Wichita Falls
For lack of anything better to do, I took myself out on an expedition this afternoon. I grabbed a quick bite to eat at Olive Garden, then went to the local movie theater to see what was on. I ended up buying a ticket for 28 Weeks Later (I saw the last one and liked it), but had a few hours to burn before the next showing and decided to explore.
Spring in this area of the country has been very wet. The trees and grass have grown dense and damp and thick, crawling hurriedly over everything, striving desperately to secure as much territory as possible before the dry heat of summer comes and beats the foliage back to stifled, gasping roots. The sky hangs low and gray and ominous, and the air is cool but muggy. Tornado weather. A steady drizzle falls, and I can't help but leave my windows down. I pass rows or stores--Target, Braum's, Tex-Mex restaurants--and then clumped-up knots of damp-shingled houses huddled under snapping American flags and tousled knot-limbed trees. I soon leave these behind and enter open country, the kind of flat, shack-dotted nothing that comprises so much of Northern Texas. I pass a lake with a large-ish dam at its edge, and turn my car around when I pass an access road leading to it.
I park in a gravel lot and start walking. It's still raining, but not heavily. I make my way down a man-made embankment of chalky gray rocks dotted with rusty engineer stakes, finally reaching the reservoir at the base of the dam. Its banks are choked with brittle brown reeds and its waters are scummed with yellow foam. The stench is thick and leaves a sticky gray-green taste in my mouth. There are dead fish everywhere; the recent storms must have washed them down the side of the dam and onto the rocks. I pick my way across the creek and try not to step in any fish.
I find a very strange creature lying amongst the rocks, long and scaly with a finger-length snout, dull black eyes, and rows of sharp, uneven teeth. It looks vaguely prehistoric. I have never seen anything like it before, and wonder briefly what it is called and if its ancestors ate any of mine. It's easy to forget that so many of the creatures that we now ogle at zoos and aquariums once terrorized us.
Having crossed the reservoir, I climb up the other side and make my way to the top of the dam. I see a sandy bank at the water's edge by the base of the dam, and scrabble my way down to it. I find pointy-leafed plants that are covered top to bottom with iridescent little flies. I wonder if the plant secretes something that they like to eat. I don't know, but every plant of this sort that I encounter is host to the same carpet of sleepy-looking flies, none of whom stir until I am almost on top of them. They fly away at my approach, and settle again in their places as soon as I am gone.
The bank has more fish skeletons on it. Some of them are simply enormous, perhaps two feet in length with papery desiccated scales the size of dimes and spines as thick as my thumb. I move on down the bank and hear splashes coming from the water. Fish are darting and weaving through the reeds, two glossy speckled backs slicing side by side out of the water. Fighting or mating? I've no idea.
I see what's left of a pier on the other side of the dam. Splintered gray stakes stagger drunkenly out of the water. The only thing that's left of the actual platform is a small segment of planking running from nowhere to nowhere in the shallows. I re-cross the base of the dam and walk through knee-deep grass to reach the bank by the pier. There are yellow flowers everywhere, glowing brilliantly in the muted gray light. At the base of the dam on this side there is a shattered concrete ledge, broken struts lying in a heap in the water with reddish-brown rebar spines. It would be beautiful were it not for the beer cans and styrofoam that litters it. There is--god only knows why--a pair of tighty-whities lying in the sodden grass amongst the Bud Light cans. Ah, to be fifteen again. Or not.
A pair of tackle boxes lie abandoned under a tree. I go to open one of them, hesitate momentarily (thinking, absurdly, that I should look for wires or det-cord first), and then look inside. Lots of hooks, lures, and extra line. Someone must have forgotten them there. I leave them.
As I leave the bank, I encounter a fisherman coming the other way. I ask him about the strange, toothy fish I found lying on the rocks. He says they're called gar. I like this name. GARRR! He tells me that they sometimes grow to be seven or eight feet long. I have a hard time believing this, but the thought of a seven-foot sea monster biting the legs off of farmer boys on a lazy Sunday afternoon piques my interest all the same.
It's nearly time for the movie. I go back to my car and start driving again. The wind and moisture whips through the windows and makes me blink. I like this weather--not to wet, not too cold, but not too hot, either.
My mind is crowded with thoughts. On the way to the theater a beagle runs out in the middle of my lane and I have to swerve hard to avoid hitting him. It occurs to me that I didn't check the adjacent lane before I screeched into it. Good thing there was no one there.
The mall is filled with lank-haired teenagers with close-fitting jeans and faux-vintage t-shirts. A throwback to the seventies? I see one fellow with skin-tight capris, converses, a pink bandanna, and a bangs-in-the-front-poof-on-top haircut. Funny how fashion recycles itself constantly. I find myself wondering how we will all dress in another twenty years' time.
The movie was good. I like zombies. Also, guns. Can't help but wonder how long I would last if Texas were overrun by zombies and I had nothing but an M4 and a Camelbak. Not too long, probably. I'm not interesting enough to warrant more than a paragraph in the script. I'd probably get eaten while the main characters ran away.
