#US Forest Service Alaska

[hometoursandotherstuff]

[mapsontheweb]

Forest biomass of North America

Hectares (ha) of Aboveground Forest Biomass Across North America. This comprehensive map combines four independently developed maps of biomass for Canada, Alaska, the conterminous United States, and Mexico (Beaudoin et al., 2014; Blackard et al., 2008; Wilson et al., 2013; MREDD+ Alliance 2013). A common legend, map projection, and spatial resolution of 250 m were applied to the individual maps with no attempt to harmonize the methods used for each of the original map products. Biomass of nonforest areas is masked by including only landcover and land-use categories 1-6 from the North American Land Change Monitoring System (NALCMS 2018). Base years of the original maps are Canada, 2001; Alaska, 2004; conterminous United States, 2000-2009; and Mexico, 2007. [Figure source: Kevin McCullough, U.S. Forest Service. North American Biomass and Disturbance Mapping Working Group, 2014.]

[captain-mj]

First of all, I love your writing and your fics. I love your IWTV au so much. And I'm a fan of your other stuff.

Sooo I have some ideas I'd like to share with you , dear MJ. I was thinking of an isolated Ghost. He almost hides himself from people, some place like Alaska or in the wild. Somewhere cold and out of humans, so he can be all by himself. He doesn't want to be around people because of his past, and he hides himself from people. He lives in a cold forest or somewhere unreachable in winter because of the snow. He lives in a cabin.

And there is Soap, who goes on a camping trip with himself after breaking up with his boyfriend. Thinking that camping would help him get better emotionally. But it starts snowing, and he is not prepared, and he gets lost in the wild. He is desperate and cold. While searching for help and walking for hours. He comes across the cabin where Ghost is staying. Ghost doesn't welcome Soap at first, but because of the heavy snow, they are stuck for about a week or a month. So Ghost helps Soap get better, and they start to get close and hot...

I think I explained it in so much detail, but you can change it however you want. I'm always hungry for your stuff, in any form. And feel free to ignore this if you don't want to write about it. And of course, please don't mind my English; it's not my first language.

Ily,take care.

Very much can do that!! Yes!

Ghost sat in his cabin up the mountains, using his sniper to look down at everyone. He knew that right now there were two different groups of people camping. One further down that seemed to be full of experienced campers and one a bit higher up that set up their spot for their view. They were way too close for comfort.

Neither were particularly good company. No one was.

Ghost hated people. Especially fuckers who came on to the mountain for camping.

He had hoped this secluded place in the middle of nowhere would provide peace. Instead he just dealt with this.

Ghost put his gun away. It was for hunting and he was worried any gunshots would send the campers into a frenzy. He had plenty of food for the winter thanks to Price sending him stuff. Price insisted he just used Ghost's pension for it but he didn't believe him. Old sap probably used his own money.

Ghost went to his cabin and cleaned instead. Not that it really needed it. Besides the fact that he meticulously cleaned most of the time, nothing he did made much of a mess. It was mostly just dusting the books off to make sure they didn't get dry rot.

The snow started. A lot harsher than he had been expecting. It started to pile up on his porch and it made the roof creak a little.

Ghost imagined it caving in and crushing him. Suffocating under the weight of wood and snow.

There were worse deaths.

Further down the mountain, Soap went a little away from the group he came up with. He set up his tent and planned to relax for the next two days.

No cell service which was exactly what he needed. No worrying Mam, no angry ex trying to get him back. Just silence.

Soap was so bored. He supposed it was his fault for expecting anything less. He was not a person that sat still often. Always searching for the next thing. The next adventure.

This did not feel like an adventure. It felt stale.

Soap noticed the snow so he only walked within the vicinity of his tent. He followed the protocol, but it took one stumble for him to fall out of bounds. Quickly, Soap scrambled back up and glanced at his tent. Still right there, just slightly farther than before.

Maybe some sleep would do him some good.

Soap settled into his tent, ignoring the snow piling on top of it. It just kept coming. Covering him in a freezing cold blanket of water.

The tent had a hole in it. He had just bought it, he had no idea what he did to cause it. Although small, it was definitely messing up the whole insulation part of this. It also let snow in which started to melt, getting him and his clothes wet.

Frustration started to bubble over. He wasn't experienced at camping but he wasn't an idiot. This wouldn't work. He'd have to either fix it or leave and he wasn't sure how he could even leave.

Thanks to the water, his arm was soaked, cold digging in so hard it felt like actual needles. He tried to dry himself off but the whole situation wasn't working.

Reluctantly, he ignored that he was still slightly wet and got dressed. He'd just go out for help.

The people he came with weren't there. Or at least, they weren't where he thought they were. He didn't want to believe the guide they came would be so stupid as to not count the people before evacuating if they did, but he also said he wanted seclusion and lied about being experienced.

Maybe they assumed he already left?

Soap panicked for a moment. He allowed himself that. Before he straightened up and started thinking. There was no way he was the only person on the mountain. While he couldn't make it all the way down on his own, he was sure someone had to be there. It was mid morning, he had time before it got dark and cold.

Ghost sat on his porch close to twilight. He smoked silently, watching the trees.

The man had been walking around his property for a few minutes and Ghost was trying to figure out if he was a real person or not.

He sighed and whistled, watching him yank his head around painfully to stare at him.

"You okay?" Ghost called out.

Soap stepped a bit closer, no longer shivering. He was also holding his shoulder. "Are you God?"

"Oh for fuck's sake. Sure. I'm God. Where are your things?"

"I took them."

"Why are you jacketless in the middle of the snow?"

"It had gotten wet. Was trying to dry it out but it didn't really work..."

Ghost sighed. "Come closer."

Soap stumbled to the steps. His pants up to his knees were soaked and his face had pale skin with rosy patches.

Ghost sighed in frustration and opened the door. "Come on." He'd get the guy warm and then send him on his way. The snow wasn't too bad yet. Neither of them had a radio to know that it was predicted to get much worse.

So Ghost accepted him in and had him sit in front of the fire. He found a dry blanket and wrapped it around his shoulders. "You okay?"

Soap started to shiver.

"Guess not."

"Got a drink?" Soap rasped out.

Ghost poured him a nip of bourbon and handed him.

"Don't suppose you got Scotch?" Soap said softly before knocking back the drink. He grimaced and Ghost was sure he heard a mutter under his breath about British people having shit taste.

Ghost watched the way the alcohol raced through him. Color almost immediately back in his face. "Thanks. Name's Soap by the way."

"...Ghost. The fuck you doing up there?" Ghost went by his callsign since there was no way someone would name their kid Soap. He thought of asking him about his shoulder but decided against it.

Soap sighed. "Trying to clear my head." He flinched when Ghost laughed at him.

"Piss poor job of preparing."

"Aye. Suppose I thought myself a survivalist." Soap laughed softly before averting his eyes. He looked embarrassed.

Good.

Ghost put the bottle of bourbon next to him. "Drink as much as you want." He knew he'd barely make a dent on the bottle.

Soap only took what he had to. He managed to get himself warm.

Ghost looked out at the sky. Too dark to send him anywhere.

"In the morning, I'll show you the way down the mountain."

"Yes, sir." Soap looked at him. He seemed almost indignant. Like Ghost was being bossy.

Ghost bit his tongue. "fuck off. Go to bed near the fire. You'll need to stay warm all night."

Soap nodded and laid down. "Don't have to tell me twice."

Ghost went to his bedroom, brandishing a knife. He stayed there and watched the door all night. Just in case. Just in case.

Soap stayed in the living room and he tried to Keep warm. Ghost would come in like clockwork to put more wood on the fire.

During the night, the snow came down harder. Before long, it was at the door, covering the entire porch.

Ghost groaned as he watched it. While yes, he may be able to go down by himself, he'd never be able to get Soap down the mountain as well. As much as he hated it, he also likely wouldn't be able to make it back.

Soap stirred and groaned, holding his shoulder. He saw the outside and before long came to the same realization that Ghost did. "So we bunking together?" It sounded sheepish, like there was a risk that Ghost would throw him out into the cold.

Ghost sighed. "Yeah we are. I have a guest room that i haven't used in ages. I'll get it set up."

"And I had to sleep on the floor... why?"

"Be closer to the fire." Ghost left him alone to brush the dust off of everything. He had planned to turn it into a gym or something equally useful, but never did. The stupid room came with the house.

Once it was livable, Ghost came back out. "You can go in. I'll make breakfast. We'll be up here a while. It's still snowing so it's hard to tell."

"You have a vehicle or anything?"

"Nope. We'll be walking."

Soap cursed in a funny language and stretched, back popping. "How long you guessing?"

"A week. Minimum."

Soap winced. "Sorry for the... everything."

Ghost stared at him for a moment before just going in. He cooked breakfast silently and Soap sat nearby. Occasionally, he'd start talking, but Ghost didn't respond to any of it.

"Oh come on. You're going to be stuck with me for a week. Might as talk to me. What are you doing up here so isolated?"

Ghost put a plate of eggs, bacon and hashbrowns in front of him. He sat across from him and yanked his mask up just enough to start eating.

His scars had the effect he hoped. Soap winced at the harsh smile cut into Ghost's face. "Aye. I see."

"Good." Ghost answered, shoveling food down. He mentally counted through his supplies. He had enough for a few months, so with two people, it should be fine. This bastard was getting none of his ice cream though.

Soap ate quietly before swallowing. "Gang?"

"Military." Ghost admitted begrudgingly.

"Aye. I see. I'm a sergeant right now."

"Retired." Ghost drank some of his tea.

Soap nodded. "Look, I'm not trying to be an ass here. Really. You don't have to talk to me. But. Do you have any coffee?"

Ghost stared at him for a minute before getting up and checking. "I got instant and regular."

"Got a coffee pot?"

"French press. It was a gift."

Soap's eyebrows scrunched together. "You know how to use it?"

"...No."

"Fuck."

They put their heads together and worked with the French Press until they managed to get a cup of coffee brewing. Ghost watched the stuff bubble and huffed. "Tea is easier to make."

"Coffee tastes better."

"Yeah, right." Ghost continued drinking his tea.

"Since we got it figured out, do you at least wanna cup to try your gift?"

Ghost sighed. "Yeah, why not."

Black coffee was just as dreadful as he remembered. He added some sugar, ignoring Soap's mildly judgmental gaze.

The first day was spent with Ghost trying to do his normal routine of reading or working out and Soap being incredibly bored. Ghost felt too uncomfortable to do most of his workout routine with him around and decided to give up.

"Do you have internet? Or anything? Most of my stuff was left in my tent."

Ghost sighed. "No. How far away was your tent?"

Soap hummed. "No clue honestly. I don't think it was that far, but there should be a trail of my clothing. I have no idea why I started taking it off."

"Hypothermia makes you feel warm after a while. It's some psychological thing. It's why some people who are frozen to death are found naked."

Soap grimaced at him. "That's horrifying."

Ghost shrugged and showed him the guest room. It was pretty nice, if a bit plain. Soap fell on the bed and groaned. "Firm. I like that."

Ghost hit his boots. "I'll try to find your tent tomorrow. Get some sleep."

The second day he found himself being trailed by Soap despite the asshole clearly should be staying at home. He kept touching and rubbing at his shoulder. Ghost was trying not to ask, but he'd need to eventually. If he got infected, that would make everything a lot harder.

They found his tent and Soap went searching for his phone. Unfortunately it was dead and when they got home, they found that his charger had too much water damage to help. Soap sighed and rubbed his face. "I knew I shouldn't have come out here."

"Why did you?"

Soap thought about it for a second before turning towards him. "My ex." He was careful not to include man or woman. This guy could be homophobic for all he knew.

Ghost nodded. "Got it. Their fault or yours?"

Soap blinked. "What?"

"You cheat on them and up here hiding from it? Lot of guys do. Or did you come up here because they're a right prick?"

They. Not she. They. Soap picked up on the pronouns and took a deep breath. "They asked me to leave the military. I said no. They said stuff."

Ghost tilted his head. "I see. Well. They can't exactly find you up here."

"Aye. Guess they can't." Soap smiled.

On the third day. Ghost went searching and found his dvd player and old tv. He showed Soap his dvd collection.

