"Last season, we took 20 strangers to survive in Jordan. This time, we're taking our contestants to the breathtaking landscapes of Thailand. From lush jungles to pristine beaches, this exotic location will test our castaways like never before. It is the ultimate challenge, as for the next 39 days, they will be abandoned, left to fend for themselves in the scorching heat, torrential rains, and the constant battle for survival. In the end, only one will win the million dollar prize. 39 days, 20 people, ONE survivor!" -Jeff Probst
Season link: https://brantsteele.com/survivo21/r.php?c=SAGfN4zS

The cast:

--- Pagu Tribe ---
Benjamin Chase - Retail Sales Associate - Detroit, MI
Carter Rhodes - Retired Police Officer - Wichita, KS
Ethan Montgomery - Attorney - San Diego, CA
John Steele - Firefighter - Orlando, FL
Lindsey Sanchez - Communications Manager - Chicago, IL
Lucas Barrett - Wildlife Photographer - Los Angeles, CA
Mia Caldwell - Botanist - Houston, TX
Sarah Sinclair - Student - Providence, RI
Sherry Monroe - Wildlife Rescue Specialist - Boulder, CO
Sophia Delaney - Pediatric Nurse - Burlington, VM
--- Vivana Tribe ---
Aiden Walker - Musician and Sound Engineer - Brooklyn, NY
Alex Wells - IT Specialist - Indianapolis, IN
Amelia Valencia - Janitor - Los Angeles, CA
Charlotte Rivera - Marketing Manager - Honolulu, HI
Evelyn Pierce - Veterinarian - Asheville, NC
Isabella Tate - Art Therapist - Sedona, AZ
Katie Winters - Environmental Activist - Portland, OR
Liam Donovan - Financial Analyst - San Francisco, CA
Noah Emerson - Chef - Salt Lake City, UT
Tyler Jensen - Parkour Instructor - Minneapolis, MN
And that's it for the second season! Let me know what you think

Scheduled for June 3 R-THR. I am mostly concerned with struggling to get off the furniture 😂 All of our furniture is pretty cushy and the arms are squishy, I won't be able to use them to push off to get myself up. Even now I have to scoot forward and push off the back of the couch to get off because it slopes backward. Same with our recliners. And our bed is pretty high off the ground, I have to hop up on it now so not sure how I will manage that, might need a step stool).
Is a walker with a brake on it good enough to put in front of me to push myself up with? Do I need to consider a wedge or something to sit on so I am not sloped back as much? I see they also make canes that have a stabilizer handle in the middle to help with getting up, is that a better option? Like this: https://www.livehealthsmart.com/Sit-To-Stand-Quad-Cane
When I had knee surgery I used a single crutch in front of me between my legs to push myself up from sitting, this reminded me of that. I'd use the crutches but I don't have them anymore and don't want to store another set. I might also just be over-thinking, which I am prone to 😂

I (f 39) know I'm extremely lucky to have been so close to my paternal grandparents. My parents were teens when I was born, my grandparents were younger than I am now. Many of my earliest memories were of family time with my parents, grandparents, close family, etc. I remember Grannie singing me to sleep with Johnny Cash's "I Ride An Old Paint." We lived next door and they had a pool so we were constantly there. I remember swimming all day and then Grannie would order pizza afterwards. She always had our favorite drinks and snacks.
I could get into years of memories, but I don't want to go through my whole life. As an adult, I lived with my grandparents for a little while to save money and I helped her through her knee replacements, stayed with her when Grandad had events out of town.
Anyway, she was in great health and mobility until she got Covid 2 years ago. She developed bilateral pneumonia and was in ICU for weeks. She came home on oxygen and using a walker. She was diagnosed with Sjögrens Disease after that and began treatment. She declined for fast in February and passed on the 24th. I live 2 states away but drove all night to be by her side when she passed. I'm so heartbroken, devastated, and miss her so much.
My 2 year old daughter has already stopped asking to call her. She only knew her such a short time. I keep rereading the last text I got from her and looking at the messages she didn't reply to, which is when I worried. She lived with her iPhone and iPad in hand. She never let more than a few minutes go by without responding.
I had to go home immediately after the funeral and go right back to work and school. I started having panic attacks after being hit by a drunk driver in September, so her passing amped up the panic attacks, brought back my epilepsy, and have spun me into serious depression and executive dysfunction.
I'm really not okay and yesterday was so bad. I miss her so much but I don't feel I have time and space to genuinely grieve.

Spurs vs City

Competition: Premier League
Date: 14th May 2024
Venue: Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
Kickoff: 20:00 (BST)
TV: Sky Sports Tottenham Hotspur vs Manchester City Live Streaming and TV Listings, Live Scores, News, Videos - May 14, 2024 - England Premier League :: Live Soccer TV

Match Preview

Four straight defeats in the Premier League momentarily looked set to become a miserable five on the spin for a tepid Tottenham during the opening exchanges of their battle with Burnley, who required nothing fewer than three points to keep their hopes of a miraculous escape alive for at least a couple of hours.
However, just seven minutes after Jacob Bruun Larsen had opened the scoring, Spurs hit back through Pedro Porro - making amends for his role in the Clarets' strike - before another lauded defender in Micky van de Ven, Spurs' Player of the Season, finished like a veteran centre-forward to complete the turnaround.
In addition to ensuring that Burnley would be playing second-tier football in 2024-25, Spurs' victory saw the fifth-placed Lilywhites cut the deficit to fourth-placed Aston Villa down to four points, and their Champions League hopes will still be kicking by the time Tuesday rolls around if Liverpool glean at least a point at Villa Park on Monday.
Victory for the Lions and Tottenham will officially be out of the top-four running, although Postecoglou has stressed on numerous occasions that rising above that desired dotted line is not the ultimate goal for his side in his debut campaign, one in which Spurs have set a new club record in the Premier League era.
Indeed, fighting back to beat Burnley means that Tottenham have now rescued 25 points from losing positions in the 2023-24 Premier League - their highest tally in the competition and second only to Liverpool's 28 this term - and the seemingly endless run of Spurs home matches seeing both teams score now stands at 14 top-flight games.
Conceding the first goal in each of their last five matches does not bode well for a Tottenham side who may have mixed feelings about taking points off of Manchester City, whose traditional end-of-season surge saw them finally bump Arsenal off the gold medal position on Saturday lunchtime.
The newly-prolific Josko Gvardiol came up with two of the Citizens' four strikes at Fulham's Craven Cottage base, where FWA Player of the Year Phil Foden and Julian Alvarez also got in on the act; the latter calmly dispatched a penalty after Gvardiol passed up the opportunity to become the Premier League's first hat-trick-scoring defender.
Gvardiol unselfishly allowed penalty-taker Alvarez to fulfil his 12-yard duties, perhaps also taking City's inferior goal difference into account, and the treble winners established a two-point advantage over Arsenal with their seventh-straight Premier League win, but their formerly noisy neighbours could not do them a favour on Sunday.
Indeed, Arsenal's scrappy 1-0 win over Manchester United took the Gunners back to top spot and re-established their one-point lead over the champions, who must prevail on Tuesday if they are to be in control of their title destiny on May 19.
Another fresh page of club history could be written at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, though, as Man City have never won eight successive Premier League matches by at least two goals before, and they edged out Spurs 1-0 in North London in January's FA Cup tie.
However, the Premier League hoodoo still hangs over the men in sky blue, as they have only prevailed in one of their last five top-flight games against Tottenham and have never won a Premier League match at Spurs' new stadium, although some Lilywhites supporters may happily relinquish that record if it means no title parade for Arsenal.