Off to wash my clothes. I need to spray my uniform down with starch and let it dry so I can iron it tomorrow.
I miss Kassi.
Spring in this area of the country has been very wet. The trees and grass have grown dense and damp and thick, crawling hurriedly over everything, striving desperately to secure as much territory as possible before the dry heat of summer comes and beats the foliage back to stifled, gasping roots. The sky hangs low and gray and ominous, and the air is cool but muggy. Tornado weather. A steady drizzle falls, and I can't help but leave my windows down. I pass rows or stores--Target, Braum's, Tex-Mex restaurants--and then clumped-up knots of damp-shingled houses huddled under snapping American flags and tousled knot-limbed trees. I soon leave these behind and enter open country, the kind of flat, shack-dotted nothing that comprises so much of Northern Texas. I pass a lake with a large-ish dam at its edge, and turn my car around when I pass an access road leading to it.
I park in a gravel lot and start walking. It's still raining, but not heavily. I make my way down a man-made embankment of chalky gray rocks dotted with rusty engineer stakes, finally reaching the reservoir at the base of the dam. Its banks are choked with brittle brown reeds and its waters are scummed with yellow foam. The stench is thick and leaves a sticky gray-green taste in my mouth. There are dead fish everywhere; the recent storms must have washed them down the side of the dam and onto the rocks. I pick my way across the creek and try not to step in any fish.
I find a very strange creature lying amongst the rocks, long and scaly with a finger-length snout, dull black eyes, and rows of sharp, uneven teeth. It looks vaguely prehistoric. I have never seen anything like it before, and wonder briefly what it is called and if its ancestors ate any of mine. It's easy to forget that so many of the creatures that we now ogle at zoos and aquariums once terrorized us.
Having crossed the reservoir, I climb up the other side and make my way to the top of the dam. I see a sandy bank at the water's edge by the base of the dam, and scrabble my way down to it. I find pointy-leafed plants that are covered top to bottom with iridescent little flies. I wonder if the plant secretes something that they like to eat. I don't know, but every plant of this sort that I encounter is host to the same carpet of sleepy-looking flies, none of whom stir until I am almost on top of them. They fly away at my approach, and settle again in their places as soon as I am gone.
The bank has more fish skeletons on it. Some of them are simply enormous, perhaps two feet in length with papery desiccated scales the size of dimes and spines as thick as my thumb. I move on down the bank and hear splashes coming from the water. Fish are darting and weaving through the reeds, two glossy speckled backs slicing side by side out of the water. Fighting or mating? I've no idea.
I see what's left of a pier on the other side of the dam. Splintered gray stakes stagger drunkenly out of the water. The only thing that's left of the actual platform is a small segment of planking running from nowhere to nowhere in the shallows. I re-cross the base of the dam and walk through knee-deep grass to reach the bank by the pier. There are yellow flowers everywhere, glowing brilliantly in the muted gray light. At the base of the dam on this side there is a shattered concrete ledge, broken struts lying in a heap in the water with reddish-brown rebar spines. It would be beautiful were it not for the beer cans and styrofoam that litters it. There is--god only knows why--a pair of tighty-whities lying in the sodden grass amongst the Bud Light cans. Ah, to be fifteen again. Or not.
A pair of tackle boxes lie abandoned under a tree. I go to open one of them, hesitate momentarily (thinking, absurdly, that I should look for wires or det-cord first), and then look inside. Lots of hooks, lures, and extra line. Someone must have forgotten them there. I leave them.
As I leave the bank, I encounter a fisherman coming the other way. I ask him about the strange, toothy fish I found lying on the rocks. He says they're called gar. I like this name. GARRR! He tells me that they sometimes grow to be seven or eight feet long. I have a hard time believing this, but the thought of a seven-foot sea monster biting the legs off of farmer boys on a lazy Sunday afternoon piques my interest all the same.
It's nearly time for the movie. I go back to my car and start driving again. The wind and moisture whips through the windows and makes me blink. I like this weather--not to wet, not too cold, but not too hot, either.
My mind is crowded with thoughts. On the way to the theater a beagle runs out in the middle of my lane and I have to swerve hard to avoid hitting him. It occurs to me that I didn't check the adjacent lane before I screeched into it. Good thing there was no one there.
The mall is filled with lank-haired teenagers with close-fitting jeans and faux-vintage t-shirts. A throwback to the seventies? I see one fellow with skin-tight capris, converses, a pink bandanna, and a bangs-in-the-front-poof-on-top haircut. Funny how fashion recycles itself constantly. I find myself wondering how we will all dress in another twenty years' time.
The movie was good. I like zombies. Also, guns. Can't help but wonder how long I would last if Texas were overrun by zombies and I had nothing but an M4 and a Camelbak. Not too long, probably. I'm not interesting enough to warrant more than a paragraph in the script. I'd probably get eaten while the main characters ran away.
Off to wash my clothes. I need to spray my uniform down with starch and let it dry so I can iron it tomorrow.
I miss Kassi.