Life of Nobody

[Adios]

I have no explanation. I can tell you the hair on my arms stood on end from just writing about it.

[Adios]

Have you ever been really scared? I mean the kind of scared you can't even shit your pants scared.

Yeah, once.  I already talked about it.  I got so scared, I've never been scared since.

It certainly does change a perspective.

[Jenne]

STILL great stuff!    Love it.  (I need the distraction, and this is a good way to do it!)

[Adios]

Glad you are enjoying it!

[Adios]

So let's ignore the mosquitoes, snakes, chiggers, leeches, ticks, spiders and bees for a moment. Let us put aside that when you swing a machete to cut down a tree you are leaving a potential punji stick in your back trail.
Pay no attention to the quicksand or floating islands you could fall through. Ignore the smell of rotting vegetation and stagnant water.

There are still alligators. Alligators are not cool. They are a prehistoric eating machine who can kill you as quickly with one end as the other. Imagine getting bitten by one and the instant need for 90 stitches from a single swipe of those large teeth filled with rotting meat. Say you can actually get away from one after this, and remember they can outrun you on dry land and in water you are just a toy.

Then imagine the weeks you will spend fighting off infection. Bad infections. Add in the physical recovery and top it off with the mental anguish.
The tail can break your legs with just one swipe. No, I am not talking about those poor baby gators you see some 300 pound guy 'wrestling'. I am talking the 10 - 14 foot variety found in the real world. Several hundred pounds of hungry.

So one day the field sup told me I had to swim a canal and it was obvious there were about 15 gators out there. I looked at him like he had lost his mind. He wasn't kidding. He told me if I swam slowly and didn't make a lot of noise they would just move out of my way.

So I picked up the instrument and tripod and put it on my back and started swimming. Damn if he wasn't right. They very slowly just kind of moved out of my way. Don't get me wrong. My asshole was certainly watertight that day like never before or since.

[BadBeast]

So let's ignore the mosquitoes, snakes, chiggers, leeches, ticks, spiders and bees for a moment. Let us put aside that when you swing a machete to cut down a tree you are leaving a potential punji stick in your back trail.
Pay no attention to the quicksand or floating islands you could fall through. Ignore the smell of rotting vegetation and stagnant water.

There are still alligators. Alligators are not cool. They are a prehistoric eating machine who can kill you as quickly with one end as the other. Imagine getting bitten by one and the instant need for 90 stitches from a single swipe of those large teeth filled with rotting meat. Say you can actually get away from one after this, and remember they can outrun you on dry land and in water you are just a toy.

Then imagine the weeks you will spend fighting off infection. Bad infections. Add in the physical recovery and top it off with the mental anguish.
The tail can break your legs with just one swipe. No, I am not talking about those poor baby gators you see some 300 pound guy 'wrestling'. I am talking the 10 - 14 foot variety found in the real world. Several hundred pounds of hungry.

So one day the field sup told me I had to swim a canal and it was obvious there were about 15 gators out there. I looked at him like he had lost his mind. He wasn't kidding. He told me if I swam slowly and didn't make a lot of noise they would just move out of my way.

So I picked up the instrument and tripod and put it on my back and started swimming. Damn if he wasn't right. They very slowly just kind of moved out of my way. Don't get me wrong. My asshole was certainly watertight that day like never before or since.

More to come.

Thanks for this! This is riveting stuff, I can almost hear the whine of the mosquitoes, and the plop of unknown  things dropping into the water.
And the uncomfortable itch in the back of my neck, that makes me feel I'm being hunted .  I Keep expecting the ghost of Cyrus Gold to leap out of Slaughter Swamp, and drag me down into one of those alligator holes.

[Adios]

So let's ignore the mosquitoes, snakes, chiggers, leeches, ticks, spiders and bees for a moment. Let us put aside that when you swing a machete to cut down a tree you are leaving a potential punji stick in your back trail.
Pay no attention to the quicksand or floating islands you could fall through. Ignore the smell of rotting vegetation and stagnant water.

There are still alligators. Alligators are not cool. They are a prehistoric eating machine who can kill you as quickly with one end as the other. Imagine getting bitten by one and the instant need for 90 stitches from a single swipe of those large teeth filled with rotting meat. Say you can actually get away from one after this, and remember they can outrun you on dry land and in water you are just a toy.

Then imagine the weeks you will spend fighting off infection. Bad infections. Add in the physical recovery and top it off with the mental anguish.
The tail can break your legs with just one swipe. No, I am not talking about those poor baby gators you see some 300 pound guy 'wrestling'. I am talking the 10 - 14 foot variety found in the real world. Several hundred pounds of hungry.

So one day the field sup told me I had to swim a canal and it was obvious there were about 15 gators out there. I looked at him like he had lost his mind. He wasn't kidding. He told me if I swam slowly and didn't make a lot of noise they would just move out of my way.

So I picked up the instrument and tripod and put it on my back and started swimming. Damn if he wasn't right. They very slowly just kind of moved out of my way. Don't get me wrong. My asshole was certainly watertight that day like never before or since.

More to come.

Thanks for this! This is riveting stuff, I can almost hear the whine of the mosquitoes, and the plop of unknown  things dropping into the water.
And the uncomfortable itch in the back of my neck, that makes me feel I'm being hunted .  I Keep expecting the ghost of Cyrus Gold to leap out of Slaughter Swamp, and drag me down into one of those alligator holes.

Thanks. I wasn't sure how this would be received but Dok has inspired me to put down some of my experiences in writing. Feed back is welcome and appreciated.