Soap hummed. "More romance movies than I'd expect."

"I inherited my mum's collection." Ghost lied.

"Uh huh." Soap picked a movie and put it on, happy to have something else to do besides sit there. How Ghost did it was beyond him.

On the fourth day, Soap even managed to convince Ghost to sit with him through one of the movies. It was a romance movie that Ghost had memorized. It was a film where she had to travel across Ireland and stayed with a nice Irish man throughout the journey.

Soap drank some more of the coffee and it seemed to calm him down a little.

After a bit of hesitation, Ghost looked at him. "You smoke weed?"

"No." Soap glanced at him.

"You wanna start?"

Soap took a deep breath. "Fuck it. Sure."

Ghost pulled out a joint and lit it. He took the first hit and then gave it to Soap.

Soap coughed and Ghost laughed at him. "It's a little different than a cigarette."

"Yeah, a little bit, sir." Soap smiled at him and they passed it back and forth for a bit.

Ghost felt the pretty much permanent ache throughout his body disappear. It seemed to do the same for Soap's shoulder.

They both relaxed for a bit and Soap looked over at him. "You're a cool guy, Ghost."

"Thank you." Ghost smiled at him and kept smoking. They put on another movie and relaxed for a while. It took the edge off.

Soap swallowed. "Why are you up here?"

"It sucks down there."

"Does it get lonely?"

"Sometimes." Ghost mumbled, his head falling against the couch. Around people he was usually always wide awake. Too scared. But Soap made him feel weirdly safe.

Soap fell asleep against his shoulder and Ghost followed soon after.

When they wake up, the fire had been out for hours and the house was freezing.

"Fucking hell." Ghost got up and tried to start a new fire but it wasn't sparking.

Soap shivered. "Well, that's not great. Anything i can do to help?"

Ghost checked the wood. It was fucking damp for some reason. He couldn't figure out why but that would be better for morning when he had more light. "My bedroom has the least amount of windows."

Soap's eyes gleamed as they shacked up in there. Ghost covered his windows with curtains and grabbed some more blankets as he turned on the lights.

His room was far better decorated than any other part of the house. His bed was covered in quilts and high quality soft pillows. A cabinet in the corner had tons of photos from Ghost in his time in the military. Most of them had Ghost's own face covered with marker.

"You know Captain Price?"

"Yeah, I know John." Ghost rearranged a few things and started to strip off his jacket.

Soap paused to stare, admiring the muscles that were revealed when the shirt followed right after. His pants unfortunately did not come off too. "Take off your shirt."

Soap nodded and followed the order. Was this happening? Were they about to fuck right here and right now? The worst part was he was going to let it happen.

Ghost pulled him into bed and shifted so he was fucking spooning him. "Fucking hell I was cold." He settled into the warmth and promptly closed his eyes, pretending nothing was happening.

Soap was in heaven. Or maybe hell. Either way he was getting hard and that was not great.

Ghost fell back to sleep. Soap was ridiculously hard, pressed against a beautifully muscled chest. He could feel each of Ghost's breaths with the rise and fall of it. In a desperate attempt to calm down, he thought of war. His ex. The fact that his ex was probably trying to blow up his very dead phone.

Soap thought of his ex and felt a strange lump in his throat. God he didn't want to go home. He really didn't want to. His ex would be at his heels like a baying fucking dog to nip at his fucking heels.

Soap let out a sharp noise, a bit like a sob, and quickly bit his lip to shut up.

Ghost pulled him closer. "Soap?"

"My name is Johnny."

Ghost's thumb rubbed circles in his chest. "Johnny." Oh that beautiful voice. "It's nice to meet you. I'm Simon. You okay?"

"My ex tried to hurt me. I'm military, don't know why he thought it was a smart idea. But when I defended myself, he was just... so cruel. Called me shit I never wanted to hear again. Accidentally made myself upset over it."

"I'm sorry, Johnny."

"S'okay. Nothing to do with you. You're the first person that hasn't made me feel worse honestly."

"Not worse. I'll take it." Ghost sounded a tiny bit amused. He squeezed him. "Do you feel warmer?"

"Yes. Feels nice in this bed with you." Soap didn't mean to sound quite as suggestive as he did, but Ghost noticed. His grip loosened briefly before tightening again, tangling their legs together. "Simon."

Ghost turned him onto his back and kissed him, having pulled up his mask at some point. His scars tickled a little. It was pretty nice honestly.

Soap's fingers ran down his chest to his pant's button and undid it for him. "Is this okay?"

"Should be asking you that." Ghost gruffed. "Don't have to do too much tonight, but you're hard."

"So are you. Can feel you through your jeans." Soap smiled at him. He slowly unzipped his pants and touched over Ghost's cock.

Ghost let out a small whine. "Fuck, it's been so long." He quickly unzipped Soap's pants and pulled him out, having no shame about it. His hand fit around both of them and his thumb easily ran over Soap's head.

"Me too. Won't judge you if you don't last long." Soap teased, pulling him back to kiss him again. He groaned as he thrust up. "Nice and easy, yeah?"

Ghost rutted into him and moved his hand in time. They kept kissing as his hand found a decadent rhythm, truly stretching the pleasure out for both of them.

Soap moaned and his back arched trying to press himself even closer. "Simon."

Ghost bit his lip hard and paid more attention to Soap's cock, trying to get him closer and closer. He felt him start to pant into his mouth and licked into his mouth happily.

Simon buried his face into his throat and came over his chest. Despite this, he managed to keep his hand moving so Soap followed after a moment later.

Johnny kissed him softly. "Later, if you have lube, I'll let you fuck me."

Simon wondered briefly if he was a rebound and then decided he didn't particularly care. "Okay."

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

North To The Future [Chapter 9: A Long December]

The year is 1999. You are just beginning your veterinary practice in Juneau, Alaska. Aegon is a mysterious, troubled newcomer to town. You kind of hate him. You are also kind of obsessed with him. Falling for him might legitimately ruin your life…but can you help it? Oh, and there’s a serial killer on the loose known only as the Ice Fisher.

A/N: While “A Long December” was originally released by Counting Crows in 1996 (and is thus compliant with the 90s theme), the version I listen to most is Girlhouse’s cover from 2022. So maybe check that out. It is a bop!

Chapter warnings: Language, alcoholism, addiction, murder, discussions of sex, a tiny bit of sexual content, Christmas with Momtini and Dadtini, Kimmie making a realization, Aegon making a drink, Appletini making plans, Trent making some killer pool shots, the Ice Fisher getting into the holiday spirit, please enjoy this nice little respite before the events of Chapter 10. :)

Word count: 6.9k.

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

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You descend the staircase gingery, sheepishly. Your socks slip on the hardwood steps like tires on black ice. You’re trying to avoid your parents, but you can’t wait any longer to eat breakfast or you’ll be late for work. They’re bustling around in the kitchen: cracking eggs, chitchatting, banging plates and pans, cooing over Sunfyre, listening to an R.E.M. album that spins on the record player.

When you walk in, your dad is standing by the stove wearing the apron you got him for his 50th birthday. Pizza Slut, it says. He grins and wiggles his eyebrows. “Hey, ladybug.”

“Oh no.”

“I heard you come home pretty late last night. And then you got right into the shower. Hmm.”

“Hmm!” your mom concurs joyfully.

Your dad nods to the pan he’s hovering over, wielding a spatula. “Salmon omelet?”

You sigh, defeated; and yet, you must admit, you love salmon omelets. “Yeah, sure.” You sit down at the table next to your mom. She’s drinking Earl Grey tea smokey with cream and reading a newspaper: Halle Barry is marrying a jazz musician, Puff Daddy’s Notorious.com is looking for a venture capitalist willing to invest $7.5 million in startup funding, a man was arrested in Times Square for threatening President Clinton, the Nasdaq composite index—fueled largely by the dot-com boom—could hit 5,000 by the end of 2000. You wonder what Aegon’s family is doing right now. Do outrageously wealthy people eat omelets and decorate Christmas trees? Do they hop from store to store in some glitzy metropolitan mall hunting for presents—KB Toys, the Disney Store, Hallmark, Bath and Body Works, Hot Topic, RadioShack, Claire’s, Wet Seal, Yankee Candle—before grabbing a late-afternoon snack at Cinnabon or Sbarro, maybe a smoothie from Orange Julius? Or do they just sit in their mansions under vast unsmiling portraits until they grow dusty and turn to stone: gargoyles, angels, lions bearing their fangs? Are they still human at all?

“How’s Trent doing?” your mom asks. “Still trying to get into the Forest Service?”

“As far as I know. But that’s not who I was with last night.”

Your dad sets an omelet down in front of you, along with a glass of orange juice and one of the same Flintstones multivitamins you’ve been taking since you were in preschool. Jesse used to give me those, you think randomly, recalling the reminders he penned in his clandestine journals. When he was around. When he was sober. Your parents exchange a wary glance. “Oh?” your dad ventures in a squeak, trying to sound casual.

You could lie, but you don’t. Juneau is too small for lies. People know each other too well, they bump elbows in grocery stores and bars and parking lots; they make overly-familiar small talk and inadvertently spill secrets. The last thing you need is someone teasing Trent good-naturedly about your supposed night of passion. He might be dumb, but if he ever gets all the pieces in his titan hands he’ll eventually figure out how they click together. “I was, uh, actually, uh…visiting Aegon.”

They watch you, faces frozen in forced, benign smiles. You pet the top of Sunfyre’s shaggy head with your left hand and stab a fork into the salmon omelet with your right. “Well, that’s great!” your dad manages. “He’s a nice boy, that Aegon. So Greek. And plenty sexy, as we’ve previously established.”

“Is he feeling better?” your mom asks politely, slurping her tea.

“Oh yeah. Much better.” It comes out way too enthusiastic, and hot blood floods into your face. Your parents chuckle…and yet their eyes are troubled, distant, though perhaps in different directions. “Just so you know, things aren’t really working out with Trent. I’m trying to let it fizzle so there isn’t any drama that makes things awkward or creates any…uh…bad blood, I guess. So if you see him around, definitely don’t mention Aegon.”

Your dad does a mock salute. “Got it, General Ladybug.”

“What are Aegon’s plans for Christmas?” your mom inquires. Your dad turns to her, but doesn’t say anything. “It must be difficult for him, being so far from home. Especially around the holidays. I would hate for him to be alone.”

Probably drinking himself into unconsciousness while watching Jingle All The Way and Die Hard. “I don’t know, that’s a good question. I should ask him.”

“He can spend Christmas here with us, if he’d like.” Your mom finishes her tea, sets the cup down on the table, fiddles with it. “We’ll have more than enough food. And we could find a few things to wrap for him so he has presents to open.”

“Now if that’s not holiday spirit, I don’t know what is!” your dad says happily; and if he’s bluffing, he’s good at not showing it. He kisses your mom on the cheek, resting his study hands on her shoulders. She smiles up at him.

You wolf down the last few bites of your salmon omelet, chew your vitamin, knock back orange juice like a shot. “Alright, I should get going, or I won’t be back in time to open the vet clinic at 9.”

“I can always hold down the fort for a few hours,” your dad offers.

“No, that’s okay. I appreciate it, but I don’t want to bother you.” I don’t want to disappoint you. I don’t want to let you down. “You’ve earned retirement. Enjoy all the Judge Judy and Buffy The Vampire Slayer you can handle.” You pet Sunfyre and tug playfully on his ears. His tail wags at warp speed. “Are you ready to go home to your favorite person now? Are you excited?”

Your dad lumbers off into the kitchen. “Here, bring Aegon some breakfast too…” He piles a salmon omelet, a mountain of hash browns, and toast slathered with butter and strawberry jelly into a Tupperware container. You take it and glance out the window that faces the driveway.

“Oh, great. Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“The cow moose is out there licking the road salt off my Jeep. Can you get rid of her?”

“Again?! Okay, I’m on it.” He grabs some pots out of the cabinet and heads outside. You can hear him beating the pots together and shouting: “Goodbye, moose! You live in the woods, not the driveway! Goodbye! Au revoir! Adios, mooseachos!”

At the kitchen table, your mom laughs. She’s still tinkering anxiously with her cup. “Only in Alaska.”

