tad would love this even more than the freakish seismic events happening all around us. The walls of the garden are trellises covered with beans and peas and other food-bearing vines; maybe not trellises, maybe just sticks with the vines growing between them. Hard to tell, because we are through the garden so fast, then heading up actual switchbacks cut between terraces of further crops and flowers cut into the hillside, then there's a lovely little shed and a very young Rachel (maybe 12?) and her eyes get so wide when she sees us but she immediately focuses on sharpening the shovel in her hands at a shake of the head from Nice Rachel. Then we are beyond another arbor, this one covered in grapevines, and we are following a trail up the hill (mountain?) into dense trees.

No one is speaking and I am looking around thinking of how I can escape and what they are going to do to me. Is this some kind of group sex thing? I start planning my escape: as soon as I see an opening, Max and I will run off into the trees until we are heading downhill, then we will keep running until we get to a house. Then we will get help and return in force, freeing Tad and making sure that Mad Menstrual isn't lurking about with some cutlery.

I am gauging the length of a broken branch on the ground, wondering if I can use it as a club, when we step into sunlight and I gasp.

We are in a clearing on the top of this very tall hill. The grass here is green and lush. There is some kind of sundial in the center of the clearing, and there are at least a dozen trees placed around the circle of the clearing, old-growth trees, each with some kind of vine growing on or near it. It looks for all the world like the Entmoot from Lord of the Rings, only not a copy of the movie.

Nice Rachel has turned to me, and she is holding my purse out to me in her right hand. Her next words are not what I expect.

"Edward is in critical condition. I need to know how much Morphine you gave him and how long ago that was. Tell me now, tell me quickly, our time is short and you are in far greater danger than you imagine."

Veronica's Journal, June 24 (morning light)

June 24

Morning (sunlight)

There is a small window in this room, high in the wall to the left of the door; there's a sort of bench seat built in beneath it, and by standing on it I can see outside. I see roof and some other parts of the house and a large garage, then a steep hill / mountainside covered with trees going up behind the garage. Garages. Looks like there's more than one. No clear view of the valley, though I do see a lot of smoke in the sky. But the light is bright and golden when the smoke isn't obscuring the sun.

I woke up and there was a small TV on a stand here, with a remote, hooked up to Cable. It's amazing that there's still Cable television, and the world keeps going -- it's just our world here in this portion of California that has fallen apart. Is falling apart, I should say. There is strange stuff happening.

That earthquake last night was another big one, and there were more off the coast in the last hour. The Bay Area is bracing for another Tsunami, this one has the potential to be even bigger.  The explosion we heard last night was, as it appeared at the time, Mt. Diablo. The Northeast Flank has collapsed and now the town of Clayton is being destroyed by lava and Concord is being evacuated.  There's a major problem at the Livermore Labs, but nobody will tell the media what it is. Jets are flying into Livermore but landing at the Lab, totally bypassing the airport. The lake of fire in Pleasanton has reached El Charro. The exit, not the restaurant.

I hope Tad is awake and can watch some of this. He is fascinated by disasters. I am really worried about him. I could tell what he was doing last night in the car, when he started preaching and shaking and contradicting the Prophet guy, and I kept trying to think of ways to join in and help him, but improv scares me. His response to that would be, "What scares you more, improv or having the Prophet of the Mean Greenies bite something off of your body?" And he would be right. But I froze.  Some of his shaking and stuff was real.  The vomit was real, and really gross.  He seems to have an adverse reaction to Morphine.

Wow, they just showed Danville and San Ramon. Nothing but lava and smoking rubble on the East side of 680.

Now they're talking about the fishkill. All Government offices have been moved to the highest altitude possible in every city, with some cities sharing offices if one city is mostly near sea level; they are moving into schools or colleges that are in the hills -- apparently Hayward is wrangling with Cal State East Bay to move its Government into the University, but the University is saying that as it is no longer Cal State Hayward, it is the school and not the city that will call the shots. Interesting and petty. What's left of local Government is trying to rally and help people. But everything is a mess. So what they're saying right now is that almost everyone in the immediate Bay Area -- people in Hayward, Oakland, Berkeley, Martinez (what's left of it), San Mateo, Redwood City, San Jose -- everywhere that's flat -- all of those people are dead. The ones who lived or were at sea level the night of the nitrogen bloom all died. All of them. And there are not nearly enough people to dispose of the bodies. They are conservatively estimating 100,000 dead people. Rotting away. It has to be more than that, I think.

FEMA set up their trailer shantytown in the Coliseum parking lots. Of course. And in one night, most of the trailers disappeared. Some have been found, but all this was before the fishkill, so everyone in the trailers and everyone who stole a trailer is, presumably, dead. Tad would have a field day with this.

All I can think about is all the children.

Someone is knocking at the door.