#early accessers....... less than three weeks and i will only fart

[luridsims]

i would just like to say to anyone who feels the need to paywall their content for TWO MONTHS. i will personally come to your house and shit on your keyboard. what the fuck bro.

[maren-as-an-adult]

The 2020 Experience, Part 4

December was...rough. Every free moment I had was spent looking for better paying jobs and more apartments. Christmas gifts were planned and purchased under extreme budget. I had an upcoming OB-GYN appointment. And the accumulated stress finally broke me physically and mentally.

I started noticing it when I had my OB-GYN appointment. My appointment wasn’t until 4:30pm, but I wanted to get some Christmas shopping done, so I took an early train into Atlantic Terminal to do some shopping in and around Barclay’s Center. I didn’t have breakfast before I left, so I grabbed a latte and a slice of iced lemon cake from Starbucks. There were some benches outside where I sat down and ate. Afterwards, I hit up Target and Marshall’s. Once I was in line for Marshall’s, I started feeling... off. I could feel my pulse rushing in my face, and my stomach felt simultaneously empty and twisted upside down. I couldn’t tell if I felt like I was going to vomit or poop, or if I was just really gassy and needed to fart. I made it through purchasing and left to sit down somewhere, anywhere. I think I settled down in front of either TJ Maxx or Burlington on the ground. I pulled my knees into my chest, waiting and hoping for this feeling to pass. After about 15 minutes and no change, I knew I needed to find a bathroom. And in COVID times, I had a better chance of finding a four-leaf clover growing out of the concrete than a public toilet I could access.

Target, however, was my savior. Having purchased from them earlier, I happily took advantage of their open and clean bathroom facilities. I won’t go into too much detail, but I will say I spent a long time on that toilet trying to feel better. Eventually I had to move on, and I decided I would go outside and get as much fresh air as I could, hoping that would somehow cure me of this... whatever feeling it was. It helped, or at least that’s what I told myself as I slowly sipped water from my water bottle. I tried to make one last stop at one last shop before heading down to Bay Ridge for my OB-GYN appointment, but after two instances where I was forced to sit down again and wait for the feeling to pass to something barely more manageable, I decided the best course of action would be to arrive exceptionally early to my appointment and hope they had an unoccupied bathroom I could access.

Thankfully, they did. I somehow managed a thirty minute train ride, a ten minute wait for the bus, a ten minute bus ride, and a ten minute walk to the doctor’s office, where after filling out a few forms I retreated to their very clean single occupancy bathroom. I felt awful and wanted something done about it, so I open mouth breathed while kneeling in front of the toilet bowl for a while. It’s a technique I use when I feel like I may throw up and want to encourage my stomach to expel whatever’s clearly upsetting it. [I also wish to take this moment to make this very clear: I am not, nor have I ever been, bulimic. I don’t endorse or condone bulimia. I’m sure it’s very easy to read what I just wrote as inducing vomiting to purposefully purge, but it is not. I was not trying to make myself vomit, but I was prepared for that to happen should my body have decided that’s what it needed to do.] What ended up happening was about five minutes of dry heaving before my body apparently decided that because there was nothing there, that nothing was wrong anymore.

What was wrong with me? I hadn’t interacted with anyone who was sick, had I? I had recently started babysitting, could I have gotten something from one of the kids? Was I not as diligent as I thought I’d been with maintaining social distance and wearing a mask and sanitizing and washing my hands? Or was it something else? All I’d had to eat that day was some processed cake and a sugary latte, could I possibly have developed celiac disease overnight? Was my body finally shutting down it’s lactose-digesting functions? Was I just really overcaffeinated because I forgot to specify “half-caf” in my Starbucks order?

I posited these queries to my doctor while she poked around my vagina. She said it was possible I could be lactose intolerant or I could be crashing from the caffeine. When the staff had taken my temperature I wasn’t running a fever, so it wasn’t likely I’d caught anything off of someone. With a final fingering to gauge the position of my uterus (I learned it has a slight anterior tilt), my appointment was done and I was free to go home. Though I felt better, I decided against calling on my old roommates and to instead just head back to Graham’s. I made one last gift purchase before hopping on the LIRR, and my Christmas shopping was essentially done.