Team News

Tottenham striker Richarlison was a surprise omission from the Brazil squad for the 2024 Copa America, although national team coach Dorival Junior explained that the ex-Everton man had picked up a calf problem, which was confirmed by Postecoglou at the weekend.
The fact that Richarlison's problem is serious enough to rule him out of the continental tournament suggests that he will not be available for Spurs' last two Premier League games, joining Timo Werner (hamstring), Ben Davies (calf), Manor Solomon (knee), Ryan Sessegnon (thigh), Fraser Forster (ankle) and Destiny Udogie (thigh) on that list.
After a couple of Emerson Royal disaster classes, Postecoglou experimented with Oliver Skipp at left-back for the visit of Burnley, but the 23-year-old's relative lack of minutes and tight turnaround means that Emerson might come back in; Postecoglou is reluctant to play Van de Ven out wide due to his injury issues this term.
Speaking of versatile defenders encountering fitness problems, only a quarter of the game had gone at Craven Cottage before Guardiola had to pull Nathan Ake out of the match; the Dutchman's injury has not been specified, but he was in visible discomfort.
It remains to be seen if Ake's problem will be severe enough to hinder his participation here, but he ought to be the champions' only absentee if so; Jack Grealish should return from the illness that kept him out of Saturday's success.
Thankfully for Guardiola, he can negate the possible loss of Ake by simply recalling Kyle Walker and shifting Manuel Akanji or the returning John Stones to a central role, and the Catalan coach may also try to take advantage of Spurs' left-back losses by reintroducing the tricky Jeremy Doku.
Tottenham Hotspur possible starting lineup: Vicario; Porro, Romero, Van de Ven, Emerson; Bissouma, Bentancur; Kulusevski, Maddison, Johnson; Son
Manchester City possible starting lineup: Ederson; Walker, Stones, Dias, Gvardiol; Silva, Rodri, De Bruyne; Doku, Haaland, Foden

Match facts

Head-to-head

• Tottenham have won each of their past four Premier League home games against Manchester City without conceding a goal.

Tottenham Hotspur

• Spurs ended a run of four consecutive league defeats by beating Burnley on Saturday.
• They have gone 1-0 down in each of their past five Premier League fixtures.
• Ange Postecoglou’s side have recovered 25 points from losing positions this season, second only to Liverpool.
• It's 14 Premier League home matches without a clean sheet for Spurs since a 2-0 win against Fulham on 23 October. Their longest such run is 15 games, latterly from December 2002 to September 2003.
• Tottenham have scored 71 goals - three shy of the club Premier League record set in 2017-18.

Manchester City

• If Manchester City win their final two league games they are guaranteed to become the first club to win four successive English top-flight titles.
• City are on a club record run of 33 matches unbeaten in all competitions since a 1-0 Premier League defeat at Aston Villa in December (W27, D6).
• There have only been two longer unbeaten runs in all competitions by an English top-flight team: 40 by Nottingham Forest in 1978, and 34 by Manchester United from September 1993 to March 1994.
• They have earned seven consecutive Premier League wins for the first time this season.
• Manchester City are vying to win four away league games in a row without conceding for only the second time, having first done so in 1903 in the second tier.
• Ederson could make his 250th Premier League appearance in this match.

Head to head (h2h) history and results

Tottenham wins: 66
Draws: 37
Man City wins: 67
COYS

Redditors on the PCT Week 10* (13 MAY 2024)

Hey folks, welcome back! So sorry for the lack of an update last week, unfortunately a combo of technical issues and life stuff got in the way of the post, but I'm glad to be back! Enjoy some slightly longer updates this week :)
I can't believe we're already in May! Now that the majority of hikers will be on trail, the numbers of new people added to the list weekly will start to slow down.
In hiker news, it looks like there has been a big noro bubble in and around Big Bear in the last week or two. Rumor is it may actually be some sort of algae in the Mission Creek area making people sick instead of noro. The hikers in our update mostly seem to be avoiding it so far. As for weather, the Sierras are still pretty snowed in, so many folks seem to be considering their options.
I don't anticipate there will be many more folks signing up moving forwards, so I won't continue to add the signup link, but it is still available on any of the past posts! Those are linked below the table if you want to take a look.