“You’re really alright with Aegon coming over for Christmas?”

“Of course. I’d prefer it, actually. I’d rather know he’s safe. Not alone, not in trouble.”

“Even though he might end up passed out under the tree?”

She smiles: faint, tired, melancholic. “I’ve seen worse.”

When you let yourself into Aegon’s apartment, he’s dressed for work and self-medicating with a rum and Coke mixed in a cereal bowl; it’s the only dish he has that’s currently clean. Sunfyre bolts to him, barking wildly and jumping up to prop his paws on Aegon’s chest as you slide the Tupperware onto the kitchen counter.

“Hey, buddy!” Aegon cries, ecstatic. “I missed you! Yes I did! Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy?!”

“Where are you going?” you ask, scrutinizing him.

“Fishing,” he says simply, like this should be obvious.

“I don’t think you should be going back to work this soon. You just got out of the hospital.”

He shrugs. “I need the money.”

“I can give you money.”

“You definitely could, but I don’t want your money, I want my money. Besides, Trent won’t be able to protect my job forever. If I can’t work, Rusty will find someone else who can.”

“Trent,” you echo morosely, staring at nothing in particular.

Aegon downs the rest of his rum and Coke, then puts his bowl in the sink. He walks over to you, his oceanic eyes cautious, his lock of white-blond hair resting on his cheek. “What did he do to you? At dinner, I mean. Before you called me.”

You take his left hand and turn it over, studying the lines on his palm: past, present, future, all in a language you can’t read. You hesitate; you can’t decide what to tell Aegon. You aren’t sure what you want him to know.

“He didn’t hurt you, right? Or try to touch you in a way you didn’t want him to?”

“He kissed me. I pushed him off. That’s all.”

Aegon watches you, eyes severe and glinting. “That’s not all.”

“I tried to break up with him at the restaurant,” you confess. “First he acted like he didn’t understand. Then he got upset, offended. We agreed to slow down, but I’m not sure what he thinks that means. Maybe he’s planning a summer engagement instead of a spring one, I have no idea.”

“You made him angry.” Aegon’s voice is flat, entirely flat, like he’s battling to keep it that way. “I thought we agreed not to make him angry.”

“Well I didn’t do it on purpose, Aegon.”

“No no no, my bad, let me clarify, I’m not mad at you. I just don’t understand why you would be so direct about it. I’ve broken up with a lot of people without actually breaking up with them. You ignore, you deflect, you do the bare minimum, you are intentionally unappealing in every way…and then eventually they move on. That’s the way to go. That’s how you avoid confrontations.”

“I don’t want this thing with Trent to die a slow death.” Oh, perhaps a poor choice of words. “I don’t want to be with him, to even keep up the facade of being with him. I want to be with you. I want to be with you in every way, everywhere, all the time.”

Aegon smiles. He twists his fingers into your hair and touches his forehead to yours and then kisses you, softly and unhurriedly. As he pulls away, he gently bites your lower lip; his fingertips ghost across the front of your throat like a necklace, like a chain. You moan into him, unable to help it. “I won’t go to work if you don’t either,” Aegon murmurs.

“I, an eternally upstanding citizen, definitely have to go to work.”

“Man, fuck capitalism,” he says, and you laugh together.

Something occurs to you. “You didn’t wait for Kimmie to move on. You broke up with her.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Why?”

“Because I had another candidate in mind for the extremely prestigious position of being my Juneau girl.”

You tuck his hair behind his ear and kiss him again: heat, rum, memories from the night before. Lust stirs up in your blood like ancient silt in seawater. “Please be careful at work.”

“I will, Appletini. I will. Don’t worry. You’re always worrying about things that haven’t happened yet. There’s no point in that.”

“I think I’m just someone who’s doomed to worry a lot in general.”

He grins. “Yes. But I’m your favorite thing to worry about.” He lays his palm against your right cheek and kisses your left: quickly, lightly, like it’s routine, like he’ll be doing it every day for the rest of his life. “Have fun at the vet clinic. Saving all those furry little lives.”

“I’ll see you at Ursa Minor tonight?”

