The Halcyon Dislocation

by Peter Kazmaier

  “Oh yeah!” muttered Brendon. “How likely am I to find a woman like that?”

  Floyd chuckled and said, “You’re dreamin’, Glenn. Why would any woman do that for you? What could she possibly get out of a relationship like that?”

  “Why would she do that for me?” said Glenn solemnly. “She would do that for me because her biological makeup wires her up that way and because being associated with someone of my reputation, social standing, and of course general good looks, would make her the envy of womankind everywhere. Just think of how her status in the female hierarchy would be elevated.”

  There were guffaws all around.

  “I think it would also help if she weren’t too bright,” Tom added innocently as an afterthought.

  The others laughed uproariously. Even Floyd and Al were laughing. Dave was laughing so hard that tears came to his eyes.

  Trying to divert attention from this unfortunate remark, Glenn turned to Al, who was sitting next to him, and said, “Okay, wise guy. Laugh it up. How would you describe the ideal woman?”

  Al composed himself and considered Glenn’s question. “I don’t know, Glenn. On this subject I bow to your superior experience.”

  “Oh, don’t encourage him!” said Tom.

  “You must have had a girlfriend,” said Glenn. “Tell us about it.”

  “Actually, I never had a girlfriend. I don’t even have a sister, and my mother died soon after my father abandoned us when I was twelve years old. Even when I went to live with my father and my stepmother, I hated my stepmother so much that I never really learned anything positive about women from her.”

  The circle had become quiet. They had moved from raucous laughter to tomb-like solemnity in scant seconds. Pleased at the diversion of attention, Glenn pressed the matter. “But you must have had a girlfriend in high school. You must have some idea about the ideal woman.”

  “No, I can’t say I even had a girlfriend in high school,” said Al sheepishly. “But I did have a number of good friends who were girls, more like sisters than girlfriends, I guess.”

  There were snorts of disbelief.

  “No, it’s true!” said Al. “You see, my father was a professor of psychology and a Marxist. He detested all religion as the ‘opiate of the people,’ and he wouldn’t let my mother go to church even though she wanted to. After my mother died and I became old enough to stand up to him, I went to church more out of rebellion than conviction. I met a lot of nice girls at church.”

  “More out of rebellion than conviction? I could find religion if there were enough good-looking women there!” hooted Vlad.

  “Maybe that’s where you should look for your ‘compliant female,’” said Kyle, looking knowingly at Glenn. “Maybe you could find one that would satisfy your every whim and desire out of religious conviction.”

  “Let Al finish. We still haven’t heard about the ideal woman,” said Floyd.

  “I don’t think any of the girls I got to know as friends would have fit Glenn’s description. Anyway, to me, women are an alien species. I can’t understand how they think or how they react, but somehow the sum total of what they are is an inexpressible delight.”

  “My dear, uninformed celibate,” said Glenn. “Your inexpressible delight in womankind is nothing more than your disguised sex drive.”

  “I couldn’t disagree more!” protested Al. “If you look carefully at the woman of your darker dreams, she will be an infernal Venus. She will of course be rapturously beautiful, but she will also, of necessity, be wanton and to some extent evil. The whole point is, of course, that we could misuse and abuse this beautiful evil Venus without regret or even a pang of guilt, precisely because she is evil and deserves to be used and then discarded. On the other hand, the girls I was able to get to know as good friends were beautiful, but they were also innocent, and only a complete rogue could lie to them and steal their innocence and trust. Even if a rogue did so, I can’t believe it wouldn’t leave a bad taste in his mouth.”

  Al’s exposition had been rendered so passionately an awkward silence followed. Dave, not wishing the awkward moment to linger, said, “For a guy who insists he doesn’t know anything about women, you said quite a lot.”

  “Call it a Socratic paradox,” said Al, smiling mischievously in the firelight. “Since I—perhaps only I—correctly recognize that I know zero about women, I actually know more about women than some others,” here he looked at Glenn, “who mistakenly think they know a lot, but what they know is completely wrong.”