The feeling didn’t disappear though, and on some days it became unmanageable. My GI system was clearly in distress, and not a lot was helping. I found a few packs of ginger turmeric tea at Graham’s house and made myself a cup, firmly placing my faith in the healing properties of what some (uncultured) people call “hot leaf juice”. I think it helped, but I can’t be sure. I’d told Graham about what was going on and what I thought it could be, and he could sympathize and to a degree empathize. It wasn’t until one night when I was again dry heaving into a toilet bowl that Graham fully saw what an awful state I was in. I told him at this point I thought it was a manifestation of the stress we’d been under for the past eight weeks. For eight weeks we’d been searching for apartments, passing on nice ones just out of our budget, trying to come to terms with the infinite number of mediocre same-floor plan, same-color, same-appliances, same-building looking ones, and getting discouraged with the shitty, falling apart ones. I had spent my first Thanksgiving away from my family and had resigned myself to spending Christmas apart from my family for the first time as well. I’d had three separate COVID tests in the past two months. I hadn’t spoken to my therapist since before Thanksgiving. And I had spent the entire month at Graham’s family’s house, which was not something I had wanted.

I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. Truly, I’m indebted to Graham’s mom for letting me not only stay with them rent-free (but agreeing to walk their dogs) but also keep my stuff there while she is also getting ready to move out. But I have never felt comfortable calling someone else’s place my home. I cannot help but feel like an outsider, and no matter how many times people tell me to “make [myself] comfortable” and “help [myself] to whatever food there is” I will feel like an imposition and a burden. It’s only my anxiety coming through, but it comes through LOUD.

I finally scheduled an appointment with my therapist again, and poured all this out to him. I told him exactly how bad things had gotten, and not for the first time I considered asking to be prescribed anti-anxiety medication and possibly antidepressants. I decided to keep going without them...for now.

Christmas Eve came and Graham, his family, and I all celebrated together. We were gifted some lovely items to start our life living together, like a knife set, a set of glasses, new bedding, and a casserole dish. It was a lovely respite from the stress.

On Christmas Day, Graham and I went to see another apartment. This apartment was in the same building as the apartment we almost signed for, and the only differences were that this apartment was on a lower floor and didn’t have a balcony. It was also almost $100/month less than what we had almost agreed to. The owner said he would send over the application and answers to our questions on Monday. We both felt good about this apartment.

When Monday came with no e-mail from the guy, I reached out to him to ask when we could expect it. His response was that he had just been diagnosed with COVID-19 and now wanted to sell instead of rent. This became all too much for me, and when I got back into Graham’s car as we were out running errands, I started screaming. I hadn’t screamed like this since a particularly bad day of work I had back when I worked at Target. It was cathartic, but I felt cold and disconnected from Graham for the rest of the day. Something had broken inside me, and I wasn’t sure if it was my heart, my soul, my mind, or all three. It took a while for me to recover, and honestly I’m still hurt and feel betrayed by this guy. I understand I cannot speak for what’s best for him or what he felt he should have done, but Graham and I felt that we were given the runaround by this guy. We scheduled another COVID test for ourselves, and tried to move forward.

We made it to New Year’s Eve, and stayed up to watch 2020 end. New Year’s felt somber this year, and it felt hard to celebrate the start of a new year when the one we just went through was so damaging.

But we made it. We’re here, and it’s the first week of January in 2021. Currently there are radical conservatives storming the Capitol protesting the electoral college results, but in less than 20 days, Trump will be out of office. I’ve given myself goals that are manageable for the new year, and Graham and I have three applications out for three different apartments, and there’s a chance we may be able to get the apartment we saw on Christmas Day. We keep moving forward, because the alternative is to not move at all.

And I refuse to allow that for myself.

[quirkykayleetam]

Empty Shell

Hello!  This is an entry in the Broken Pieces series.  The previous piece is Kind Restraints and can be found by that title or the tags of any of the main characters.

“We have a problem.”

Special Agent Daniel Wei looked up from his desk at Morgan Security to find his boss scowling down at him.  He took a sip of coffee.