He winks. “I’ll be the one with the electric guitar.”

~~~~~~~~~~

You get stuck late at the clinic spaying Mr. Mark Morehouse’s Flemish Giant rabbit. By the time you rush through the front door of Ursa Minor—bells jangling, a gust of cold wind at your heels, patrons glancing over with vague interest—the band is already performing. Aegon is wearing his cuffed jeans, black combat boots, and, in a radical departure from his usual color scheme, a royal blue turtleneck sweater. He’s braided a section of his hair on the left side of his head and woven a single, small, blue-dyed rose into it. He gives you a subtle nod when he sees you come in, a sly half-smile. He’s singing a punk rock, up-tempo version of Counting Crow’s A Long December.

“I can’t remember the last thing that you said as you were leaving, now the days go by so fast…”

“Heyyy, bitch!” Heather greets you, raising her Sex On The Beach. Joyce and Kimmie are swaying together, brandishing lighters in the air: Joyce smirking and reluctant, Kimmie—a born groupie—shamelessly exuberant. You swing by the bar to get a Bacardi Breezer (blueberry, very good, one of the better flavors) and stand beside Heather. You gaze at Aegon as he strums his battered guitar, and the parallel strikes you for the first time. Aegon too is layered with imperfections: scars, marks, ink, demons with gnashing fangs and needlelike fingers that dangle past their knees. And yet what he gives to the world is so beautiful. And yet he is so goddamn miraculous.

“I can’t remember all the times I tried to tell my myself to hold on to these moments as they pass…”

It takes you a long time to notice that Kimmie is watching you. Something clicks like a dislocated joint popped back into its socket; and that’s the way it’s always been with Kimmie, since she was a child, since she was a five-year-old chasing boys around the playground at recess. The hints pile up—a lot of hints, sometimes years of hints—until eventually there’s an avalanche of realization that hits and drags her under like a rogue wave. She sucks in a breath and her doelike eyes shoot wide open. You try to pretend you didn’t see anything, but that’s not Kimmie’s style. She pushes her way through the audience and grabs your wrist, hauling you away from the crowd. Heather observes this, slurping down her Sex On The Beach, trying to ascertain if you need reinforcements.

“What—?!”

“I didn’t know,” Kimmie says, like it’s an apology. Her eyes are pained and fearful, a deer bathed in headlights.

“You didn’t know what?”

“That you’re in love with him.” Her voice is reedy and trembling. She’s petrified, you realize. She’s afraid that I’ll never be able to be her friend again. Not a true friend, not a pure one. “I swear to God, I didn’t know. I even asked you first. I never would have hooked up with him if I had known, never, never. I’m so sorry. I’m so so so sorry. It didn’t mean anything, it wasn’t like we had real feelings for each other—”

“Kimmie, Kimmie, it’s fine,” you soothe, rubbing her shoulder. She’s wearing a ridiculously fluffy hot pink sweater; it’s like petting a neon sheep. “I’m the one who wasn’t upfront with you. I didn’t think Aegon and I had a chance, so I was purposefully trying to avoid him, to avoid any feelings I had for him. It didn’t work out that way, but…yeah. Anyway. I don’t blame you for anything.”

“Oh my god, so you’re together? Like, together?” Kimmie blinks at you, shocked but not scandalized. You’re not sure it’s possible to scandalize Kimmie.

“We don’t really want everyone to know about it.”

“Oh, because of Trent?”

Now it’s your turn to be shocked. Maybe some of those genius professor genetics made it down the Plinko board after all. “Exactly.”

“Jesus Christ, he’d probably snap Aegon in half if he knew. Like a freaking KitKat bar.”

“That’s a mental image I didn’t need.”

“I won’t tell anyone,” Kimmie swears, empowered by this rare, consequential responsibility.

“I really, really appreciate your discretion.”

“You and Aegon, wow…” She mulls it over, baffled. “So you’re pretty kinky too? I wouldn’t have guessed that. You should have told me! We could have gone shopping together!”

Shopping with Kimmie for fuzzy handcuffs and riding crops and, who knows, probably like vibrating butt plugs or something. I don’t think I’m emotionally prepared for that. I will most likely never be emotionally prepared for that. “Boundaries, Kimmie. Honestly, I haven’t seen that side of him. At least not in my albeit limited experience.”

“Huh,” Kimmie says brightly. “I guess he’s in love with you too.” And then she trots off to rejoin the crowd. Boat #27 has concluded their performance and is accepting cheers of acclaim and complimentary drinks from their adoring fans. Joyce hugs Rob, climbing onto her tiptoes and giggling. Joyce!? Giggling!?!? You grab another Bacardi Breezer before heading over, raspberry this time.

“Hey, babe!” Trent booms when he sees you.

Oh god. Oh no. You shrink away when he throws an arm across your shoulders. Aegon watches this as he approaches, sipping a rum and Coke, eyes like blue embers.

“Right,” Trent groans, like it’s some grave inconvenience, like it’s some passing fad he has to endure. “I remember now. We’re taking things slow.”

The clique assembles by the pool table like battle-ready Power Rangers: you, Trent, Joyce, Rob, Heather, Kimmie, Aegon. “Someone should play!” you say, truly a master of redirection.

Trent flips his hair. “Obviously I’m down.” He looks at you expectantly. You ignore him, drinking your Bacardi Breezer and then pretending to drink it once it’s empty.

“Oh, you are going down.” Heather cracks her knuckles and grins, then picks up a cue stick.

“Battle royal!” Rob announces. Joyce sighs and pulls a fantasy novel out of her purse. Kimmie perches on the edge of the pool table: legs crossed, eyes roving, gold hoop earrings glittering under Christmas lights, seeking attention and drawing it to her like Saturn ensnares moons. A gaggle of bashful men appear out of nowhere to worship her. Dale’s stereo pipes out Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You. Dale himself is wearing a red Santa hat and yawning boredly into the back of his hand.

“I need another drink,” you say, and head for the bar. Aegon follows you.

“You don’t want a Bacardi Breezer.”

“I don’t?”

“No. You don’t.” He flags Dale over once you’ve claimed your seats. “Hey Dale, did you get the stuff on the list I gave you?”

“Sure did.” Dale sets an array of items on the bar: apple juice, lemon juice, florescent green apple schnapps, vodka, a single Granny Smith apple, a paring knife, a shaker halfway filled with ice, a small plate covered with sugar, two chilled martini glasses. “You owe me, though. Especially for the schnapps. I had to order a case all the way from Seattle!”

“Add it to my tab.”

“Which you’ll pay when? In 2023?”

“I’ll pay, Dale!” Aegon insists.

Dale rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t seem genuinely annoyed. “Sure you will.” He yawns again and ambles away to take the orders of some locals sitting at the other end of the bar. The thuds of his boots are heavy and slow on the hardwood floor, the same one Aegon almost died on nine days ago.

“What are we doing?” you ask, but you’re already smiling. You have a pretty good guess.

“We’re making appletinis,” Aegon replies.

“You knew how to make appletinis this entire time and never said anything?”

“Oh no, I definitely did not,” he says. “I found the phone number of a friend I met back in San Francisco and figured she might know. She’s a bartender. So I gave her a call and asked very, very nicely and sure enough, she had a recipe.” He pauses, contemplative. “I told her I was in Chicago. Just in case.”

Just in case his ghost manages to track her down. “Have you seen this friend naked?”

“Does it matter?”

“No,” you say, and you find that you mean it. Aegon is here with you now, and that’s all you can ask for. Still, his commitment to relative honestly seems enduring.

“The answer is yes. But it wasn’t like it is with you.”

“Really, it doesn’t matter. I’m not mad or anything.”

“Yeah, you don’t look mad.”

You smile at each other, Christmas-light sparks in your eyes, alone in a crowded room. Well…alone except for Mariah Carey. “Anyway,” you prompt. “Am I getting a real-life appletini or what?”

“Let’s do this. Uh…” He furrows his brow, trying to remember. “Okay. I think I know how it goes.” He adds apple juice and lemon juice to the shaker. He doesn’t measure; he estimates, splashing in a little at a time until he’s content. He caps the container, gives it a few vigorous shakes, then opens it again. He pours in the schnapps and vodka, then shakes again. “Cut a few slices off the apple, vet lady. Nice and thin.”

You do, four transparent crescent-moon slivers. Aegon rubs lemon juice around the rim of each martini glass with his ring finger and then dunks them in the sugar until the rims are covered in fine white crystals like snow. He garnishes the martini glasses with the apple slices, gives the shaker one last whirl, then empties the contents into the glasses: half for you, half for him. He hands you your introductory appletini and toasts his glass against yours.

“On three?” Aegon asks, and you nod, beaming. You count together: one, two, three.

Your first taste isn’t a tentative sip. You take a full, brave swallow of the vivid green brew. It’s jarringly sour, sticky-sweet, crisp and refreshing like springtime. “Oh, I love it!” you trill.

“It’s…uh…” He takes another investigative slurp. “It’s definitely appley.”

“You hate it,” you say, laughing.

“I don’t hate it,” he counters. “I like what it’s doing to you.”

You close your eyes, the sights and sounds of Ursa Minor fading away. You’re somewhere sleek and vibrant and new; you’re in New York City, you’re in Los Angeles, you’re in Las Vegas, you’re in San Diego. When you open your eyes, Aegon is smiling. “Sorry. I was teleporting.”

“Do you want the rest of mine?”

“Yeah,” you admit guiltily, and he slides his appletini over to rest by yours. You drain them both. “I’m like Jack Dawson. I’m the king of the world.”

“You’re very, very cute when you’re tipsy, that’s what you are.”

“My parents think you should spend Christmas with us. I think you should too.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Okay. Don’t buy me anything fancy, though. I won’t be able to return the favor.”

“Sad impoverished homeless man gifts only. You have my word.”

“Hey!” Heather calls from the pool table. She’s waving her cue stick in the air. “I lost! I’m a loser! I got slaughtered by this jumbo-sized motherfucker! And you weren’t even here to witness it!”

“We should go over there,” you tell Aegon, and he steadies you when you wobble as you slide off the barstool. “Oh, god, I’m sorry.”

“It’s cool. Now I have an excuse to touch you.”

“Dale, can I get some Chex Mix or something?” He tosses you a little blue bag from behind the bar. You miss it completely. It sails over your head and smacks into the floor. Aegon cackles hysterically, but fetches the bag. He even opens it before he hands it to you. Then you set off together for the pool table.

“What’s wrong with you?” Heather asks when you arrive, her eyes narrow.

“I like appletinis. I really like appletinis.”

“It’s December 22nd, the commencement of Capricorn season, and you are celebrating this momentous event with an uncharacteristic display of recklessness and frivolity? Inauspicious!”

“What did I miss? Besides your humiliation.”

“Flintstones vitamins,” Rob says, rubbing blue chalk on a cue stick. He and Trent are playing pool now; Trent is showing Kimmie and several of her sycophants, including Matt and Gary, how he can make a shot with his hands behind his back. Aegon circles the pool table, his hands in his jeans pockets, watching Trent reticently. “Childish and stupid or totally acceptable for mid-twenties adults?”

“Totally acceptable,” you declare, munching on Chex Mix. “I just had one this morning.”

“That’s what I said!” Kimmie cries. “They’re delicious. I could eat a whole bottle of them. I used to lie to my mom when I was a kid and insist she hadn’t given one to me yet so I could get extra. My high score was five in a day.”

“That can’t be good for you,” Heather says. “Wait. Maybe it explains some things.”

“A lot of things,” Joyce quips, turning a page in her book.

Kimmie defers to you, the foremost medical authority present. “Vitamins can’t hurt people, right?”

“Well, that depends on the vitamin.”

“Some can,” Aegon says. “The fat-soluble ones, because your body can’t flush them out as easily or something. Too much Vitamin A can really fuck someone up. There are people who’ve died because they ate a polar bear liver, which has, like, millions of units of Vitamin A. So if you ever happen to eat a polar bear, skip the liver.”

“You can overdose on vitamins?” Kimmie asks him, puzzled. “Like, vitamins can kill you?”

“Oh yeah, lots of things can kill you if you take enough of them. Too much Vitamin A can cause seizures and comas, Vitamin D can give you a heart attack, Vitamin E can make you hemorrhage out of your eyeballs and stuff. And it causes strokes.”

“Oh snap!” Kimmie exclaims in horror, thinking that perhaps she barely escaped with her life. Heather is thoroughly amused.

You look at Aegon as he passes by you like a satellite whirling around the Earth, a blinking light in suffocating darkness. He’s right, but he shouldn’t be. He hasn’t studied medicine. He hasn’t studied much of anything. “How do you know all that?”

He replies curtly: “How do you think?” And then he resumes his orbit.

Rob attempts a shot and misses. “Ha!” Trent says, flipping his hair, and then starts lining up his own. As he leans over the pool table, he asks you: “So, where were you last night?”

Your mind, already hazy, goes useless. Cold sweat bubbles up out of your pores. “What? At home.”

“No you weren’t.” His eyes are on you like a wolf’s, like a beast’s. “I called the house. A couple times, actually. I felt weird about how we left things and wanted to apologize. But no one answered.”

“Oh, sorry, I mean I was at home, but then I went to go bowling with my parents.”

“No you didn’t.” Trent’s cue stick hits the striped red ball, number 11, and sends it hurtling into a pocket. “I already asked Dale. He’s in the bowling league, and he said you weren’t there.”

Two lies. And I don’t have a third. You stand there helplessly, surrounded by Christmas lights and tinsel and pine trees, your thoughts churning slowly, slower, dragging to a full stop. The chatter around you dies down. Wide eyes dart between you and Trent. Joyce closes her book. Even Dale is peeking over from the bar. His face is crisscrossed with lines of disapproval, of fascination.

“Where were you, huh?” Trent takes a step closer. He’s huge. He’s so fucking huge. Aegon picks up the black 8 ball off the pool table; no one else notices but you.

“Trent,” Heather scolds her brother, stunned. “Take a chill pill—”

“Where were you?!” Trent demands.

You try to conjure up an excuse, any excuse. All you can think of is how badly you don’t want to end up at the bottom of an ice-covered lake. I can’t die, I haven’t done anything yet. I haven’t been anywhere yet. I haven’t seen San Diego.

Trent begins one final time, still clutching the cue stick, his voice deafening: “Where were—?!”

“She was with me!” Kimmie bursts out, and everyone spins towards her. “I, um, I was upset. Devastated, in fact. Because of, um. Boy problems.”

Heather titters nervously. “What else is new.”

“So I called and I was an absolute blubbering mess on the phone and she offered to come over and hang out. Watch Buffy with me. Do my nails and stuff. It’s really embarrassing.” She smiles at you, a soft glowing smile. “Thanks for trying to keep my secret.”

“No problem, Kimmie,” you reply shakily.

“Oh, babe!” Trent says, his face splitting into a smile, pressing a hand into the small of your back. He even flips his hair in that simpleminded, horselike way. He can’t be the Ice Fisher. He can’t be…right? You flinch when he touches you. On the periphery of your vision, you can see Aegon rolling the black 8 ball back onto the pool table. “That’s all?! You should have told me!”

“It really wasn’t my situation to share.”