Hiker	Trail Name	Start Date	Last Location	Update
	Ninety Four	Mar 05 (NOBO)	Somewhere in SoCal	No new update
_	Cheetah	Mar 07 (NOBO)	Past Baden-Powell	05/11: Back on trail solo after a short vacation. Summited Baden-Powell. Getting used to being back on trail and in the bubble
	$tache	Mar 10 (NOBO)	Mile 600	05/10: Walked the aquaduct and took a double zero in Mojave to rest some injuries. Past mile 600
u/ Yeah-girl	Troll	Mar 11 (NOBO)	Ridgecrest	05/05: Covered the stretch from Tehachapi to Ridgecrest with heavy packs, enjoying the wildflowers
u/AlmostJuicey	Popcicle	Mar 17 (NOBO)	Baden-Powell	05/05: Inventing new kinds of bagels. Had a little celebration at mile 420. Summited Baden-Powell
	Rowan	Mar 19 (NOBO)	Off-trail	Waiting out the snow in the Sierras
	Clear	Mar 22 (NOBO)	Hikertown	05/12: Made it into Hikertown. Taking care of some tendonitis before continuing on to the aquaduct
		Mar 22 (NOBO)	Walker Pass	05/05: Pushing through wind, sun, and lack of water to reach Ridgecrest. Dealing with soreness and pain
	Menace	Mar 23 (NOBO)	Agua Dulce	05/12: Hiking along with the tramily and enjoying the trail. Dealing with some foot issues. Took some time off trail and enjoyed Six Flags before heading back to trail
	Shade	Mar 28 (NOBO)	Agua Dulce	05/07: Took the long road walk alternate to Baden-Powell due to snow. Pushed through some touch days and enjoyed Vasquez Rocks
		Mar 30 (NOBO)	Off-trail	05/09: Diagnosed with a stress fracture and recommended to stop hiking until mid-June. Re-evaluating next steps
		Mar 30 (NOBO)	Julian	No new update
		Mar 31 (NOBO)	Off-trail	04/29: Decided to leave trail after making it from Campo to Tehachapi and moving on to the next adventure
		Mar 31 (NOBO)	Off-trail	05/04: Summited Baden-Powell, and made it to Acton for some rest. Went through Vasquez Rocks and made it to mile 500. Decided to get off trail and return to family life
	Old Money	Mar 31 (NOBO)	Somewhere in SoCal	05/05: Hit one month on trail, and nearing mile 400
	Spicy	Apr 03 (NOBO)	Somewhere in SoCal	05/06: Had a rough time on San Jacinto, but now the miles are coming faster. Made it somewhere past mile 300
		Apr 04 (NOBO)	Wrightwood	05/06: Ate at the McDonalds, enjoyed a soak in the hot springs, and made it into Wrightwood
		Apr 05 (NOBO)	Agua Dulce	Had a zero in Wrightwood and climbed Baden-Powell. Did their first marathon day on trail! Took a resupply in Agua Dulce
	Brick & Paw Patrol	Apr 06 (NOBO)	Tehachapi	05/10: Had an eventful time rescuing two lost dogs (they did get reunited with their owners!) Reflected on the desert as they near the end, on the varying ecosystems, superblooms, and mountains
	Jenga	Apr 06 (NOBO)	Baden-Powell	05/12: Took a zero in Big Bear, then continued on , avoiding the noro bubble. Got an early start to tackle Baden-Powell
		Apr 08 (NOBO)	Mile 400	05/11: Made it through Mission Creek to rest in Big Bear. Relaxed in the hot springs, ate at the McDonalds, and switched out some gear. Hit mile 400. and one month on trail
		Apr 08 (NOBO)	Big Bear Lake	05/08: Stopped in Idyllwild and met the mayor. Made it through the Mission Creek area, and managed to dodge noro.
		Apr 09 (NOBO)	Big Bear Lake	Made it through San Jacinto and Mission Creek. Took a nice double zero in Big Bear
	French toast	Apr 10 (NOBO)	Tehachapi	05/10: Had McDonalds at Cajon Pass, enjoyed the gorgeous San Gabriels, and made it up to Tehachapi
	Frozen	Apr 12 (NOBO)	Hikertown	05/12: Took a dip at the hot springs, took a few days off for his son's birthday, and enjoyed the mountain views. Went through Vasquez Rocks, and hit mile 500. Making plans for the Sierras and the rest of trail
		Apr 15 (NOBO)	Cajon Pass	05/09: Made it the first 600 miles on trail
	Frostbite	Apr 15 (NOBO)	Cajon Pass	05/10: Made it through a good part of the desert to Cajon Pass
		Apr 17 (NOBO)	Mile 300	05/07: Made it through Mission Creek, and managed to avoid noro while in Big Bear. Hit the 300 mile mark
		Apr 17 (NOBO)	Idyllwild	05/07: Hit two weeks on trail, meeting new people and enjoying the views
		Apr 17 (NOBO)	Off-trail	05/12: Made it past Big Bear before injuring a knee, maybe an ACL tear. Getting off trail for treatment, and hoping to get back on sometime
		Apr 17 (NOBO)	Past Wrightwood	Made it through Mission Creek, had the first major rattlesnake experience, and stopped in Big Bear. Enjoyed getting some fresh fruit at Cajon Pass, and took a zero in Wrightwood. Took the road walk to skip Baden-Powell, and enjoyed some trail magic
	Aloha	Apr 19 (NOBO)	Warner Springs	05/04: Made it further through the desert to Warner Springs. Status: still alive
		Apr 20 (NOBO)	San Jacinto	05/06: Met the mayor in Idyllwild, and summited San Jacinto. Getting used to the hiker hunger
		Apr 21 (NOBO)	Deep Creek Hot Springs	05/10: Dealing with the heat and fewer water sources, stopping in Idyllwild, and summiting San Jacinto. Taking care to try an avoid noro, going through Mission Creek. Took some time in Big Bear, before heading back out and relaxing in the hot springs
u/Typical-Bike718	Twinkie	Apr 22 (NOBO)		No update yet
	Wind	Apr 22 (NOBO)	Whitewater	05/06: Took a zero in Idyllwild and dealt with some blisters. Climbed San Jacinto, and stopped in Whitewater for a rest
and	Poppins & Chimney Boy	Apr 22 (NOBO)	Idyllwild	05/12: Hiked through fog, stopped in Julian, and travelled through Warner Springs. Hiked through the dust and heat, and took a zero in Idyllwild by way of PVC. Back to trail and summiting San Jacinto, before taking more time in Idyllwild
		Apr 23 (NOBO)	Big Bear	05/12: Found some cows near Warner Springs, had a big breakfast at Paradise Valley Cafe, and zeroed in Idyllwild. Continued on to I-10. Skipped Mission Creek to try and avoid sickness, and hopped up to Big Bear
		Apr 24 (NOBO)	Lake Morena	05/10: Started trail and had a cold first night. Hiked through the cold and rain to Lake Morena and took a zero.
		Apr 28 (NOBO)	Mile 100	05/06: Had a good start to trail. Hit 100 miles
		Apr 29 (NOBO)	Idyllwild	05/13: Made it to Julian for some pie and laundry. Made it to mile 100, complete with sunburn. Took a nice zero in Idyllwild
		Apr 29 (NOBO)		No update yet
		Apr 30 (NOBO)	Idyllwild	05/12: Had a good start to trail. Made it to Idyllwild to meet with the mayor
		May 1 (NOBO)		No update yet
		May 3 (NOBO)		No update yet
	Spice Girl	May 3 (NOBO)	Terminus	05/06: Classic terminus pic to start off trail
	Sleepwalker	May 4 (NOBO)		No update yet
		May 7 (NOBO)		05/10: Started trail, made it to Julian for pie, showers and laundry
		May 10 (NOBO)	Mount Laguna	05/12: Had a hot first couple days on trail, seeing lizards and a rattlesnake
		May 11 (NOBO)		No update yet
2		May 12 (NOBO)		No update yet
		May 19 (NOBO)	Not on trail yet

WEEK 1 WEEK 2 WEEK 3 WEEK 4 WEEK 5 WEEK 6 WEEK 7 WEEK 8
Edit: Reddit delete some of the usernames again :(