“You remember that Jonathan kid?”

Daniel nodded.  How could he forget? 

 Despite the “Security” in the name Morgan Security, most of his assignments since joining the firm eight years ago were pretty tame.  Intimidation was the name of the game for the most part.  Sometimes he got to make people feel safe.  Those days he drank less coffee and whistled on the car ride home.  

What happened with the kid...?  Daniel hadn’t seen anyone hurt that badly since his time in the service.  He tried not to dwell on the fact that all that damage was done a 26-year-old civilian just protecting his job, but the image of Jay’s protruding ribs still woke him up at night.

“It’s his caretaker.  Apparently she ordered Jones around like a schoolboy.  Spit in Wilson’s face for good measure.  They’re off the case, effective immediately.”

“Who is she?”

“Some brood named Evelyn or Emily or something, though the boys are calling her something else.”

Daniel’s boss chucked.  Daniel didn’t.

“Look, Wei, I know it’s not your usual gig, but this whole thing is still on a need-to-know basis.  I got managers breathing down my neck that nobody else even hears a fart about what happened.”

Unceremoniously, he dropped a bundle of blue medical files on Daniel’s desk.

“As of now, you’re the kid’s case worker for the firm.  You screw this up and it's your neck on the line, not mine, you hear me?  The whole thing was fucked from the start if you ask me.”

Daniel didn’t hear him.  All he could see were the pictures closely documenting the welts, cuts, and bruises down Jay’s left side.  They must have been taken the night of his rescue sometime after Jay passed out in Daniel’s trunk.

The agent took another long drought of coffee.  Apparently he was going to have more nightmares tonight.

Daniel arrived early at the hospital the next morning.

Jay was already awake.  A nurse in pink patterned scrubs slowly spooned swallows of lukewarm eggs into the patient's mouth.

Daniel looked away.

He pretended it was for Jay’s sake.  Being spoon fed had to be a humiliating reminder of the computer scientist’s immobilized hands.

In reality, he couldn’t handle the look in Jay’s eyes.

Jay stared unseeing at the blank hospital wall in front of them.  It was as if they came back to themselves any further they’d have to feel the pain and trauma and heartbreak of everything they went through and, at least now, early in the morning, forced to rely on strangers and IVs and pain meds just to survive, Jay’s body couldn’t handle it.  It reverted into an empty shell.

Instead, Daniel found the figure slumped near the opposite wall.  Elizabeth “Beth” Martinez, 38-year-old Art Department secretary at Landring Community College, looked like she’d collapsed more than fallen asleep in the stiff metal chair by Jay’s bed.  Her mouth hung open a little and her hands stretched out on the armrest toward Jay.  A rumbled duffel bag huddled under her feet.  It couldn’t have held more than two sweaters and three pairs of socks, but Beth obviously wasn’t leaving that room unless she had to.

A flurry of movement brought Daniel’s eyes back to the nurse and her charge.

“We’ve just got a new protein shake in.  It’s chocolate!  I know it’s just breakfast, but you need to get some meat on your bones.”

She set the brown liquid and straw within reach of Jay’s mouth, but instead of taking a sip, Jay’s eyes went wide.

Jay lashed out, spooking the nurse and sending thick chocolate liquid puddling across the tile floor.  Before Daniel could blink, Beth was by Jay’s side, rubbing their back as they buried their face in her neck.

“Don’t drink it!  Don’t drink it, Beth!” Jay half yelled, half sobbed.

“I won’t.  I promise, Jay.”

“It...It’s poisoned.  You never know how it’s gonna hurt you, but it always does.  I know, I know I need it.  I have to stay alive, have to keep them away from you, but I’m tired, Beth.  I’m so weak and tired, I don’t know what to do…”

With gentle hands, Beth gripped both sides of Jay’s face.  She moved them upward until she could look Jay in the eyes.

“Jay, when you were at Princeton and your dad died and you drove miles and miles home in your roommate’s car just so you could be there for your mom as soon as possible, were you weak for wanting to sleep when you got back?”

“N...No.”

“It’s okay to be tired, Jay.  It’s like, I don’t know, warriors on watch.  You’ve done your job protecting us.  Now it’s your turn to rest so we can take care of you.”