“Damn, I’m sorry.” Trent seems to mean it. “I’m really sorry. That was a dick move, I don’t know what came over me.”

“Hulk smash?” Rob says, and there is laughter, quivering with fresh relief.

“I think I have to go,” you say, rubbing your forehead. “I’m really not feeling great.” And that part’s not even a lie. “I shouldn’t have mixed Bacardi Breezers and appletinis, I’m a total lightweight. And I have work in the morning. I’m supposed to vaccinate like ten of Mr. Campbell’s reindeer.”

“You want me to drive you home?” Trent offers.

No! Definitely not! “Thanks, but I couldn’t bear to interrupt your pool game. Especially when you’re winning.” You can tell Aegon is looking at you. You intentionally don’t acknowledge him. And now you realize that you’re a little trapped: you can’t say you’re driving yourself home because you’re not sober, and you can’t say that Aegon is walking you back to his apartment because then Trent might murder you both right here in the middle of Ursa Minor, blood splattering the deer heads mounted on the wall, femurs and vertebrae littering the pool table.

“I’ll do it!” Heather volunteers. “I’m super not-wasted at the moment.”

“Um, well…”

“Come on.” She’s already going to get your parka off the coatrack. “I can’t in good conscience let you vaccinate those reindeer without a full night’s sleep.” You trail after her, powerless to refuse.

Out in the night-draped parking lot, you haul yourself—with some difficulty—into Heather’s Chevy Suburban. And as she turns the key in the ignition and begins defrosting the windshield, you tell her: “When you leave the lot, make a left, not a right.”

“What? Why?”

“Because you’re not taking me home. You’re taking me to Aegon’s apartment.”

“I’m…?” She gapes at you as it sinks in like an anchor through dark surf. “Oh my god. Oh my god…?!”

“Affirmative.”

“Oh. My. GOD.” She puts the Suburban in drive and, as requested, makes a left onto Main Street.

Sunfyre is delighted to see you when you arrive. He leaps, barks, pirouettes in circles, accepts copious scratches and Milk-Bone treats. You collapse onto the threadbare couch, and he stretches out on the floor beside you, his quiet snoring soon the only sound in the apartment. Your eyes blur, flutter, close up shop. Maybe twenty minutes later, you hear a key rattling in the front door.

Aegon walks inside, his boots dripping with snow. He doesn’t seem surprised to see you. “You alright, Appletini?”

“Yeah, I’m kind of woozy but I mostly just wanted to leave.” You consider him, wondering how to ask him the question that won’t leave your mind. It claws at the arched walls of your skull like a trapped animal, leaving streaks of blood where its nails were torn away.

“I don’t want to talk about the vitamin thing,” he says.

“I don’t want to talk about Trent.”

“Deal.”

He throws off his parka and boots, turns on the X-Files, and crawls onto the couch with you. You fold into him and he holds you, not hungrily, not asking for a thing. You freefall into sleep with your head against his chest, his heartbeat a distant roar like thunder.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Ice Fisher has left Juneau a Christmas present: Stephanie Nolan, his fifth victim. She was twenty-five years old, an avid knitter, a Blockbuster employee, mother of several adopted Himalayan cats, one of three sisters born barely a year apart. At least her parents still have some children left, you think. At least the pressure to make their sacrifices worthwhile wasn’t all on her. Your dad sneaks a few minutes of news coverage while your mom is in the shower. They’re replaying the press conference that Chief of Police Eugene Baker gave late last night on Christmas Eve.

“We urge all Juneau residents to remain vigilant. This is the time of year for celebrations and get-togethers, and we don’t want to discourage that in any way, but no one—and I repeat, no one—should be outside alone, especially not after dark. Ms. Nolan left her place of employment to take a ten-minute smoke break, and that was all the opportunity the killer needed. He is still out there, he is still dangerous, and no one is immune from becoming a target. If you have any information relevant to this case, anything at all, please call our anonymous 24/7 hotline at…”

There are camera flashes, uneasy clamoring, flailing hands of reporters begging to be called on. Your dad crosses his arms over his broad chest, his face grim. A reporter asks Chief Baker: “I understand that the Juneau PD has brought in FBI profilers to help them identify possible suspects. Can you share any new theories with the public at this time?”

“Well, there are a couple likely possibilities. The Ice Fisher might be someone who is new to the area, someone who arrived this past summer or early autumn. Residents should therefore be extremely wary of newcomers. However, it might be the case that the killer isn’t new to the area at all, but rather suffered some sort of destabilizing event—loss of employment, for example, or the death of a loved one—that triggered their otherwise dormant violent impulses. The last theory I’m prepared to share today is that the criminal now known as the Ice Fisher might have been active long before this recent string of murders. Some serial killers have been known to…to test the waters, so to speak…with murders that can be camouflaged as accidental or natural deaths. That’s a possibility in this case, and we are combing back through the department archives to see if there are any answers there…”

“I should go pick up Aegon,” you say.

“Ladybug…” Your dad stalls, not wanting you to take it the wrong way. “I’m not saying that I think Aegon is the killer, because I don’t think he is. I know he’s not, actually. He doesn’t have much rage in him. He has a lot of other things, I believe, but not that. I’m just saying…you have to be careful. And he can’t keep an eye out for you if he’s passed out drunk somewhere. Do you get what I mean?”

“I understand, Dad. I’m careful. Really, I am. And I’m never running around town alone. If I’m not with Aegon, I’m with Heather or Kimmie or Joyce.”

“Or Trent,” he adds. He likes this idea; Trent might not be able to snap a murderer in two like a KitKat bar, but he could definitely crack a few ribs. Trent would be a great Mortal Kombat character. He could skewer foes with a cue stick, right through the eye socket. An icy shudder rocks down your spine.

“Or Trent.”

“Okay. Good.” He turns back to the tv, his eyes vacant, his voice low. “Just making sure.”

Aegon is dressed in his Christmas best: dark jeans, black Converses, his hair loose and wavy, a festive red sweater with Gizmo from Gremlins on it. You’ve opted for a more traditional Rudolph turtleneck. Sunfyre has a large red bow tied to his collar. The three of you ride together back to your parents’ house, the radio playing Celine Dion’s O Holy Night, one of the back windows rolled halfway down for Sunfyre.

Dinner is a reindeer roast, rosemary apple stuffing, potato gratin, homemade macaroni and cheese, and creamed spinach; dessert is Christmas cookies eaten under the tree. You open presents as a parade of classics play on the tv: Frosty The Snowman, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, The Year Without A Santa Claus. Your parents give Aegon cold-weather clothing like hats and mittens, which he accepts with great appreciation. He gives them a bouquet of blue roses and three bottles of red wine, only one of which he drinks himself. You give Aegon a refrigerator magnet from Caribou Crossings, a grizzly bear with a salmon caught between its teeth, something to join the rest of his collection, something to help him remember Juneau once he’s gone. He gives you a handful of seashells from San Diego that he’s been carting around in his luggage for a year. Everyone gives Sunfyre Milk-Bones.

When Aegon takes the golden retriever out to the backyard, your dad goes with them. You can see them talking out there as snow falls and the sun sets and the horizon is inked with violet and gold, the wind whipping fiercely: Aegon’s hands moving in wild, dramatic gestures, your dad nodding along. They’re gone for so long you start to worry, your fingers trembling as you and your mom play chess with the new set you received for Christmas, not black and white but pet-themed: one side dogs, the other cats.

Your dad comes back inside first. He shuts the door and says to you, not accusatory but merely intrigued: “I didn’t know you were serious about wanting to travel, ladybug.”

“Oh, yeah, I guess so. One day. When I’m retired, I guess. Doesn’t everyone want to travel?”

“Huh. Aegon made it sound a bit more urgent than that.”

He watches you defeat your mom in chess, makes her some mollifying Earl Grey tea, and then offers to play Scrabble with her, a proposition she can never resist. When Aegon brings Sunfyre back inside—the sky fully dark now, the stars rising behind the veil of clouds—you lead him upstairs to your room. You sit on your bed together and flip through your travel magazines, scenes of Paris, Cairo, New York City, Rome, Tokyo, Cape Town, Buenos Aires, Beijing, Saint Petersburg, Sydney, Las Vegas, Cusco, Athens, Mexico City, Nairobi, California.

“It’s strange,” Aegon says. “Your parents like me, but they also kind of don’t like me. It’s as if they’re afraid of me. I can’t figure them out.”

You think of the cardboard box under your bed, the one full of Jesse’s journals. “My mom was married before. Vince is her second husband.”

Aegon looks over at you, attentive but not understanding. “Okay.”

“I was five years old when they got together. So Vince is my dad, but he’s not…like…he’s not biologically…well, you get what I’m saying.”

Aegon closes the magazine he’d been skimming, still looking at you.

“My mom’s first husband was named Jesse. And he was…from what I understand…he was a lot like you.” You tap your index finger against the crook of your own elbow so Aegon will understand. He was brilliant, but he was an addict. He was a blessing, he was a curse.

Aegon nods slowly. “I guess that explains a lot.”

“I probably should have told you sooner. But I’ve never really told anyone.”

“What happened to him?”

“He drowned in the channel. Maybe it was an accident, maybe suicide. Maybe it doesn’t matter which one. Maybe there isn’t much of a difference.”

“I’m so sorry,” Aegon says, his voice quiet and gentle.

“I don’t want the same thing to happen to you.”

“It won’t. I told you. I’m not that easy to kill.”

You wonder if Aegon has become a ghost to his family, if he haunts the Targaryens like Jesse haunts you, half-comforting, half-heartbreaking, if after six long silent years his shadow still lurks in corners and doorways. You wonder if a ghost is really so far from what you are. “I want to stop feeling like a potential person, to stop waiting for the life I’ve always dreamed of to drop out of the sky. I want to feel real.”

“You’re real to me.” He dusts his thumbprint across the curve of your cheekbone, flesh and blood that sing to each other. “Listen, we’ll go to San Diego together.”

“Don’t, Aegon.”

“No, I mean it,” he says. “Give me a month to save up, and we’ll go. We’ll take a long weekend and fly down there. It won’t be hot enough to swim, but it’ll be warmer than here. Sixties, sunny, sandy, waves and tacos. We’ll stay somewhere with a waterbed. Those can be a lot of fun.”

“Careful. I might not want to leave the hotel room. What a waste of a trip that would be.”

“I’ll just have to make sure you’re bored of me by then,” he purrs, grinning and mischievous, dragging you into his lap. He smooths your hair back from your face, gazing up at you as you straddle him. He kisses your lips, your jaw, your neck; his teeth skate across your skin without biting down, without leaving indigo bruises of ownership. Slowly, he turns solemn and hushed. Slowly, you begin to worry about him.

“What, Aegon?”

“You’re the best present I ever got. I hope you know that.”

You whisper through his windswept white-blond hair: “Then open me.”

He lays you down on the bed, unearths your needful bare skin and stifles his moans against your throat, unravels you like a blood-red ribbon from a box heavy with secrets.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this press release from the Department of the Interior:

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is awarding more than $6.4 million to federally recognized Native American and Alaska Native Tribes to benefit fish and wildlife resources and their habitats. This year’s funding will support 35 Tribes for conservation projects across 15 states, benefiting a wide range of wildlife and habitat, including species of cultural or traditional importance to Indigenous communities. 

Examples of projects approved this year include:

Sitka Tribe of Alaska (Artificial Intelligence for Subsistence Salmon Monitoring and Management) - $200,000 to install artificial intelligence enabled video that will produce automated real-time counts of Redoubt Lake sockeye salmon, reducing real-time monitoring costs.

Navajo Nation (within Arizona, New Mexico and Utah)(Estimating Abundance, Preserving Traditional Ecological Knowledge, and Resolving Human-Bear Conflict of Black Bears on the Navajo Nation) - $100,000 to assess black bear population on Navajo Nation lands, preserve Traditional Ecological Knowledge in effective habitat management and minimize human-bear conflicts. 

Mooretown Rancheria of Maidu Indians of California (Tribal Wildlife and Postfire Restoration for Habitat Connectivity, Pollinator Species and Traditional Ecological Knowledge Plants around Feather Falls) - $197,300 to restore and manage ancestral lands which were devasted by the 2020 North Complex fire, including hiring staff, expanding the Tribal youth program and developing a restoration plan that incorporates Traditional Ecological Knowledge to prioritize culturally significant and endangered species such as the California spotted owl, bald eagle, Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog and California red-legged frog.

Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians (within Minnesota) (Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians White-tailed Deer and Golden-winged Warbler Critical Habitat Restoration Project: Setting Back Forest Succession to Promote Early Successional Wildlife Species) - $199,872 to create 350 acres of early successional forest habitat, supporting deer population recovery and increasing habitat for golden-winged warblers during breeding season.

Omaha Tribe of Nebraska (Tallgrass Prairie Resource Management) - $199,965 to hire staff to restore, maintain, and enhance habitat for ecologically and culturally significant wildlife species within the Omaha Tribe of Nebraska reservation, including invasive species removal and buffalo management.

Seneca Nation of Indians (within New York) (Seneca Nation Wood Turtle Survey) - $42,713 to tag wood turtles, a culturally important species, with GPS transmitters to track and map home areas and nesting grounds. 

Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (within North Carolina)(Leveraging DNA Sampling to Understand and Manage Resources) - $200,000 to continue cutting-edge non-invasive resource management techniques and use environmental DNA (eDNA) and a variety of non-invasive methods (camera, trapping, acoustics, etc.) to evaluate and manage bear populations, sicklefin redhorse, native brook trout, bats, otters, fish, aquatic communities, birds, and amphibians.

Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribe (within Washington) (ESA Species Critical Coastal Habitat and Traditional Fisheries Restoration and Monitoring) - $198,928 to continue improving the conservation status of the western snowy plover and streaked horned lark and implement essential fish habitat assessments, eDNA and visual monitoring and restoration actions to support climate resilience and adaptive capacity of these species on Tribal lands.

[bouncinghedgehog]

Alt National Park Service

People often ask, “What exactly are we resisting?” So, we decided to keep a detailed list. From 2017 to 2021, the Trump administration reversed over 100 environmental regulations, affecting climate policy, air, water, wildlife, and chemical safety. Additionally, more than a dozen other rollbacks were in progress but not finalized by the end of the term, prompting questions about the potential impact of another four years. You might wonder what another four years could look like. Here's a summary of Trumps last four years in office:

- Weakened fuel economy and greenhouse gas standards.

- Revoked California's stricter emissions standards.

- Withdrawn legal basis for limiting mercury from coal plants.

- Exited the Paris climate agreement.

- Altered Clean Air Act cost-benefit analysis methods.

- Canceled methane emissions reporting for oil and gas companies.

- Revised rules on methane emissions from drilling on public lands.

- Eliminated methane standards for oil and gas facilities.

- Withdrew rule limiting toxic emissions from industrial polluters.

- Eased pollution safeguards for new power plants.

- Changed refinery pollution monitoring rules.

- Reversed emissions reduction during power plant malfunctions.

- Weakened air pollution rules for national parks and wilderness areas.

- Loosened state air pollution plan oversight.

- Established minimum threshold for regulating greenhouse gases.

- Relaxed pollution regulations for waste coal plants.

- Repealed hydrofluorocarbon leak and venting rules.

- Ended use of social cost of carbon in rulemaking.

- Allowed increased ozone pollution from upwind states.

- Stopped including greenhouse gas emissions in environmental reviews.

- Revoked federal greenhouse gas reduction goal.

- Repealed tailpipe emissions tracking on federal highways.

- Lifted ban on higher ethanol gasoline blends in summer.

- Extended deadlines for methane emissions plans for landfills.

- Withdrew rule reducing pollutants at sewage plants.

- Dropped tighter pollution standards for offshore oil and gas.

- Amended emissions standards for ceramics manufacturers.

- Relaxed leak monitoring at oil and gas facilities.

- Cut two national monuments in Utah.

- Ended freeze on new coal leases on public lands.

- Permitted oil and gas development in Arctic Refuge.

- Opened land for drilling in National Petroleum Reserve, Alaska.

- Lifted ban on logging in Tongass National Forest.

- Approved Dakota Access pipeline near Sioux reservation.

- Rescinded water pollution rules for fracking.

- Withdrawn rig decommissioning cost proof requirement.

- Moved cross-border project permits to presidential office.

- Altered FERC's greenhouse gas considerations in pipelines.

- Revised ocean and coastal water policy.

- Loosened offshore drilling safety regulations post-Deepwater Horizon.

- Weakened National Environmental Policy Act.

- Revoked flood standards for federal projects.

- Eased federal infrastructure project environmental reviews.

- Ended financing for overseas coal plants.

- Revoked directive to minimize natural resource impacts.

- Revoked climate resilience order for Bering Sea.

- Reversed public land-use planning update.

- Withdrawn climate change consideration in national park management.

- Limited environmental study length and page count.

- Dropped Obama-era climate change and conservation policies.

- Eliminated planning system to minimize oil and gas harm on sensitive lands.

- Withdrawn policies for improving resources affected by federal projects.

- Revised Forest Service project review process.

- Ended natural gas project environmental impact reviews.

- Rolled back migratory bird protections.

- Reduced habitat for northern spotted owl.

- Altered Endangered Species Act application.

- Weakened habitat protections under the Endangered Species Act.

- Ended automatic protections for threatened species.

- Reduced environmental protections for California salmon and smelt.

- Removed gray wolf from endangered list.

- Overturned bans on lead ammo and fishing tackle on federal lands.

- Reversed ban on predator hunting in Alaskan refuges.

- Reversed rule against baiting grizzly bears for hunting.

- Amended fishing regulations.

- Removed commercial fishing restrictions in marine preserve.

- Proposed changes to endangered marine mammal injury limits.

- Loosened fishing restrictions for Atlantic Bluefin Tuna.

- Overturned migratory bird handicrafts ban.

- Reduced Clean Water Act protections for tributaries and wetlands.

- Revoked stream debris dumping rule for coal companies.

- Weakened toxic discharge limits for power plants.

- Extended lead pipe removal time in water systems.

- Eased Clean Water Act for federal project permits over state objections.

- Allowed unlined coal ash ponds to continue operating.

- Withdrawn groundwater protections for uranium mines.

- Rejected chlorpyrifos pesticide ban.

- Declined financial responsibility rules for spills and accidents.

- Opted against requiring mining industry pollution cleanup proof.

- Narrowed toxic chemical safety assessment scope.

- Reversed braking system upgrades for hazardous material trains.

- Allowed liquefied natural gas rail transport.

- Rolled back hazardous chemical site safety rules.

- Narrowed pesticide application buffer zones.

- Removed copper filter cake from hazardous waste list.

- Limited use of scientific studies in public health regulations.

- Reduced corporate settlement funding for environmental projects.

- Repealed light bulb energy-efficiency regulation.

- Weakened dishwasher efficiency standards.

- Loosened efficiency standards for showerheads and appliances.

- Altered energy efficiency standard-setting process.

- Blocked efficiency standards for furnaces and water heaters.

- Simplified appliance efficiency test exemption process.

- Limited environmentally focused investments in 401(k) plans.

- Changed policy on using sand from protected ecosystems.

- Halted contributions to the Green Climate Fund.

- Reversed national park plastic bottle sale restrictions.

[bumblebeeappletree]

I’ve been thinking about schools for the blind and schools for the deaf. And while I know most states have schools for one of the two, or have one school where both attend at the one campus, I knew that there wasn’t schools in every state. And so I decided to take a look to see which states currently have running schools, and which states don’t. So all together there’s 13 states without a school for either the blind, the deaf, or both.

Now I think it’s very important for each state have at least one of each school in order to help support these students who would do better to have this sort of education. Especially since they would feel belonging as most disabled students feel alienated from their peers in an abled school system.

I think that these states, without these schools, have a unique opportunity here. They could use this as a way to build a school not only with maximized accessibility, but to build these schools sustainably. Some of which would go hand in hand. Lightbulbs that wouldn’t need so much electricity? Could also be lightbulbs for students with light sensitivity. Just as an example.

Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming all have different different environments. Some states closer together have similar weather patterns that their school buildings could be similar. But this could also help showcase how each biome’s sustainable buildings are different. Alaska might need more wind turbines than Nevada while Nevada would need a larger rain water harvesting system than Alaska. Although in this time of bigger storms and unpredictable weather, as well as strong fires, it would be best to build these schools to withstand these conditions.

I’m talking schools having green rooftops with solar panels on top. The greenery helping cool down the panels, and the solar panels providing some shade from the harsh sun. I’m talking about having a food forest with pathways that are accessible by wheelchair. Same with greenhouses for the colder months. Or for the warmer states, a shade house for the too hot weather. A small area with a variety of houses, some completely built for wheelchair users, so students can learn how to live in a house by themselves or with roommates. (Again, built sustainably.) And for the pools it’ll be natural pools. Chlorine has been shown to raise rates of asthma. Having a natural pool is healthier for the lungs, the skin, and hair.

Ideally these schools would be built in cities with a good transportation system, as to help teach the students how to get around in a city. Perhaps even give the students, and staff, a discount on using these transportation services. And should the students go on outings, for say a restaurant, they could ask for the restaurant to get Braille menus and subtitles for any TVs.

As there is some overlap between states that have neither a blind school or a deaf school. I propose that these states would have them in one building on one campus. And in these schools tactile sign language would be taught for the blind deaf and the blind or deaf students who wish to learn. Because as of right now, as far as I’m aware, the only place that does this in the USA is in Seattle. No where else.

“But how would we get the staff to teach this if it’s so rare?” You may ask. Simple.

We pay people to learn tactile sign language.

And if we have staff that already know tactile sign, they would get paid more than staff who don’t. And the pay rate would be the same for staff who know ASL, and the same would go for staff who know Braille. This way, staff members would be more inclined to learn how to sign, to read Braille, to communicate with students and help them with their homework. And if we can’t pay the people to learn these things, then we can have their schooling paid for. I’m sure there’s some blind schools that even pay for classes for their staff should they want to become an Orientation and Mobility Instructor. When the staff member completes their course they work for the school as an O&M instructor until a specific time frame is up. (Example “we pay for your classes, and then you work with us for 5 years as this type of teacher. Then you can become a contractor.”)

I think that this is something that can be done. Not only would it give these students a unique experience, an opportunity to learn more, and be in a healthier environment, but it could be a standard for new schools. A proof of concept if you will. There are many schools around the world where it’s been built sustainably, reclaimed materials, or in unique ways for accessibility. (A blind school in India has different plants by the windows of different classes so students know that they’re in the science classroom if they smell lavender and so on.)

I’ll be honest, I would love these schools to exist. However I have no idea where I would have to go or who I have to talk to to get this ball rolling. I literally live in none of these states so it would be even harder. However, I still wish to share my idea so start this conversation. And perhaps someone would see this and go “wait. I can help with this.”

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I very much would like to talk to you all about what could be in these (theoretical) schools!

[wanderingnork]

Horror Movies: Something Old, Something New

Five double features, each matchup featuring a similar theme, plot, or style--but separated by at least twenty years.

Matango (1963, 1h 30m) and Gaia (2021, 1h 30m): Matango is the story of a group of boaters shipwrecked on a strange island infested with bizarre mushrooms. Based on a 1907 short story called The Voice In The Night (read it on archive.org here) and directed by Ishirō Honda, one of the directors and writers of the original Godzilla, it's spine-tingling tale. Gaia takes place in a South African forest, where a pair of forestry service employees discover that the forest is alive in a whole different way than they thought. Both stories deal with fungus, changing human bodies, and ecological disaster. You may want to avoid mushrooms and blue cheese for a bit after these.

The Red Shoes (1948, 2h 15m) and The Red Shoes (2005, 1h 45m): Both of these stories take their title and overall themes from the same Hans Christian Andersen story. You can read the story here. Separated by nearly sixty years and multiple continents--since the 1948 film was made in England and the 2005 film was made in South Korea--they're well worth comparing. Two different times and cultures tackle the same story, and come out with stories that are fully distinct yet strikingly similar.

Ghostwatch (1992, 1h 30m) and Late Night With the Devil (2024, 1h 30m): On Halloween night in 1992, on live TV, a BBC documentary crew enters a haunted house to witness a haunting, only for everything to go horribly wrong--or at least that's the premise of Ghostwatch. The BBC created its mockumentary using its established TV personalities and other added elements of realism, resulting in a War of the Worlds type of national panic. It's never been run on any UK TV channel again. Late Night With the Devil takes a similar spin, although it doesn't present itself as happening today: it's a documentary of events occurring on live TV in 1977. Despite that, watch the plot beats. See if you can spot Ghostwatch. I was able to predict almost the exact plot of the film once I realized what was going on (although it didn't detract from my enjoyment at all).

The Thing (1982, 1h 50m) and 30 Days of Night (2007, 1h 50m): Two different takes on "stranded in an icy polar wasteland," one taking place in Antarctica and the other in Alaska. In the first, the monstrous chaos comes from a shapeshifting alien, while in the second, it's vampires. However, as different as its monsters are, 30 Days of Night pays plenty of homage to The Thing. From helicopter sabotage to prevent escape to a striking shot that evokes the theatrical poster of The Thing, 30 Days of Night shows where it came from. TW for dog death in both movies.

Jason and the Argonauts (1963, 1h 45m) and Bonestorm (short film from VHS: Viral 2014, anthology runtime 1h 20m): Okay, so Jason and the Argonauts isn't exactly horror. It's a retelling of the myth of the same name, with Jason and his crew of heroes sailing to find the Golden Fleece. As much as it is heroic fantasy, it's also full of monsters--stop-motion hydras, harpies, and more created by the legendary Ray Harryhausen. The grand finale is a battle against a group of animated skeletons, which you can watch here. Fifty years later, the makers of Bonestorm revisited the same idea, as a pair of skateboarders battle cultists-turned-skeletons on a trip to Mexico.

Food for thought: Whether or not the more recent filmmakers were aware of the older movies is uncertain, but what can we as viewers draw from these strikingly similar works? Do the old-school effects hold up next to their modern counterparts? In the Matango/Gaia and Red Shoes double features, different cultures are also in play. What's the impact of that on the stories? What does it say about horror that we keep going back to revisit the same themes and stories?

(Previous Recommendations)

[newstfionline]

Thursday, October 3, 2024

Helene death toll now at least 166 (AP) President Joe Biden will survey the devastation in North and South Carolina on Wednesday as rescuers continue their search for anyone still unaccounted for after Hurricane Helene caused catastrophic damage across the Southeast and killed at least 166 people. Many residents in both states were still without running water, cellular service and electricity as floodwaters receded and revealed more of the death and destruction left in Helene’s path. Helene, one of the deadliest storms in recent U.S. history, knocked out power and cellular service for millions. More than 1.2 million customers still were in the dark early Wednesday in the Carolinas and Georgia. Some residents cooked food on charcoal grills or hiked to high ground in the hopes of finding a signal to let loved ones know they are alive.

Russian fighter jet flew within feet of US F-16 near Alaska (AP) On Monday, Pentagon officials released footage of a Russian fighter jet flying dangerously close to a U.S. F-16 jet. The footage, according to the Pentagon, was recorded on September 23 in U.S. airspace over Alaska. The game of giant metal aerial chicken took place just a few weeks after the Russian and Chinese militaries conducted joint drills in the Arctic near Alaska. Those drills involved multiple fighter planes and bombers from both militaries, as well as fleets of their navy vessels.