[Adios]

With fear I brought this to the most honest bunch of critics I know. So much of this is a first rough draft but any criticism is welcome. As I get back into my story telling mode I also expect more details to come into play. These are real experiences that happened to me or to people I knew when I was there.

[Adios]

Some days just start bad. There is no other way to say it. It was first thing in the morning and we were just wading out in the swamp and had only made it about 20 feet when the party chief who was in the lead kind of squealed and swung his machete at the water. A cottonmouth had come to say good morning.

As it turned out he had cut half the head off and then we lost the snake. Now try to imagine 4 guys with razor sharp machetes in close proximity to each other all raised and ready to cut the first thing that even thought about moving. Now we had two concerns. If you have ever cut a snakes head off you know it keeps trying to bite and this head was in black water so we couldn't see where it was. Also we had a possibly live snake in a really bad mood in the water with us and we didn't know where it was.

We started working our way out of the swamp with each keeping watch in a different direction. The main problem with cottonmouths is they are aggressive. Most snakes will hear you coming and will try to get out of your way. A cottonmouth will come to see what the noise is about.

Well, we made it out of the water just fine and decided to just sit in the truck. All day. There was no safe way to go back to work. We decided we would pick up the next day and just work harder to make up the lost time.

Next morning.

It was a pretty morning, just a slight fog haze and no clouds. The sun was just starting to come up and the wildlife was waking up. We got all of out gear and started wading out again. Once again we made it about 20 feet in and from the back of the line a guy started yelling. Right about then all hell broke loose as a cottonmouth with half a head was swimming past us to get to the party chief. We were all swinging our machetes at it trying to finish the job but we were too worried about hitting another person. Finally the snake came clear of us and was going for the party chief and one guy got a clean swing and cut the rest of the head off.

We got out of the water, loaded up and went back to the meeting place and in no uncertain terms told the field sup he had to assign another crew to that area and give us another job. He complied. See, when you work in places like this and see and hear some things superstition seems more likely than if you haven't had to ever be there. We were believers. At least that day.

[Jasper]

AAAGH reading that gave me the fucking WILLIES. 

DAMN, HAWK.


I've read good horror novels with less impact.  You actually went through it though.

[Adios]

Thanks. Those were scary good times.

[Jasper]

I really hate that some animals, humans included, can go on with half their heads missing. 

Mother nature is kind of demonic sometimes.

[Adios]

One day Pancho and I were working in a recently drained area. Drained swamps always creeped me out. For one thing they feel spongy when you walk in them. It makes you tired because it's like you expect the bottom to fall out from under you. Another thing is what wildlife remains is confused and more aggressive.

I haven't mentioned that Pancho is afraid of snakes yet have I? I mean the utter panic screaming kind of scared of snakes. I saw him and Ted get in a fist fight over who was going to climb a tree once to get away from a snake. Then that snake hid in the roots of that big cypress and we couldn't get it out. Not that we really tried all that hard. They were screaming like monkeys for us to do something but we were all laughing too hard. That poor snake finally left on it's own to get away from their screaming.

Well back to the story. All of a sudden Pancho screamed like a school girl and knocked me down as he went by. I got up cussing and looked at where he was pointing. My hair stood on end. It was the biggest damn cottonmouth I had ever seen. We measured it later at 6 feet.

I found a down tree about 3 inches in diameter and proceeded to beat the snake to death. He put up one mighty good fight too. His body was as big around as the top of my leg and i couldn't pick him up. So I grabbed him by the tail and we were walking back to the truck. I know, you are asking why I would do this thing. Easy, the party chief was terrified of snakes as well. Of course Pancho was well ahead of me and wouldn't help drag the snake out at all.

So we get back to the truck and I casually walk up and with all I had heaved this snake on the hood. The party chief was sitting behind the wheel and started screaming as I expected. He also locked all the doors and rolled up all the windows. I was leaning against the truck trying to catch my breath from laughing so hard.

Suddenly the party chiefs whole attitude changed and I looked around to see a might pissed off 6 foot long cottonmouth coiled up and ready to strike at me. I moved. Ok, I screamed and ran like a sissy. My knees were wobbly and I was a white as a sheet. Now once I recovered I gave up on the idea of beating the snake to death and after a few tense moments (because I had to get in striking range) I managed to chop off the head. I buried the head and that's when we measured this thing. 6 feet. I still have nightmares about that snake.

[BadBeast]

The only other stuff I've read that describes "Swamp" like this, is "Swamp Thing" when Alan Moore used to write it. My own imagination, plus the narrative style, render the whole thing into panels, comic book style. The writing style is spare, with minimal adjectives, but this just enhances the engagement of the reader. The words flow like a train of thought should flow, easy to read, and wholly unpretentious, and capture the atmosphere, with an uncontrived naivety, that you just don't see very often. I'm thoroughly enjoying every piece of this. It has a conversational reality, that adds a  personal quality to every piece that many writers never seem to manage, and conveys a validity that only comes from personal experience. It's easy pace, and engaging content, give it a genre transcending quality, that could be developed into just about anything.
For instance, at the moment, your man Pancho, has the potential to be developed into a central character, or just kept as a peripheral device to flesh out the events described. Without describing him in any detail, there is already a view of what kind of character he is. This is really a fine piece of writing, and without wanting to get too gushy about it, you have a natural talent for almost dragging the reader in, and building atmosphere, that could go as far as you want to take it. Loving every bit of it so far.

[Jasper]

Wait, so you DRAGGED the snake, which you beat unconscious with a 3" tree, across the swamp, and it got back up when it heard laughter?