Daniel Wei left the hospital without a word.  He had work to do.

***

Weeks later, the agent returned to find Jay sitting at a table on the other side of the room.  Their hands were still in splints.  They still had dark circles under their eyes.  They stared at the table like its solid plastic was grounding them.

Daniel bit back a sigh as the kid didn’t even look up as he entered the room.

Then there was a kerfuffle behind him.

“Aha!” Beth said, bursting through the door.  “I finally found a nurse who doesn’t do the Chronicle Sunday crossword at ass o’clock in the morning!  Jay-bird we are good to go.”

Jay’s eyes lit up as Beth smacked the paper down in front of him and grabbed another chair.  For the first time, Daniel realized they were blue.

“Bet you stole it,” they said quietly.

Beth hand flew out of her purse where she was rooting for a pencil and struck above her heart.

“I am deadly offended that you would even think that I would stoop to such things, especially on the day of our Lord!  I asked, thank you very much!  Besides, if you’re so against stealing, maybe I shouldn’t give you your other treat…”

“You’d withhold a treat from a poor invalid?” Jay deadpanned.  “Oh my poor arm.”

Beth chucked.  Jay smiled.

“I know you’re having trouble with straws, Jay-bird, but I thought, maybe…”

Beth pulled a purple aluminum can out of her purse.

Jay leaned forward eagerly, but then made himself pause.

“Am I allowed to…?”

“Hell, I don’t see why not!  They’re trying to get calories into you anyway that they can.  Junk food is only gonna help with that!”

Beth popped the tab on the Grape Crush and stuck a straw in it, moving it toward Jay as she nudged his foot companionably.

Tentatively, Jay took a sip.  Then a swig.  Then a gulp that took up half the bottle.

“Whoa, slow down there Jay-bird.  They will kick me out of here if you die from a sugar high.”

“It tastes like capitalism,” Jay sighed.

“And?”

“And not like hospital food!”

“Good!  Then this will be the first of our illegal smuggling adventures, deal?”

“Deal.”

There was a pause as Jay savored his soda.

Daniel cleared his throat.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, Jay,” he said.  “I’m Special Agent Daniel Wei from Morgan Security.  Would you mind if I borrowed Ms. Martinez for a few minutes?”

Jay looked at Beth who nodded wearily and got up to follow Daniel out the door.

***

As soon as Daniel and Beth got settled in an empty conference room, her whole demeanor changed.  Her smile slid into a tight thin line and she squared her shoulders even as they fell a few inches.

“So, Agent,” she said.  “When are we going to be able to get him out of here?”

“Jay’s casts home off in two weeks.  If he passes all his physical examinations, I don’t see any reason for him to stay longer than that.”

“Good.  And where we’re going?  I assume you’ve got all of that sorted.  There are a few things I’d like to bring with me, but everything else can go.”

Beth clenched her jaw as she said the words.

Daniel closed his eyes.

Here was a woman trying to hold the world together for a kid who’d completely lost his life.  In the process she was losing hers too.  If he made her, she would have to go back into that hospital room and tell Jay that everything was working out perfectly even if she didn’t know where they were going to be tomorrow or what Morgan Security would require of them.  And she’d do it.  He could see that weary determination in her deep brown eyes and he knew exactly how hard she’d come down on all of them if they pushed Jay too hard.

“We’ll continue to pay for your old apartments as long as we need to,” Daniel promised.  “You’ll be able to get your stuff whenever you need to, whether that means going back yourself or letting us hire folks to get it for you.  We won’t make you leave things behind.  Not when they’re as important as Grape Crush.”

Beth didn’t smile, but her shoulders relaxed a little.

“As for where you’re going…”

Daniel passed a manila folder across the table to Beth.

“The firm picked out a safe house with the latest security.  It’s off the grid with the best locks and monitors and motion detectors money can buy.  And, for lack of a better word, it’s a bunker.  I saw the place where they were keeping him Ms. Martinez.  I thought Jay might prefer something more homey.”

Holding his breath, he took out another file.