To summarize, during the COVID period, I fractured my ankle without realizing it initially. After a brief rest of two weeks, I resumed sports activities despite lingering pain. Months later, I discovered a 1cm cartilage defect, which required surgical repair. Although the surgery went well, and a subsequent scope six months later was positive, two years down the line, excessive scar tissue in my ankle has led to chronic bone edema on my talus.
Consequently, I can no longer run, hike, or engage in any sports involving my ankle, not even cycling. Last week, after playing pickleball, the pain in my ankle was so severe that I needed to use a walker for two days. However, I can walk on flat surfaces without issue and lead a relatively normal, albeit sedentary, life – a lifestyle I find unfulfilling.
My desire is to regain an active lifestyle and pursue the activities that bring me joy. While doctors often recommend pool workouts, I find this option unappealing. I'm contemplating the possibility of a below-knee amputation (BKA), despite the potential negative consequences, as a means to resume an active lifestyle. The last doctor cautioned that even with a BKA, the pain and phantom limb sensations could be so severe as to prevent me from participating in the activities that make me happy. The way I see it, phantom pain gets worse when you aren't doing sports, meaning I would be able to do sports (with disabilities of course, but who cares).
Am I being unrealistic in considering a BKA, with all its potential drawbacks, solely to regain an active lifestyle, despite my ability to walk without pain on flat surfaces?
Anybody would trade back their BKA for their ankle to live a normal sedentary life? My ankle only hurts on the mornings, after watching a movie o laying down a bit, and after doing any impact activity or walking on irregular terrain. Other than that, I feel fine. I wish my ankle would be in worse shape so that the decision would be easier.

Race Information

• Name: Pittsburgh Half
• Date: 5/5/24
• Distance: 13.1 miles
• Location: Pittsburgh
• Website: https://www.thepittsburghmarathon.com/races/half-marathon-1
• Time: 2:19:30

Goals

Goal	Description	Completed?
A	Finish!	Yes
B	Sub 2:20	Yes

Splits (A little off since I'm using strava data instead of the official times since they only had the 4.4 mile, 9.1, and Finish times)

Mile	Time
1	10:21
2	10:41
3	10:36
4	10:19
5	10:29
6	9:56
7	10:49
8	10:46
9	11:00
10	11:34
11	10:39
12	10:14
13	8:56
0.3	6:59 (pace I think? it didn't take 7 minutes)

Training

I've been shooting for the half marathon since around Thanksgiving this past year from having never really been a runner (the closest I got was when I signed up for cross country in 7th grade in the summer, then got so scared of embarrassment and pain that I was crying for my parents to take me out of it lol). Probably something to unpack there, oh well! Not too stressed about it now :)
My girlfriend's mom has been a huge role model for me since she restarted in 2020 and was really supportive when I started out on C25k and beyond. My weekly training ended up being mostly 3 days of running leading up to the 10 miler race with around 16 - 20 miles per week, but I realized that I'd love to increase how many days I'm running a week and started to slowly add in 2 mile days on tuesdays and/or thursdays to begin that habit for the last couple of weeks before Pittsburgh. I don't think these had any tangible benefits for PGH, but it was a big mental help as I could tell I wanted to continue the positive benefits I've seen from running into higher mileage and a long term hobby.
It was super cool to be able to have done the Cherry Blossom 10 miler with her and my dad out in DC as a training run, and it was there that I pleasantly surprised myself - I had thought that I'd be able to hang on at around an 11 minute pace for that, but my dad, who has run something like 7 marathons, paced me and helped me to not go out too quick. This meant that my pace for the 10 miler was around 10:30 and it felt really comfortable, so I wanted to set that as my goal pace for Pittsburgh!
The last 4 -5 weeks before Pittsburgh went super well and I was able to practice fueling with regular long runs that got up to 12 miles the week before. This was probably a mistake since I then went out and partied hard at an open bar my Grad school hosted, but it was really good for me mentally to have gotten near the race distance. I took off the week before as a small taper and dealt with a fair amount of nerves that I had done my longest run too close to the race (which tbf I did).
I flew in through Detroit, and spent the days leading up to the race having to unfortunately get up way too early and had a bit of a sleep debt, but thankfully the excitement from the race kept me afloat! I met up with my brother, dad, and girlfriend's mom who were all running and we had a blast the day before the race at a brewery the night before, and we got to meet up with my cousin and her husband and hang out with their menagerie of 2 cats and 2 dogs.
Slept great, and woke up with plenty of time to eat an oatmeal bar and some coffee before heading to the corrals. Unfortunately, my dad put himself in a corral back from my brother and I in Corral C, so it was just us running together since my girlfriend's mom was a corral up from us in corral B. I was definitely jittery on the start line, but it helped that my brother didn't mind me jabbering away to distract myself.

Race

I was so happy to have had my brother running with me! We got some neon bright hats at the expo which helped with some of the rain we got in the beginning and it made us pretty easy to spot for my gf's dad who was there as a spectator. Miles 1 - 6 went really well! Having my brother with me made me make sure to check I wasn't going to quick as he didn't have a watch with him to check our splits. I was amazed at how much adrenaline and the crowd made me speed up, and I felt like we were both constantly needing to cool our speed so that we had some gas left in the tank for the hills I had heard on the back half of the half marathon course, and especially for what I had heard was a large hill at mile 12. We saw my gf's dad between mile 4 and 5, and he was able to catch a great video of us running together :)
Miles 7-10 were where I started to hit some mental challenges. If I'm remembering right, this is where we started to get away from the crowds and headed towards some slightly biggelonger hills. Especially without crowd support, some of the longer slightly uphill grades felt like torture, so we slowed a bit and tried to take it easy through them. This is where I started to regret some of the stomach problems I'd had from using the honey stinger gels in training as it made me really hesitant to use them during the race. I find honey stinger gels to be sickeningly sweet at times, so I had only grabbed some of the gummies they had offered for free at the expo as those had gone down better. However as a result, I didn't fuel anywhere near as often as I know I should/can handle, and I think that definitely contributed to having a tougher time in 7-10.
Thankfully, somewhere in there I was drinking nuun at every water stop and got a banana from a kind volunteer, so I started to feel better. I also loved the gummy worm mile they had set up, as well as all the signs! Every time I saw a sign that made me laugh and smile, I got a huge burst of energy. While I was beginning to feel better, my brother was beginning to get some pretty bad cramping in his legs. I hadn't realized it at the time, but my normal routes for my week have more elevation change than I thought, and I think that helped a lot, whereas my brother, living in MN, had to work to go find hills and elevation to work in. Eventually, he told me to just go on ahead and that he'd meet me at the finish.
Miles 11 - end
I had really wanted to finish this strong, and I'm really glad I took it conservative as a first. I was a bit freaked out at mile 11 because that was the mile marker that begin the big hill everyone had been telling me about. Thing was, I couldn't remember if this was the big one, or if this was just the lead up to the big one at the mile 12 marker! I couldn't help but laugh at myself a bit for forgetting which mile I was in, and kinda just went for it. I knew if I could make it to the top of the hill, I'd be able to turn on some gas and do my best to bomb it down to the finish. I tried to remember what had happened at the Cherry Blossom 10 miler where I had done the same and blown up a bit trying to go quick the last two miles, so I made sure that it was quicker but still sustainable. Thankfully, this bit went really well, and I was able to get a sprint finish at the end to beat my A and B goals.