As Israel escalates in Lebanon, U.S. influence is limited (Washington Post) First Israel ignored a U.S.-led effort to impose a cease-fire in its escalating war against Hezbollah. Then it killed the militant movement’s leader, Hasan Nasrallah, in a massive attack, taking Washington by surprise. Now, following a weekend scramble to avert a ground invasion of Lebanon, Israel is conducting exactly that, underscoring Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s disregard for the Biden administration’s entreaties and the limits of its influence on his actions. The widening gap between U.S. desires and Israeli behavior has left the administration struggling to adapt its diplomatic efforts to accommodate Netanyahu’s impulses. This chasm between the two allies has become especially pronounced in the days since the White House promised on Wednesday that Israel and Lebanon were about to agree to a cease-fire deal, only to end up a bystander as Netanyahu vowed at the United Nations to wipe out Hezbollah’s ability to threaten Israel for the foreseeable future. With many U.S. officials now embracing Israel’s success as it proceeds, with stunning momentum, to degrade Hezbollah, the events of recent weeks appear to fit a pattern in which the administration urges against specific Israeli actions only to later backtrack so it can avoid imposing conditions on military aid.

Argentine town battles a parrot invasion (Reuters) The town of Hilario Ascasubi near Argentina’s eastern Atlantic coast has a parrot problem. Thousands of the green-yellow-red birds have invaded, driven by deforestation in the surrounding hills, according to biologists. They bite on the town’s electric cables, causing outages, and are driving residents around the bend with their incessant screeching and deposits everywhere of parrot poo. “The hillsides are disappearing, and this is causing them to come closer to the cities to find food, shelter and water,” biologist Daiana Lera said, explaining that much of Argentina’s forest land has been gradually lost over the years. At times, according to locals, there are up to 10 parrots for each of the town’s 5,000 human inhabitants. During the summer, the birds migrate south to the cliffs of Patagonia for the breeding season. Images show hundreds of birds perched along electric cables and on pylons, or silhouetted in the dusk light swarming over buildings and a church, eerily reminiscent of scenes in film director Alfred Hitchcock’s classic 1963 thriller “The Birds.”

Italy and Switzerland to redraw Alpine border due to melting glaciers (Washington Post) Italy and Switzerland are set to redraw part of the mountainous border separating the two countries due to melting glaciers in the Alps. The change, which impacts an approximately 330-foot-long segment of the border, is happening near one of Europe’s most popular skiing destinations, Zermatt, and the iconic Matterhorn mountain. One of the biggest glaciers near Matterhorn, the Theodul Glacier, retreated almost 1,000 feet between 1990 to 2015. The melting, which has been attributed to climate change, revealed new topographical details that raised new questions about the dimensions of the border between the two countries. In 2022, the jurisdiction of a glacial Italian mountain lodge there came under question when melting ice revealed the refuge was actually straddling the border.

Ukraine’s east buckling under improved Russian tactics, superior firepower (Washington Post) Soldiers from Ukrainian units along the front have described improved Russian tactics this summer that combine their advantages into powerful attacks that Ukrainians have struggled to counteract. Enemy troops are storming the battlefields in small teams that minimize detection and make return fire difficult, backed by superior quantities of artillery and drones. Russia has also improved its battlefield communication, helping coordinate attacks. While losses are staggering, Ukrainian soldiers have said, the Russians have the numbers to keep up the pressure and Western aid isn’t making up the equipment deficit. That confluence of factors, combined with Ukraine’s perennial challenge to replenish its combat units and its focus on a large operation inside Russia, has allowed Moscow’s forces to claim territory in the Donetsk region with speed and aggression not seen since the full invasion in 2022. Ukrainian forces have been retreating along dozens of miles of a front line being pushed to its breaking point.

A US bomb from World War II explodes at a Japanese airport (Foreign Policy) What is believed to have been a World War II-era bombshell detonated near a regional airport in southwestern Japan on Wednesday, nearly 80 years after the war ended. The Japan Ground Self-Defense Force stated that the explosive appeared to be a 500-pound U.S. bomb that was likely dropped in an effort to stop Japanese “kamikaze” attacks, as the airport used to be a Japanese navy base from which hundreds of kamikaze pilots took off on their final missions. No injuries were reported in the explosion but nearly 90 flights were canceled, as Miyazaki Airport now must determine how to fix the 23-foot-wide and nearly 3-foot-deep crater in the middle of its taxiway.

Typhoon bringing heavy rain heads toward Taiwan (AP) A typhoon bringing strong winds and torrential rainfall slowly advanced Wednesday toward Taiwan, where thousands of people have been evacuated from vulnerable low-lying or mountainous terrain. At least 93 centimeters (3 feet) of rain has fallen in the coastal Taitung County in the past four days and 29 centimeters (11.4 inches) in the major port city of Kaohsiung ahead of Typhoon Krathon. The typhoon, packing maximum sustained winds near the center of 173 kph (108 mph) and gusts of 209 kph (130 mph), is expected to make landfall early Thursday. Schools and offices have been closed, flights and ferry services canceled and the city mayor has asked the 2.7 million residents to stay indoors. Around 10,000 people have been evacuated from at-risk areas.

Israeli strikes on Lebanon are the most intense and deadly in decades (Washington Post) For 10 days, Israel unleashed a relentless air campaign on Lebanon, striking over 3,600 Hezbollah-linked targets ahead of a ground offensive, according to IDF statements. “Aside from Gaza, this is the most intense aerial campaign that we know of in the last twenty years,” said Emily Tripp, director of Airwars, a British conflict monitor. The strikes have leveled entire residential blocks in south Beirut and devastated Hezbollah’s upper ranks, killing its leader Hasan Nasrallah and political deputy Nabil Kaouk. At least 1,400 people have been killed and 900,000 displaced since Israel accelerated its cross-border campaign (a fifth of the population), according to the Lebanese government. Fifty children died under Israeli bombardment on Monday and Tuesday—the United Nations estimates that’s double the rate of children killed during Lebanon’s 2006 war.

We risk dying from the cold, says displaced man in Beirut (BBC) The Lebanese prime minister said yesterday around a million people have been displaced as Israel's air strikes continue across Lebanon. With emergency shelters in Beirut unable to accommodate all those arriving from the south, many are sleeping by the road, in public squares, or on the beach. "We were forced to leave our villages and homes and come to Beirut, but there are no available houses or schools, all are overcrowded," a man tell our colleagues on BBC Arabic. "If we survive the bombings, we risk dying from the cold weather and diseases. We can't afford medicine should we fall ill. Many suffer on the streets," he adds. Another man says he now lives on the street and does not know what to do: "We left everything behind and arrived here with no clothes or resources." "Apartment rents have skyrocketed beyond our means, leaving us on the streets with our children in the cold winter," another person says. "We are enduring a truly tragic situation.”

As Crisis Builds, Lebanon’s Government Is Nowhere to Be Found (NYT) Even for the Lebanese, it can be hard to say where it all went wrong for their tiny, beautiful country. Certainly it was long before early Tuesday morning, when Israeli troops marched into southern Lebanon. Long before Friday, when Israel assassinated Hassan Nasrallah, the revered and reviled Hezbollah leader who had a chokehold on the country’s politics and security for years.  And long before last October, when Hezbollah and Israel began trading airstrikes and rocket fire across the border, bringing the war in Gaza to Lebanon’s green, fertile south. Many say Lebanon’s current anguish began in 2019, when the economy imploded and took the country’s once-robust middle class with it. Mass anti-government protests that fall did nothing to dislodge the country’s widely loathed political class. Others might mention 2020, the year the coronavirus further crippled the economy, and the year an enormous explosion at Beirut’s port shattered entire neighborhoods of the capital. A good case could be made for going all the way back to the 15-year civil war that ended in 1990. All these crises and more have left Lebanon in no shape to withstand a sharply escalating conflict with Israel, like a 10-car pileup caught in the path of a tornado.

A man in south Lebanon cares for pets left behind as residents flee Israeli strikes (AP) A dog clings to Hussein Hamza inside a car as he pans his camera around to show the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon. “Poor thing. Look at this, he’s clinging to me out of fear,” Hamza says in the video he posted online. “A missile hit here,” he said, his voice shaking. As Israel pummels southern Lebanon with airstrikes, tens of thousands of residents are fleeing their homes in fear. But Hamza is staying. His mission is to care for the dogs and other animals left behind. He runs an animal shelter that houses 200 dogs in the village of Kfour. Recently, he has also been driving around towns and villages in the south, looking for stray animals and abandoned pets to feed. “I opened bags of food and left them water. I’m relying on God,” said Hamza.

Nigeria’s independence anniversary is marked by protests and frustration over economic hardship (AP) Nigerians on Tuesday staged protests against economic hardship as the West African nation marked its 64th independence anniversary with its president calling for patience. Police fired tear gas to disperse some of the protesters, resulting in clashes. Dozens of people in a few states waved placards and the green-and-white national flag, demanding better opportunities and jobs for young people, in a country that has some of the world’s highest poverty and hunger levels despite being a top oil producer on the continent. Nigeria remains “an unfortunate case of running very hard and staying in the same place,” said Cheta Nwanze, managing partner at Lagos-based SBM Intelligence research firm. Nigeria continues to perform poorly in key areas like education and health, he said. “If your population is not healthy ... or not educated, you can’t possibly make progress,” Nwanze added.

[thoughtportal]

Thank you for proposing to protect old-growth national forests from commercial logging. Our old-growth trees are critical for wildlife, people and public health, and this is a big step toward preserving them for future generations. Please ensure that the final plan does not include exceptions that allow continued logging of old-growth for commercial gain and please consider including protections for mature trees in the final policy. Old-growth should be protected from logging in all ecosystems, including in southeast Alaska. The only exceptions should be for protecting public health and safety, including protecting communities and infrastructure from wildfire, to comply with statutes or regulations and for culturally significant uses. If old-growth trees must be logged for these reasons, they should not be sold to timber companies. Instead, they should be left in the forest to continue as part of the ecosystem just as if they had fallen due to natural disturbances.

[malbecmusings]

Hinchinbrook Island

July 28, 2023 - Even though our flying time to Cordova was only supposed to take about four hours, we started early to allow time to buzz a couple of the more than a dozen glaciers along our route and possibly land if we found a safe (and legal) place. We decided to provision last night while we had access to a bigger, better store. That chore done, we still needed to refuel in Cordova before flying to Hinchinbrook, ideally arriving before the incoming tide swallowed our 'runway'.

Vast. A word I often read in descriptions of Alaska. Get high enough and the land seems to stretch out forever before you. I now understand what they mean. Leaving Juneau we flew direct to the coast then northwest with the northern reach of the Rocky Mountains, here the Chugach Mountain range, off to starboard and the Gulf of Alaska to port. In another plane with pressurization (and a second engine) we could have flown over the mountains, but we'd have been flying much higher and with less awesome scenery to enjoy.

The braided Copper River spills into the Gulf of Alaska via a broad delta a few miles from our first stop of the day. Thirty miles upriver we flew over the impressive Childs Glacier which lies barely 1,000 feet from the riverbank opposite the glacier. Large chunks of ice calving off the glacier have been known to send mini tsunamis to the opposite shore, which sends a wall of water and the famous Copper River salmon well inland. A couple of miles upriver is the Million Dollar Bridge, so named for its construction cost when it was built in 1910 by JP Morgan and Daniel Guggenheim. It's one of 129 bridges and 200 miles of track the Copper River and Northwestern Railway built to haul $200 million in copper ore from the now-defunct Kennicott Mine to the port at Cordova. That one was hard to mark off the itinerary but time and logistics didn't allow us to visit on this trip. Next time, maybe.

After a quick stop in Cordova, we headed toward what would be our home for the night. Hinchinbrook and Montague Islands guard the entrance to and protect Prince William Sound. Even by Last Frontier standards these are remote locations. Given how quickly the weather can change, these can be challenging places to get into... and out of. The only residents of the islands are, primarily, deer and brown bears. We're told Montague, the island to the west and our destination tomorrow, is where Alaska Fish and Game and the US Forest Service relocates aggressive "problem" bears. The guide service that runs the "FBO" in Cordova, which is a fuel pump, warned us again to be very aware of the 'residents'. "They're nearly impossible to see in thick brush and they can plow through that brush like a bulldozer." Duly noted. A graduate student from the University of Alaska Fairbanks doing research on fish populations on the Copper River put it in even more stark terms.

"You know how most animals typically run from big noises?" We nodded in near unison. "These bears don't. They aren't afraid of noise. They aren't afraid of anything. The bears on the islands have developed a Pavlovian response to gunfire. They run *toward* the sound because they've learned gunfire = hunters = food. They're very, very territorial. They can smell the blood and will fight and eat whatever they find whether it's a down deer or another bear, or the hunting party themselves if given the chance."

Our accommodation on Hinchinbrook is a small, very (very) primitive Forest Service cabin, but one with spectacular views in every direction. These cabins on the islands are very popular with hunters who come in late summer and fall to hunt deer... and the bears. I'd much rather be visiting by dinghy and sleeping on Isa but there are challenges to that, too. A lack of a protected anchorage and deep, deep water but that's a problem for another trip. After getting everyone on the ground, pulling the planes well up above the high tide line, and securing them, we ferried what we'd need to the cabin and set up camp. Not ready to settle in, we hiked a couple hundred yards across a clearing and through a patch of woods, and a live wall of mosquitos, to the beach. Another moment of realizing how vast this place is was staring across a 40 mile wide expanse of deep, cold water toward the mainland. We walked a few miles along the beach to a point where we got a good view of Montague Island before turning back. The only bear signs we saw were a couple of old looking prints in the gravel near where we turned around. We made another gourmet freeze dried dinner and played cards before fitting ourselves into jigsaw like sleeping positions inside the cabin.