  “Wrong? Wrong! Your knowledge is purely theoretical, while mine is experimental,” said Glenn, thumping himself on his chest.

  “Anyway, Glenn, you’re not doing us any favors,” said Dave.

  “How so?” answered Glenn.

  “You’ve been telling us time and time again we should live for ourselves. Your philosophy is ‘look out for number one.’ By telling everybody around you, including the women, that they ought to live for themselves, you’re actually destroying what little chance we have to find these women of our dreams who will unselfishly fulfill our every whim and desire.”

  After the laughter had again subsided, they headed off to get some sleep.

  __________

  The ten men crossed another plateau and entered the foothills of the mountains. The hills were clad in a fir wood that made walking difficult, so they faced the constant danger of losing their sense of direction and traveling in circles.

  Late one afternoon, as they crossed a shallow ridge, they came upon a long narrow dell bordering a pond that was shaped like the narrow willow leaf point of a spear. At the north end of the pond, a creek from a high alpine valley cascaded over moss covered rocks. About 100 yards to the south, the water from the pool plunged over a rocky ridge to fall churning and foaming to the fens far below. On the east side of the pool, near the waterfall, there was a meadow of luscious green grass dotted with tamarack and pine.

  “Let’s make camp here,” said Floyd, leaning his pack against a tree near the water’s edge.

  “Stan, you set the night lines for the fish. The rest of us will scatter and look for some food. We’re running low.”

  Dave set his pack down at the edge of the forest as he pulled out his foldable shovel and headed back up the slope. He had seen some potatoes not far from the game trail they had been following. He found them quickly and soon had a poncho full of new red potatoes, which he carried back to his pack.

  Dave set them down and was just opening his pack to look for a pan so he could wash the potatoes, when he heard Al’s voice in the distance.

  “What are you doing, Stan?”

  Dave looked up. About twenty yards away Stan rose suddenly from the ground, holding a book. He closed the journal, tossed it onto Floyd’s pack, and stretched himself to his full height.

  “What’s it to you, Gleeson?”

  “Why are you going through Floyd’s belongings?”

  At five feet eleven inches, Al was as tall as Stan but much slighter of build. Stan looked him up and down.

  “I hear,” said Stan menacingly, “that fundamentalists are supposed to turn the other cheek if someone hammers them. Is that right?”

  Stan was clenching and unclenching his fists as he slowly approached Al. Dave approached quietly from behind.

  “I don’t have that problem,” said Dave. Stan turned abruptly, and Dave saw a momentary flash of fear cross his eyes.

  “I was only kidding,” said Stan with a laugh.

  “What were you doing with Linder’s journal?” asked Al again.

  Stan looked from Al to Dave, eyes smoldering. “I’ve been keeping track of the plants I’ve seen, and I just wanted to check our location with Floyd’s maps so my notations will be accurate. I knew Floyd wouldn’t mind.”

  “But you’ll tell him, right?” asked Dave.

  “Yeah, I’ll tell him,” said Stan as he put the journal carefully back in Floyd’s pack.

  Chapter 12 The Worm Caves


  The expedition left the willow pond and climbed a tall ridge that cut across their path. To stay near the edge of the swamp, they had to cross one deep ravine after another in seemingly endless succession. The ravines cut into high hills in the north that grew in height as they neared the mountains, which now towered over them in the west. One day they climbed out of a steep valley to see the end of a mountain chain rear up before them out of the rugged country. The last mountain broke out of the rolling hills like a giant spike that had been driven through the earth from underneath by gargantuan hammers. Perhaps the southern slopes of the last mountain would let them pass the swamp?

  As Dave and his companions toiled across the tree-clad slopes, their hearts came alive with hope they had at last found a way past the dreadful never-ending swamp. However when they reached the last hill before the mountain face, they were dismayed to find mounds of broken rock—likely created by some violent tumult of ages past—heaped up against the mountainside on the fringe of the swamp.