Post-race

I was pretty toast after hitting the finish line, so I took it slow, got my medal, and made sure to get some electrolytes in me. I was out of it for a bit, but within a couple minutes was feeling pretty good minus some soreness and mild pain in my right knee. I waited by one of the spotter places to meet my brother, and was happy to find out he had gotten through the cramping and came in about 5 minutes behind me. We met up with my gf's parents in the beer garden, and waited there to meet my dad. He found us after about 15 minutes - it sounded like two things had really gotten to him: humidity and the crowding of his corral. He was pretty frustrated with how crowded it was the first 4-5 miles for him as PGH/or the self reported paces for Corral D had a lot of walkers (which is cool btw) who had apparently blocked off a lot of the path (not so cool) making it hard to get around. He was dodging in and out for quite a while, and I wish we had coordinated our reported paces since he easily could have held with my brother and I. Lesson learned for next race!
I was pretty emotional about it as I've always thought of myself as a very unathletic person, and it was really special to be able to share my first half with my family. I had a lot of memories of being a spectator at my dad's marathons, and it was cool to be on the other side of it! Got some great pictures, and we all headed back to the hotel to enjoy a quick lunch at the restaurant that was in the lobby. It was pretty intense to see a lot of the marathon folks still out on the course - it looked like a suffer-fest (but definitely piqued my interest...it's in the cards before my 26th birthday) Got some bourbon and some nachos and couldn't have been happier before we all collapsed for a post-race nap!
Made with a new race report generator created by []().

Seriously what is going on? Indianapolis has the highest hit and run numbers in the country. How this happening and so often? I feel bad for cyclists, joggers, walkers and that average Joe just trying to get to work or home. Also, those dot workers on the streets. When I see any of the above I move over a bit , give clearance to pass. Also, slow down. I hope these drivers are located and prosecuted.

Context

This story fits into my world-building as an example of how people of the tribe at Saàkirlaasiik name one another. It illustrates that names are given by men to one another within their trade groups. Women ask their potential husbands to name them at their binding ceremony. This story illustrates both of those things.
The story is about two characters - 'Rows-in-loud-waters' and 'Hatchling'. They are on a battlefield against a tribe that broke apart from them long ago. Things get rough and a naming ceremony happens in the end. This takes place between the border of Saàkirlaasiik and Saàronit. It takes place in the second age after the Great Sundering.

Spoiler TL;DR

Summary: Rows-in-loud-waters is something of a squad leader to Hatchling. The two of them are in the alligator clan and are waiting for the 'Deceived' to come and fight them. When they finally do, the men fight with one of the Deceived for the majority of the story. This leads to some banter back and forth, but in the end, Hatchling dies. Hatchling tells Rows-in-loud-waters what he would have named his would-be wife if she had asked him to wed her. At the final end, Rows-in-loud-waters gives Hatchling a true proper name.

If You Read / Enjoy

Please drop me a comment. Just hearing that someone liked it would be awesome.