“This holding just came on the market.  It’s not far outside the city.  You’d have to drive longer for doctor’s visits, but you’d have access to a public pool and a park a few blocks away.  I made sure that it was only one story so you wouldn’t have any problems with dizziness and falling from Jay’s pain medications.”

“And it has windows,” Beth said softly.

“And it has windows,” Daniel said.  “It looks like a home.”

He cleared his throat.

“There is one more thing about this property that you should know about that’s not in the papers.”

Beth looked up.

“I understand Jay has been seeing a Morgan Security psychiatrist.”

Beth almost sprung out of her chair.

“Look, I get it!  You want to know what happened to him.  You want him to tell you the story of every mark to make sure he didn’t tattle when they beat him half to death.  Just don’t bring me into it.  I’m not spying for you.  I’m trying to make him better while you’re focused on your own damn pride!”

“I agree.”

“What?”

“Jay needs someone who understands what he’s going through and is focused on his recovery, not his worth to any company,” Daniel said calmly.  “Next door to this address is Dr. Stephens.  He’s an old army buddy who specialized in special service members and PTSD.  This would not be his first time working with the aftereffects of torture.  Jay might still have to meet with the Morgan Security doc for appearances sake, but Dr. Stephens has promised to see him off the books.  Doctor/patient confidentiality would apply.”

That made Beth deflate completely.

“Do you really think this Dr. Stephens could help?  Jay talks more in his sleep than he does in person.  I still don’t know what’s going to set him off and I just…I just want him to feel safe.”

Daniel placed his hand on her, cold on the tan plastic table.

“So do I.”

***

Daniel returned Beth to Jay’s hospital room with the hope of a smile on his face.  Before the could close the door, the pair started bickering about the answer to the crossword’s 27 Across.  Beth held her pencil like a dagger while Jay batted at it with ineffective, casted hands.  Through it all, their feet remained pressed together with comfortable pressure, reminding each other that they were there and they weren’t going away.

Like that night long ago when he rescued Jay, Daniel pulled out his cell phone and dialed Morgan Security.  His boss picked up.

“No sir, there’s no problem,” Daniel said.  “I just need to get a copy of the Chronicle delivered outside the city to Westover drive.  Yes, this is a matter of great importance.”

Filling the “Empty Shell” square with Original Characters for @badthingshappenbingo​!  I think I’m setting a record for filling the most squares without actually making any of them line up lol.

Tagging the Broken Pieces Crew: (If you want to be added or taken off this list, just let me know!):  @stoic-whumpee​​​​, @whatwasmyprevioususername​​​​, @whumpty-dumpty-fell-off-the-wall​​​​, @straight-to-the-pain​​​​, @castielamigos-whump-side-blog​​​​, @0idril0​​​​, @fallingstormphoenix​​​​, @whump-fantasies​​​​, @imagination1reality0​​​​, @whumpback-wail​​​, @whump-tr0pes​​​, @untilthepainstarts​​​, @captivity-whump​​, @burtlederp​​, @redwingedwhump​​, @whumpiary​​, @captivity-whump​​, @blue-flare10​

All credit to @stoic-whumpee​ for the idea of making Daniel a main character.

[olwog]

So, the weather has been somewhat inclement of late and the track, if expressed in terms of the racing community, would be ‘heavy’. Scuba divers and ducks would be comfortable in the heather covered depressions and walkers are well advised to wear waders.

  We exercise our old farts passes and take the excellent Abbotts service from Northallerton to Swainby and within a few minutes we’re heading up Shepherds Hill the cross roads of the Cleveland Way and an abrupt turn right later we’re raising our heart rate on the steps towards Osmotherley. In the early years these would have required four or five stops out of necessity to regaining control of breathing and, if I’m frank, to remain upright. Whilst it would be wrong to imply that we’re now capable of jogging to the top, we do find that the one stop that we do make is more to do with the opportunity to take photographs and less to do with necessity; it really does feel good!

We’ve walked about a mile and the ViewRanger app is telling me that the elevation is approximately 250 metres (800 feet) the walk up on Shepherds Hill that preceded the steps is a good warm-up. We take a short break at the top to sit on the strategically placed bench seats that look out over the Vale of Mowbray towards Teesside then beyond to the coast and beautiful Durham.