  “Now what do we do?” muttered Floyd as the party gathered at the edge of the broken rock.

  “We could try it anyway,” suggested Brendon. Dave was so desperate to get past the swamp, that he gave his assent even though a voice inside him whispered that it would be insane to do so. The others must have felt the same desperation to get past the mountains and the swamp, since there was general assent to the proposal.

  So they began the trek across the broken rock. Floyd led the group in single file over gigantic boulders, some the size of houses. The rock field was treacherous. Glenn, wandering off the trail that Floyd had proven, stepped on a loose rock and fell heavily onto a sharp shard. The group stopped, and while Al bandaged up Glenn’s leg Dave looked for a rise to get a better view of the rocks ahead. He stepped on a large flat rock, only to have it shift as the soft scree underneath gave way. It slid about fifteen feet and then stopped, pitching him headlong onto a pile of rubble. He was bruised and shaken, but hadn’t broken any bones.

  They continued, Floyd leading them closer to the cliff face, where the broken rock was less treacherous. After three hours they had gone less than a mile over the difficult terrain. As they walked, they heard the distant thunder of falling ice as the warm sunny day melted the ice fields far up the steep mountainside.

  In the afternoon, clouds moved swiftly in and added to the gloom the travelers felt in their hearts. An impassable field of jagged boulders now forced them right up against the vertical mountainside, and they could lean on the sheer cliff wall with their right hands. A steady drizzle of rain had begun to fall, and the companions were bitterly cold. As Dave craned his neck to stare fearfully up the sheer rock wall, he could see that the rain had turned to snow farther up.

  The rock before them gave way to a field of scree, much more extensive than any they had seen before. This scree, made up of small round pebbles, slid at the smallest provocation, making their footing treacherous and walking tiring. Finally, as the intensity of the rain increased, Floyd led them to an overhang, where they came upon the entrance to a cave. When Dave looked down the jumble of broken rock from the cave entrance, he saw that the area below them was one long tongue of scree, as if the gaping hole were a pipe that gave rise to a pebble waterfall. The passageway was not straight but bent in a slow curve to the right, descending gently as it penetrated deep into the mountainside.

  “Let’s get out of the rain and take a break,” said Floyd.

  They readily assented and began to explore the cave with their weapons ready. After just fifty feet, the tunnel widened into an irregular chamber with a flat, pebbly floor, then narrowed again as it rose, curving left.

  “Stop!” said Floyd. “We can see far enough down the passageway to detect anything coming from that direction. Let’s rest here. At least we have enough light from the entrance to see what we’re doing.”

  Floyd assigned watches, and the rest stretched out on the floor of the chamber to sleep. Dave had the first watch, but found himself nodding off after the day’s exertion. He woke with a start. He had been dreaming that he was in a New York subway station as a freight train passed the platform. The loud rumble faded. The tunnel, previously filled with the subdued light of an overcast day, was now almost completely dark, with only a pale light coming from the tunnel entrance.

  Have we slept this long? Dave wondered to himself.

  But the same loud rumble had also awoken the rest.

  “The entrance is blocked with ice!” shouted Brendon. Together, they rushed back up the tunnel to find it blocked with ice and snow. The sun must have come out while we slept, thought Dave, looking at the faint light shining through the wall of ice.

  “Since we can see the light, maybe we can get through this,” said Floyd.

  They began to chop furiously with their small axes at the ice, moving the slippery dislodged blocks back to the open space. As they worked, the ice began to melt and a stream of water began flowing down into their tunnel. As the level of melt water increased, Floyd became alarmed. When they were knee-deep in water, Floyd said, “I’m beginning to think this is a bad idea. What if we get trapped in here? Al and Dave, you go down the tunnel and see if you can get us to higher ground.”

  As the two slowly felt their way around the next curve, their eyes adjusted to the darkness, and they saw a greenish glow emanating from the tunnel walls.