What's In A Name

“Stand firm! Men of Nafóótkirriinhaa”, Leans-on-the-spirit, chief of their clan spoke over all present before him. Riding by on a horse, he raised a spear and pranced the line of warriors. “It saddens me that we will shed the blood of our cousins! But they come to steal, pillage, and destroy. Show no mercy, brothers. For, I assure you, the Deceived will not return it.” His dark hair streamed in the air behind him as his steed carried him far down the line of men and out of earshot from him. Men cheered as he galloped by and smacked the flat of their weapons against their chests.
Hide banners whipped as the wind bid them to their will and the trees bent with each gust. Each banner displayed the spirit patron of the clan lined up to do battle. Some tribes gathered hides from the animals that embodied the attributes of their families' skills and nature. Behind him, alligator scales bent against the howling air. They dyed the animal biting its tail with an eye in the middle. A single line split the banner in the middle horizontally, and the eye peered out from the line. It represented the watchful eye of the clan, looking from the lands around Eversun. Sniffing, he smelt the hint of trees mingled mostly with warpaint against his flesh. A drum rang out behind him, then another sounded in the distance echoing it, and further out another did the same. This echoed on for a few more raps. His heart pounded in his chest, but he steeled his face.
The dark brown hair smacked the back of his tanned neck and his dark eyes scanned the woods before him. Across the grassland, they stood like a wall in the distance, dense and ominous. He had fashioned leather armor from the scaled hide of his swamp-dwelling, neighbor beast. He added stone studs to it in places that stuck out. On either side, men stood around him and he glanced out of the corner of his eyes. Younger men stationed themselves on either side of him entirely still and they both wore similar garb.
Each man painted their body with different symbols to display their strength, ferocity, or, in his case, battles fought. He used the black dye they made to draw scales against his skin where it remained exposed to the elements. Each drawn shape represented the number of times that he challenged a Deceived in combat and won. To his right, Paako Saàchalkoorrich Tínafsorlor, whom he lovingly calls Hatchling, dyed his face with ferocious teeth in the hope of scaring his enemies.
Hatchling's eyes widened as a horn sounded in the distance. Lootookcholatnapàrooti placed his hand on the young man's shoulder and smiled. Not showing his teeth, the sparkle in his eyes faded as quickly as it came. Recalling his first battle, the now chief, captained his line then. He hoped he could offer as much hope as the chief did then.
"Hatchling, I understand. This is your first bout with the Deceived. The tales we've weaved of them are terrifying and vicious. I must tell you, those tales are half true, but the half is still terrible" Lootookcholatnapàrooti's eyes trained on the forest head of them across the clearing. Any motion in the trees hid from his view and he sensed it lingered beyond the tree line, in the underbrush.
“Rows-in-loud-waters”, which Lootookcholatnapárooti meant, said Hatchling, “I don’t like the nickname. I am strong and proven in the tests.” Rows-in-loud-waters almost heard the pout on the young warrior's face. Smirking, he gave the young soldier a soft elbow to the ribs. “You’ve fought them enough times. How well do you know their tactics?”
Choosing to ignore the dislike of the nickname and how proven he may or may not be, Rows-in-loud-waters answered, "More than fought them. I engaged the enemy when the sundering happened, those years ago, when the clans had made it across Saàronit and into the valleys of the east. When Kolotatliíchiit revealed himself as the spirit of lies and trickery known to us as Naríhììnanathìnafòò”, chortled Rows-in-loud-waters. His mind rowed back to the day on the ship of his mind through the sea of memories. Every day, the river of life eroded them from his mind and they became less and less tangible.
The young man remained silent but peered from the corner of his sockets with intent. The horn blew again and the wind howled against the dusk sky. Rows-in-loud-waters guarded the lands of the tribe for several years, being an ‘eye in the swamp’. The Deceived envied Eversun and believed it promised to them instead of the men around him now. They fell, though, tainted themselves with the lies of the evil their false god fed them. The land of ever-sun had been promised for believers of the beat-giver, not the nest-stealer.
The horn sounded again, this time a bit closer. Rows-in-loud-waters tensed his hand around the shoulder of the young man again, in an attempt to reassure him. He worried the giant they built in tales to keep children near the settlements, backfired in moments like these. Fear, if unchecked by faith and courage created by faith, ravaged a man and tore through his resolve like the monsters created in stories of the age past and gone. “I have heard the Deceived are industrialized people with forges and explosives.”
"They hold fewer explosives and kilns as they once operated in the realms of Setting-Sun and the Teal Forests. We all practiced forging or so I’m told. The sundering was a quick bout of brother against brother and clan against clan. At the base of the white-ridged mountain, where the Nòònchààrrílììsììnat dwelt, we fought for what seemed like hours. We fought until our muscles ached, until our bones hurt, and until our lungs screamed for relief. In the end, Kolotatliíchiit fell and their usurper king called the retreat", he retold the story, holding on to the ax in his hand, keeping it at the ready in his off-hand. "The spirit of Naríhììnanathìnafòò spread over those who lost their way and inhabited all of them. It spread like sickness and as they fled, it fled with them." He shook his head and removed his hand from the young man's shoulder. "Half the priests left with them, and four of the seven first tribes dictated by Wááchlachtat, the great beat-giver."
Hatchling murmured a short prayer, both, Rows-in-loud-waters thought, in reverence for the name of their god but also the fear his heart currently harbored. "And they come now astride giant wolves, Rows-in-loud-waters and hunt in the dusk to find weaknesses in our resolve and steal into the land of promise. There they hope to kill our king, our clan chiefs, and place themselves at the seat of it all. How many times have they tried?" Fear waivered in the voice of the young man, but he kept his eyes straight ahead. They both did. The last they needed, Rows-in-loud-waters thought, wolf-mounted cavalry running them down while they stared into one another's eyes.
"Since the sundering", Rows-in-loud-waters asked and pondered in silence. The horns dinned again and got a bit closer. "In a host of the size the scouts report? Here I face them a second time, but they have always sent scouts almost yearly and they try skirmishes against us almost every five years. So in the twenty years since the sundering, there have been four skirmishes and two battles. Neither side seemed eager to meet the other in open war." To keep the young man from falling deeper into despair, Rows-in-loud-waters kept to himself the assumed reason. The potential allied dark powers of the Deceived deterred the king and the clan leaders from open war. They feared, maybe rightfully so, that the enemy sought other children of Naríhììnanathìnafòò like the Chììktonààn with their horrid owl-shaped faces and wrinkled talon-like hands.
Though none have seen a Chììknààn in a generation, tales of their malice lingered around the fires of public areas. Elders spun tales of heroes fighting the demi-god-like beings. Their eyes could see a spirit walker, and their strength could wrestle to the ground men twice their size. The claws, razor-sharp on each wrinkled and pimpled hand, extended its arm into the spirit world itself and could yank a spirit walker out from between the realms.
He ventured to guess the enemy refused open war with them because of the fear of the great beat-giver intervening against them, as he had done at the sundering. Spirits of the eagle, the buffalo, and the snake descended from the skies and took shape around them. The eagle came to the aid of the great teacher and fought with him against the enemy. The sight still filled Rows-in-loud-waters with awe and fear. These great spirits with such power existed in their realm - the Wààchlachtatpààtiit. Who knew what else existed beyond the reaches of the seas and northern mountains? The horn blew again, but this time it had not moved. He grabbed the other hatchet on his belt with his right hand.
"They're stalling", Hatchling breathed out, almost in a whisper as if he dared not alert the enemy to his position...