  The track leads to a cattle grid where we make the decision to continue along the road to Sheepwash and onwards to the Drovers Road where huge herds of cattle would be brought from the Highlands of Scotland through the counties of the beautiful but unforgiving counties of Northern England and onward to the markets of East Anglia, the Midlands and onward to London. There are records indicating an average speed of 2 miles per hour which is remarkable if you consider that we don’t achieve much more than that if you include breaks.

We walk for twenty minutes and George calls a short break as he confirms our route across the moor proper. We don’t normally go off-piste but on this occasion, we need to shorten the walk by a couple of miles and there is the remnants of a track that we have used before. To our right running North West is Bad Lane which we have used before and is quite overgrown; however, to our left running South East is what we want to follow and it makes Bad Lane look positively defined.

    We turn left through the gate and begin our orienteering work along Solomon’s Lane. It really isn’t clear but there’s are remnants of a drystone wall from time to time and plenty of boggy water which is not surprising after the deluge of the last three weeks. This element of the walk is tougher than track walking and we have to pick our way carefully as the heather covered troughs are full of peaty water that isn’t deep enough to be dangerous but is definitely deep enough to render you uncomfortable for the rest of the walk.

This yomp is about 2km (over a mile) and takes in very few landmarks save grouse butts and a tiny copse but the track has occasional evidence of its previous existence in the form of a dry stone wall that is slowly being subsumed into the moor by lichen, gorse, and heather.

    At the intersection of the two tracks, we take a break for lunch and take the opportunity to appreciate the vastness of the moor. The wind has dropped and the sound of the birds becomes evident and the next few minutes is spent in near silence as we enjoy the sounds of the moor and the taste our sandwiches.

We turn left on the new track and head North, North East towards the Gamekeeper’s Lodge. It’s easy walking now although there has been three weeks of torrential rain the moors have done a sterling job of draining it and we don’t have to spend so much time concentrating where our next foot should fall. Each bluff exposes more moor and we eventually see the Lodge on the moor horizon and we exchange this for the Bilsdale Mast which has been one of our triangulation for our location until now. For info, I do use an app on my phone which will show our position to within a couple of metres but it only gets used for verification so we don’t lose our ability to navigate should there be any failure on behalf of technology.

The Gamekeeper’s lodge is also a marker for a fork in the track. It’s another 100 metres or so North and we take the left-hand fork that takes us due North and then North, North West towards Swainby. It’s a clear day so we’re expecting to see Whorl Hill at the foot of the wonderfully named Scugdale and within a couple of kilometres it shows itself as we begin to descend.

    I always like this view. I worked in Teesside for twenty-five years and its reputation for pollution is well out of date but, sadly,  it is maintained by the slang name of Smoggies to label Teessiders and is neither funny or appropriate. I would urge you to have a look at the Teesside towns and explore the banks of the Tees where huge investment has taken place in fact, I’ll feature the area in a future walk and try to dispel a few myths about our wonderful region.

There’s a chained gate at the cattle grid. It’s been a bone of contention for several months now since a notice declaring ‘No Public Access’ was erected. We’ve ignored it obviously and in fairness, the gamekeeper that we’ve met on a couple of occasions has been perfectly amicable and generously helpful so we’re not sure of the game being played.

    We’re on what we call Cardiac Hill and walking through the trees as the Vale of Mowbray opens up in front of us as we descend. It’s spring so the rooks and crows are in full voice. The way to tell them apart, I’m told is:

If you see a number of rooks together then they’re crows and if you see a crow alone then it’s a rook (I’m happy to stand corrected).

At the bottom of the hill, we cross the Pennine Way and, looking left, we see the steps that we traversed three hours ago. Through the gate and down through beautiful Swainby to the Rusty Bike to enjoy their pies and salad.

A great loop walk with numerous spring flowers.

  The George Preston for planning it.

Enjoy the snaps…G..x

Please feel free to comment, like and share.

Swainby, Sheepwash, Drovers, Gamekeepers Lodge Loop So, the weather has been somewhat inclement of late and the track, if expressed in terms of the racing community, would be ‘heavy’.