  As Dave looked at the circular shaft, it struck him for the first time how unusual this uniformity was. What a ninny I am not to have noticed this before!

  “Al, do you think this tunnel is manmade?”

  Al stopped and considered it for a moment. “I can’t be sure, but I’d wager that it isn’t due to pure geological events. Yet, on the other hand, if we had built this, the shaft would be square and straight. This is round, or nearly round, and winds back and forth like the trail of a sidewinder.”

  They began to move farther up the tunnel. The shaft climbed steadily, and finally Al called a halt. “This’ll do. We’d better head back and tell the others.”

  They met the others as they were walking back. The flow of water had increased as the melting had accelerated, and they had been forced back into the tunnel by the rising water levels.

  The group pressed on, and after another 100 yards the tunnel leveled off. Twenty minutes later, they reached a large cavern. In the dim green light, they could see that the floor of the cavern was strewn with cylindrical objects.

  “What do you think these are?” asked Floyd.

  “They could be some natural rock formation,” ventured Brendon.

  “I don’t know,” said Al. “Somehow the shapes seem too regular.”

  As the party moved onto the pebbly floor of the cavern, their examination of the objects revealed that the tubes were of various sizes, some more than twenty feet in diameter, and they were made of tightly clustered plates, like the scales on an enormous fish.

  “There are a great many circular exits leaving this cavern. Maybe one of them will take us through the mountain,” said Floyd.

  “But which one?” asked Brendon. “I wouldn’t want to get lost down here.”

  Floyd selected the most likely tunnel entrance and then led them across the cavern floor. The party was halfway across when they heard a rumbling from the far end of the cavern, as if giants were dragging a heavy object across rock.

  “What’s that?” asked Dave.

  “Beats me,” said Floyd, “but we’re not waiting to find out.”

  They redoubled their pace and finally reached the circular passage that Floyd had indicated. This opening was about twenty feet in diameter. Once in the passage they proceeded more cautiously. The greenish glow gave them enough light to see. The tunnel had a damp, slightly musty smell, and water trickled from the entrance in a rivulet that collected in a small deep pool at the edge of the cavern.

  “Al, you take the lead for a while. That strange sound makes me uneasy. I want to watch our rear.”

  “Sure thing,” Al said and beg
an walking at a brisk pace down the tunnel. The rivulet began in a small pool fed by a steady stream dripping from the ceiling. They stopped to fill their water bottles.

  The passage ran on smoothly. It was uniformly circular and of a constant diameter. They moved forward quickly. Al stopped suddenly. Stan collided into his back, knocking Al forward. A black fissure yawned at Al’s feet as he teetered at the edge.

  Dave lunged for Al’s pack and pulled him back. Dave’s action twisted Al around so he stumbled over the edge, dragging Dave down heavily. Nevertheless, Dave managed to get a purchase on Al’s arm and hold on.

  “Help me! I don’t have a very good hold,” panted Dave.

  Brendon and Tom reached down and secured Al and hauled him back up to the tunnel.

  “Whew!” said Al. “That was too close.”

  “What happened?” asked Floyd, who had just run up.

  “Al overbalanced at the edge of this crevice, and Dave just about knocked him over the edge as he tried to grab him,” said Stan.

  Dave was about to protest when Floyd said to Al, “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” said Al. “Dave saved my life.”

  “Are you able to keep moving?”

  “Yes. I banged my knee on the wall of the shaft, but nothing is broken. I’m shaken, but we can keep moving.”

  Floyd carefully examined the crack. It was only six feet wide but very deep; despite the greenish glow they couldn’t see the bottom. However, they could hear the unmistakable sound of rushing water far below.

  “I’m going to jump across this gap. It’s only six feet wide, so it shouldn’t be much trouble.”

  Floyd kept his pack on and made it easily with a bit of a run. Al insisted on going next and also made it without much trouble. Dave watched the others make the leap one at a time. His fear of heights was rearing its head, and he began to shake at the prospect of jumping that gap.