"They are and it is not like them to do so. But remember the spirit of our clan. We watch like the eye in our banner. We wait. We strike. Let the panther clan hunt through the woods and draw them out. We are to wait here." Rows-in-loud-waters convinced himself but pondered what the spirit-walkers of the panther clan waited for, or worse if the Chììktonààn horde lingered within the enemy host and snatched them from between the material and immaterial. "We wait." He echoed again and stood at the ready. The scales on his armor glinted in the setting sun to their left as it sank over the rolling hills at the place where the mountains met the lowlands and fled into the prairies.
A sea of pinks, reds, and oranges washed over the sky to the left of them as they faced north. The sun sat at the bottom of it all, at the horizon in the planes before the Saàronit. He failed to see it but, past the seas of grass - it sank. The sun sought its evening home beyond the lands of teal forests and red cliffs. In the land of gold and beautiful ridged coastlines. It almost yanked him away from the battle before him. It almost drew him away from the moment.
"So they're not as bad as you've told me my whole life?"
"They're bad, but they're human. They bleed and die like you do. The tales your elders have taught you as a child have not been altogether false or altogether true. They *do* practice human sacrifice of those they capture", Rows-in-loud-waters stated. He hid the fact they often sacrificed young children of their clans in the event they captured no one. "But they are not able to speak with wolves or command spiders. These are lies for story-telling effectiveness."
The young man grinned, "Ah then I will bring back my weight in scalps and wolf heads to the feasts of the return party." The young man raised his hatchet in response. "Each being an honor to my family and a possible trophy to convince Fóó Pafààlktiit Tínafsorlor to ask me to give her a name. Been courting her for two years now, and she still hasn't asked me. Perhaps this shows her my ability to provide and protect." Rows-in-loud-waters nodded. Sometimes spoils of war could convince a woman to request a naming. He wondered if women had it better in their tradition of naming. A woman received her name from her husband at the naming ceremony, but a man got his name from his peers. One bad name could stick forever.
His eyes scanned over to Chàànatatnafsorhapààt, named for hiding during a skirmish with the Deceived a handful of years ago. At least his name, he thought, sat in the middle of the road. Not too over the top to be too ridiculous but not to note some character flaw. Once given a name, your name stuck with you for the rest of your life. Shaking his head, he heard screams in the woods before them. "Get ready", he squatted in his ready position. Silence oozed over the field as the sun made a half-eye like of their banner against a pink sky.
"Fóó pafààlktiit tínafsorlor, I will bring you back spoils! I will show you I am a man to father your children", the young man mimicked the position Rows-in-loud-waters took. The two of them stood side by side. "Wááchlachtat, please be with us. Guide our strikes. Smite our foes", the young man glanced up at the sky. Rows-in-loud-waters followed his gaze with his own eyes and witnessed a single eagle flying overhead. “A good omen”, he noted. "He is with us", the young man shouted and pointed up to the sky. "He. Is. With. Us." The fervor spread through the line as men glanced up to spot the eagle before it disappeared.
"Don't get too ahead of yourself, Hatchling. Have faith, but the battle is not yet over. Wááchlachtat is not ours to master. We are his. His will is not ours. He will do as he wishes with this day." Then they came. Oversized wolves burst from the treeline and the men in the front of the formation readied their spears. "When the charge breaks, move with me. Understood, Hatchling", Rows-in-loud-waters asked. The young man nodded a response and the two of them faced their full attention to the front. Drums around them wailed with each passing moment and the panther clan did their duty - pinching the Deceived and drawing them out.
Rows-in-loud-waters smelled them before they got close enough to attack. They reeked of sulfur, oxidized iron, and sweat. Of all the deceits sown by the evil spirit, the greatest blazed fire and iron. Though he lived too few years to have experienced the splendors in the teal forests. The forest they laid bare, the mountains and valleys they flattened to build large metal works. All of this culminated in the great lie the beat-giver gave them conquest as a purpose. Their people knew the truth as inherited from the great beat-giver. Upon creation, he gifted man with more than a heartbeat, but also a goal, a purpose, and a stewardship over the world. The Deceived abandoned it and clad themselves in metal armor atop their steeds.
Charging furred beasts broke against the spears of the stag clan who had adorned their heads with antlers and little white speckled furs along their backs. Wolves howled and snapped their jaws at them as they died against the spears. The drool from their large agape mouths dripped onto the stag clansmen and drenched their armor. The area around Rows-in-loud-waters filled with the reek of wet dogs, which, smelled more pleasant than their riders.
One Deceived soldier, overlapping plated armor, hopped from his beast as it hit the spears, and landed behind the line, rolling as he did so. Tumbling to his feet, he drew two swords made of crude metal and eyed around the Rows-in-loud-waters and Hatchling. He licked his filed-down teeth and stepped forward to the two of them. The smell shifted back to the scent of sulfur and rust. Evil, its stench, hung to the Deceived.
Rows-in-loud-waters turned to face him and tugged Hatchling to do the same. The two of them flicked their hatchets in their hands and semi-circled the Deceived man This outsider appeared like they did: dark tanned skin, darker hair, dark eyes, and markings along his skin denote his tribe. This one hailed from the wolf tribe, which drew its heraldry from the initial Coyote tribe of Kolotatliíchiit. "Traitors", the wolf warrior shouted and raised his sword to charge forward. Rows-in-loud-waters noted the warrior before them bore the scarred claws of the man-butcher on his face. Three scarred lines trailed down his face and missed his eyes by a half-inch.
Other men broke through the formation of spearmen at the front of the line. One by one, more Deceived lingered into the lines of their tribe and the tempest of blades and shields whirled to life. Swords clanked against hatchets, spears against armor, and maces against faces. He heard the crunch of bone under the pressure of horse hooves. The air filled with the smell of metallic liquid, not like rust but a bit more like copper.
Hatchling and Rows-in-loud-waters moved in and, like the jaws of the mighty alligator spirit, pinched the Deceived warrior between themselves. Hatchling threw a slashing move with one of his hatchets, preparing a parry with the other arm. As he did so, Rows-in-loud-waters lunged forward and hacked hard downward to put a severe dent in the helmet of the enemy. The outsider struggled between them. He blocked one blow from Rows-in-loud-waters, then turned around to parry a blow from Hatchling. Sparks flew off the crude metal weapon as their chiseled stone axes hit it. The two of them stepped back from the Deceived outsider before he could counterattack.
Charging in again Hatchling dented his armor, leaving scuffs and scratches, while the enemy pushed Rows-in-loud-waters back away. "Traitors? You fight for the enemy, cousin!" Regardless of how far out the family they believed all clans related through the first men created by the beat-giver. "Turn your heart to Wááchlachtat and see! See the error of your ways and your kindred, they betrayed our ways and clung to Kolotatliíchiit even when revealed himself as the enemy!"
"Kolotatliíchiit was a hero, a paragon of our people! He hunted and slew the Chììktonààn. He mastered the realm given to us and showed us how to bend it to our will", with each phrase the enemy slammed his sword against Hatchling. Raising both his axes to catch the oncoming slash, Hatchling grunted as each hit staggered him backward.
"Perhaps it is not ours to shape?" Hatchling posed the question now and pride welled up in Rows-in-loud-waters’s heart. The young one came to grasp the purpose, the great mission for all of the men on Laaliíoota, one of them anyway. They lived in harmony with nature, not against it, not bending mountains to their will. To protect the young soldier, he jabbed forward with the ax in his main hand and moved back. It acted as a deterrent to pressing the young soldier further.
Around them, the din of battle drowned out the sounds of any other thoughts or fears. The Deceived soldier before them held their full attention. Another enemy sped toward them but caught a spear in the back of the neck. It pierced through him and pinned him to the ground. Gurgling nearby, he struggled and flailed his arms against the ground. A pool of crimson soaked the grass.