Tomorrow morning we need to be up, fed, and packed up for an early launch to avoid the first high tide, or wait on the ground until late afternoon.

[runonthewater]

Sometimes, on your fourth day on the road, you get so sick of the way the one pair of shorts you packed fit that when after a full day of driving, you go to the cheapest clothing store in Fort Nelson, buy a pair of patterened rayon jeans on clearance, and hack them off at the knees with the dull kitchen scissors that live in the van. Although these makeshift shorts do not necessarily fit you better than the ones you packed, they at least fit you differently.

Four days on the road. Temporally, this puts me halfway through the eight-day itinerary. At just over 1000 miles from Seattle (as the Google maps, not counting some side trips and the occasional back-tracking for a good view), and a little under 1000 from Tok, Fort Nelson puts me about halfway through the drive geographically, as well.

I started the morning in Dawson Creek, at Mile 0 of the Alaska Highway. (I met a nice Swiss couple at the mile marker who were, like me, getting their photo op in. They'd driven from Halifax and were planning to go all the way up the Dalton Highway! Because I am the kind of nerd that I am, as soon as I got back in the car, I turned on "The Last of Barret's Privateers" and belted about being a broken man on a Halifax pier in their honor.) Immediately outside Dawson Creek there was a lot of truck traffic, and I spent quite a while tailgating and being tailgated as steep grades and a lack of passing lanes kept us all stuck together.

By the time I reached my first rest stop in Wonowon, though, the driving had changed noticeably. In the first three days I spent a decent amount of time keeping an eye on my mirrors for people in smaller cars that would want to pass me. Once I was truly on the highway, the number of passing vehicles dwindled significantly. And the landscape spread out soon enough into rolling evergreen forests, bisected by the road. It's August, so fireweed dusts the cleared firebreaks on either side of the highway in a Barbie pink that looks unreal and is almost impossible to capture on my phone's camera. The deciduous trees flash the pale undersides of their leaves at the northbound traveler, revealing how windy it is.

This is what I think of when I think of the Highway: these long, straight stretches with big sky and no one around. The kind of wildlife I associate with the north is starting to appear, too. I saw a black bear galumph across the road around 4PM, and a little further on I saw a doe nursing a faun beside the road. Both obviously moved too fast for me to get pictures. The blackbirds scavenging on the highway are also clearly ravens, now: they're too fucking big to be crows. The other day I saw a black bird so big that I couldn't not spot it, despite the shade of the trees. Ravens are big.

The halfway point means I've been out here long enough to get a couple routines down. It also means I've been out here long enough to decide on problems -- e.g. the aforementioned shorts, the fit of which I am sick, or the buurned-on bits of fries I reheated in a pan without any oil the other nnight. But overall, as I told a local while I filled up today, the van treats me well.

Halfway also means I start thinking about the end of the trip. To be honest, today I thought about stopping earlier than Fort Nelson, partly because I was much more tired from yesterday's drive than expected, and partly because I don't want to rush. The lack of services between Dawson Creek and Fort Nelson ended up deciding me and I pushed on, but the possibility of extending the time on the road, letting the bubble of travel get just a little bigger, is tempting.

On the other hand, I miss my dog. And paying less than $150 per gas tank refill. Getting to Alaska, and then home, will be nice. When I get there.

A few less highfaluting thoughts (I blame Nabokov for the style): tonight I not only got to use the levelers to even out one side of the van for the night, I'm swatting skeeters like mad. The bugs are most definitely getting worse as I go north. The windshield is a war zone, and when I stopped earlier I found the van SURROUNDED by wasps and flies. Are they feasting on their fallen brethren? will they please leave me alone???

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 8, 2023 (Tuesday)

As he designated the new Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni–Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument today, President Biden explained that protecting the approximately 1,552 square miles—4,046 square kilometers, or almost a million acres—of land to the north and south of the Grand Canyon “is good not only for Arizona, but for the planet. It’s good for the economy. It’s good for the soul of the nation. And I believe…in my core it’s the right thing to do.”

His administration has been pursuing the promise he made when he first took office to protect 30% of all the nation’s lands and waters by 2030. He noted that the administration has protected 9 million acres in Alaska, 225,000 acres in Minnesota, 50,000 acres in Colorado, 500,000 acres in Nevada, and 6,600 acres in Texas. It has restored protections for three national monuments the previous administration had gutted: Grand Staircase–Escalante and Bears Ears in Utah and Northeast Canyons and Seamounts off the New England coast. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland is working on creating a maritime sanctuary by protecting 770,000 square miles in the Pacific Ocean southwest of Hawaii.

The administration is also, he said, honoring his commitment “to prioritize respect for the Tribal sovereignty and self-determination, to honor the solemn promises the United States made to Tribal nations to fulfill federal trust and treaty obligations.” The protected land is home to 3,000 cliff houses, cave paintings, and other Indigenous cultural sites. Biden explained that the land being protected and the land already protected as the Grand Canyon National Monument had been Indigenous homelands.

Tribes had been excluded from those lands and have worked to protect the lands and waters there from the aftershocks of development, for example, cleaning up abandoned mines. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law included funding to clean up such industrial pollution in the region, including the abandoned oil wells that leak toxic gases into the air and hazardous chemicals into the water. That work is underway.

Biden suggested this designation was also part of the administration’s effort to address climate change, calling out the historic investments in that effort funded by the Inflation Reduction Act, a claim that might well resonate in a state that has seen temperatures of more than 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43 Celsius) in Phoenix for 31 straight days.

According to the White House proclamation on the establishment of the new monument: “The natural and cultural objects of the lands have historic and scientific value that is unique, rich, and well-documented.” By creating the monument, Biden said, “we’re setting aside new spaces for families to hike, bike, hunt, fish, and camp—growing the tourism economy that already accounts for 11 percent of all Arizona jobs.”

But Republican leaders and uranium mining interests opposed the designation of the new monument because it will stop the development of new mines to access the approximately 1.3% of the nation’s known uranium reserves that lie inside the monument. While the two mines already operating in the monument are grandfathered in and other reserves are elsewhere, mining interests in Arizona wanted new development. They claim the uranium in the area, which could be used in nuclear reactors, is vital to U.S. security.

Science reporter Justine Calma of The Verge explained today that past uranium mining left 500 abandoned mines on Navajo Nation land and that pollution from the mines has been linked to life-threatening illnesses among children there.

In a letter to Biden, Haaland, and the heads of the Bureau of Land Management and of the U.S. Forest Service, House Republicans Bruce Westerman of Arkansas, chair of the Committee on Natural Resources, and committee member Paul Gosar of Arizona called the new designation “another strident abuse of the Antiquities Act” and demanded documents justifying the decision to put the area’s uranium out of developers’ reach.

In Ohio’s important election today, voters rejected the attempt of the Republican-dominated legislature to strengthen minority rule in the state by making it harder for a political majority to change the constitution. High turnout resulted in a vote whose unofficial count was about 57% against and about 43% in favor. Even key Republican districts voted against the measure.

For more than a century, Ohio voters have been able to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot so long as they get a certain number of signatures, and the amendment passes if it gets more than 50% of the vote. But the overturning of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision in June 2022 sparked a strong backlash across the country. In Ohio, abortion rights activists began to collect signatures to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot in November, and it was clear they would succeed (in July they submitted 70% more signatures than they needed).

So in May, Ohio Republican legislators set a special election in August to require more signatures to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot and a threshold of 60% of the vote, rather than a simple majority, for the amendment to pass. That’s a very high bar, although, ironically, two amendments that tried to stop political gerrymandering—the practice that has given Republicans a supermajority in the state legislature—passed with about 75% of voters…and the Republicans ignored them.

Only last December the legislature ended most August elections because the traditionally low turnout made it easy for special interests to win by flooding the state with advertising money to energize a small base.

Although the position of secretary of state is supposed to be nonpartisan because the office oversees the state’s elections, Ohio’s Republican secretary of state, Frank LaRose, said: “This is 100% about keeping a radical pro-abortion amendment out of our constitution.”

But the implications of making it harder for voters to change laws stretched beyond Ohio. As pro-choice ballot initiatives keep winning, Republican-dominated legislatures across the country are trying to make it harder for citizens to use ballot initiatives. Republican attempts to stop voters from challenging their policies, especially in states where gerrymandering has given them far more seats in the legislature than would accurately represent their support, will echo beyond the issue of abortion to any policy voters would like to challenge.

A former chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, Republican Maureen O’Connor, told Sam Levine of The Guardian that the proposed measure “absolutely is minority rule…. If you get 59.9% of a vote that says yes, 40.1% can say no. This is the way it’s gonna be. We can thwart the effort of the majority of Ohioans that vote. And that’s not American.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[alpinefitco]

Surviving Alaska: Why Alaska is Different

In the words of an old Alaskan local: “Alaska is beautiful, but it can kill you.” You’ve heard the stories, maybe seen the movie Into the Wild. The folklore here runs deep with tales of people walking into the woods, never to be seen again. Most of us have friends that have perished in small-plane crashes. It has certainly caught the attention of the reality tv circuit. Separating truth from myth, or tv hype, may offer some reassurance but it’s no A Walk in the Woods (Thoreau).

The weather here is notoriously harsh and difficult to predict. In many places the coastal climate with big mountains is compounded by relatively few NOAA weather forecasting offices. All the inlets and glaciers cause confusing katabatic and anabatic winds. Good luck accurately predicting tomorrow’s weather, let alone what will happen a week from now! Anyone that has spent time here knows to pack for multiple weather scenarios, regardless of the time of year. Sun often turns to rain and then to snow as you climb from the foothills to the valley and then up the mountain. Leaving for an extended hike or camping trip always involves some sort of protective wear and should never be limited to just a t-shirt.

Our summers are short with the snow melting in May, or June/July in the mountains. Snow starts again in August if you are in the Brooks Range. Spring season is marked by thin ice, punchy snow, and slick mud. This is followed by “breakup” when the rivers start losing their ice. I have seen rivers rise by inches in just a few minutes from the meltwater in June; it almost took my packraft away. Crossing rivers at this time can be very different from the later summer and some popular hikes that involve river crossings are best held until water levels subside. Summer is often nice, marked by rapidly growing brush that can become disorienting as the trail diminishes from well-worn to game trail to alder thicket.

Don’t get me started on the mosquitoes. The interior of Alaska will drive you bonkers, even with proper protection. The wildlife loses a significant proportion of their blood volume to these suckers. I’m getting itchy just thinking about them...

Alaska’s larger wildlife can be a bit of a nuisance at times as well. Grizzly bears and black bears strike the most fear in our imagination. Kids are taught from a young age how to deal with them. Packing necessary bear protection is essential, and required by the Park Service when entering the National Parks. Moose can be aggressive as well, especially during the rutting season. 

Most notorious, however, is our remoteness. Let me run some numbers by you. We are twice the size of Texas and have the 3rd lowest population of any state. Alaska has the 4 largest National Parks, the largest is 13 million (!) acres. Did you hear about our forest fire? I doubt it but we had just over 3 million acres burn in 2022, our 7th largest year; no smoke over Anchorage though. And my favorite statistic is that the most remote place in the lower 48 is 21.7 miles from a road; compare that to Alaska which sports many places 100+ miles from roads or settlements. Here, we travel into the bush prepared, with multiple backups of food, clothing, and emergency communication. Weather may prevent rescue for days. 

[classicwoodie]

Beaver Sea Plane.

The quintessential Alaska bush plane, the DeHavilland Beaver occupies a seat of honor in the annals of aviation history. Perhaps no other airplane ever built has seen such a long career, and proven to be as indispensable today as it was when developed over 65 years ago.

The sturdily-built Beaver was designed to carry a lot of weight and operate effectively on either wheels or floats. Alaska Seaplanes' Beavers all operate on straight floats from April into November for maximum payload, and generally spend the winter warm and dry in one of our hangars. All our Beavers have advanced Capstone avionics packages with ADS-B real-time positioning capability.

With an ample useful load and the ability to carry up to six passengers, our Beavers are the perfect airplane for ferrying you to wilderness camping destinations—remote lakes, Forest Service cabins, islands and rivers.

[vanderlustvans]

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