"Why", he pushed back Hatchling with his foot. "Would the beat-giver", he slashed and cut a gash in Rows-in-loud-water’s arm. "Give us", he kicked again trying to keep Hatchling back. "a realm to exist in. He wants us to conquer it."
Glancing at the blood running from his arm, Rows-in-loud-waters shook his head. "Then you are lost, cousin. The beat-giver never commanded us to conquer anything. He asked us to live in love with one another, to defend the wilds and beauty he created, and to worship him." Rows-in-loud-waters spun his hatchets around his hands and stepped back. Love of nature, love of others, and love of Wááchlachtat existed as the key commands of their god. The spirits echoed this in their defined sub-goals for each clan.
"Cousin", Rows-in-loud-waters said, "I will ask you once more to lay down your arms and come to try and reform... And we will see to it you are integrated with your people. That you see the truth and the life." In all ways, if possible, he felt required to extend out to the lost and try and pull them back to the way. His eyes met the Deceived man’s eyes and they shared a moment. Contemplation washed over the features of the enemy for but a moment as he narrowed his eyes to Rows-in-loud-waters.
"Never. Your way is a lie. Designed to deceive us." He kicked Hatchling back away again when the gap between them closed, then turned and charged. Rows-in-loud-waters and the enemy met at full force. The two of them traded blows. A slash on the cheek of the Deceived, bleed and he could see the ivory teeth within his joules. He hissed with pain and stepped back again. Droplets of blood oozed from the wound of the enemy’s mouth and down his chin. He reached up and wiped the blood away and licked into the wound with his tongue.
Hatchling charged at him from behind and jumped up into the air to attempt to plunge his axes upon the Deceived's shoulders with two raking blows. Rows-in-loud-waters rose his axes to try and deter the young warrior from his actions against the Deceived. With sudden premonition and supernatural celerity, the Deceived turned around and jammed his sword upwards in a single motion. Hatchling stopped in his tracks, his body caved save for the spasms. The pain must have racked him as he shuddered when the enemy pulled the blade out and fell to the ground.
"No!" Rows-in-loud-waters shouted and charged, but even as he charged forward Hatchling continued to fight. Standing from his prone position, he struck the Deceived in the back of the leg with his hatchet and it bit into him. Crimson liquid sprayed out onto the ground, but he pressed against his abdomen with his left arm. Slashing with the other arm in rapid succession. They wasted too much time, thought Rows-in-loud-waters and he needed to press the combat now. The enemy must fall before Hatchling expired.
Rows-in-loud-waters smacked him with the flat side of his weapon so he turned back around. The blood of his fellow clan mate dripped from the crude metallic blade. The air smelled of rusted metal. Fuming inside, Rows-in-loud-waters swung his weapon again and cleaved through the enemy's collarbone. The Deceived’s neck slacked and the weapon fell to his side. Ringing against his armored thigh, the sword clacked there, tapping as the enemy struggled to hold on.
Heaving for breath, Hatchling continued slashing with his axes and making deep cuts against the enemy until he stopped moving. Blood, a mixture of his own and the Deceived’s covered his face and shoulders. His body rested over the Deceived’s body and he lay there motionless. The battle swirled around them, cousin against cousin. Night fell around them and the three sister moons lit the darkness. The pale, vulnerable light glinted off crude metal and seeped into obsidian weapons.
Rows-in-loud-waters dropped to his knees beside the two bodies as Hatchling gasped for breath. The battle waged on, but numbers weighed on their side. The Deceived brought a thousand men to this battle, where they fielded three times. His ally wrapped both arms around his stomach to try and slow the bleeding.
"Rows-in-loud-waters, tell Fóó Pafààlktiit Tínafsorlor I wish I could have made it back to her. This", he lifted the scalped hair of the enemy soldier on the ground beside him, "is for her." He placed the skin and braided hair into Rows-in-loud-waters’s hand. "Tell her", he coughed, "I would have named her... The most poetic names." The scalp’s blood leaked from the cracks in his hands and down his wrist.
Wrapping his fingers around the other man's hand, Rows-in-loud-waters nodded his head. "What would have named her, Hatchling?" He squeezed as the young man faded a bit more, though he looked far older now than he had ever looked at him before. The mission at the moment remained to keep the young man from dying in fear and panic. Blood gushed from the open wound under his rib cage.
"I would have named her for the way the crickets sing in the summer as the sun sets under the moss-draped trees - Saàriifòònaforchiínaforchiit. I could have named her for the light reflected in her eyes as the fire burns under a full moon and frogs croak out beats for our souls to dance to. I would have named her", he gurgled blood between the words, "queen of my heart - Kiwáátattalkti. Most importantly, Rows-in-loud-waters, I would have named her my wife..."
"I know, friend. I know. I will tell her", blood leaked from the scalp in his hand and down his wrists as he pulled Hatchling's head into his lap. "Rest now, friend." Rows-in-loud-waters leaned in close to his friend and embraced him. He wrapped his arms around the wound with him and tried to provide him warmth as all the blood left his body. The savage blade of the enemy, ripped as it came out. Shuddering, Hatchling closed his eyes, knowing the end came soon.
"Tell her", he whispered again.
"I will", Rows-in-loud-waters responded.
The battle wrestled to an end with the final Deceived being chased away from the battle lines and into the woods where the Panther clan decided to let them go further by themselves. Rows-in-loud-waters watched from his place on the ground and hand on the side of Hatchling's cheek. A set of footsteps jingled through the battlefield behind him, but he kept his face downcast. A clattering of bones against quartz rung with each step. Blotting out the light from the moon, a shadow towered over him.
"Rows-in-loud-waters, losing a soldier in your line is unforgettable and crushing of the spirit, but he is not gone forever. You will see him again when we return to the beat-giver and live with him in the land of peace. Do distress yourself." The chief of the alligator clan knelt and placed a hand on Rows-in-loud-waters’s shoulder. He remained silent for some time, and Rows-in-loud-waters continued to look at the young man who served beside him.
"He fought valiantly, but even in the halls of the beat-giver he will be unnamed."
"Because he has not earned a name? Do you believe he has not earned a name, Rows-in-loud-waters? I hardly think that is fair." The chief shook his head and clicked his tongue against his teeth disapprovingly. Rows-in-loud-waters placed both hands of his friend on his chest and then placed his arms at his sides to shake out the anxiety and pent-up energy there.
"But, Leans-on-the-spirit, no one named him in life. He would not know it when we meet him in the halls of the beat-givers home. How would he answer". At this question, the chief sat and nestled into the ground near Rows-in-loud-waters. Squeezing his shoulder with his hand, and looked into the warrior's eyes.
Removing his hand from the shoulder of Rows-in-loud-waters he lifted the hand of Hatchling to his lap and took in a deep breath. "Do you imagine the names we give one another are for them to know who they are? Do you think our understanding of self is so small we have to have our brothers explain our behavior to ourselves?"
"So the names we give one another are for those around us."
"They're not for the beat-giver to know us", the chief chortled in response. "He already knows who we are before any name is given." The chief looked into Rows-in-loud-waters’s eyes and Rows-in-loud-waters sensed a tenderness and joy in the life of the man which grew in him like a ripened fruit. Here, the fruit offered out to him in guidance and words. “He knew us before the foundation of Laaliíoota and before the breath of the first man”
“Then I have a name for him.”
The chief motioned his hand. “Go on, Rows-in-loud-waters. He fought his trial against the Decieved. He may not have survived, but as far as I am concerned. He passed the test.”
Rows-in-loud-waters pondered for a moment and then closed the eyes of Hatchling on his lap. The wreckage of the battle around them reeked of shit and blood. "Goodbye, Nilchiiltatnawànàt." He inhaled and let out a long sigh. It ripped through him. He sobbed and tears dropped. "Goodbye..." The name echoed in his mind, and the meaning of the syllables slammed together. *Goodbye*, he thought, *Goodbye Died-in-honors-of-all.*
The chief bent over him, wrapping his arms around him and holding his shoulders. "We will see him again. I promise." Standing, he turned his back to Rows-in-loud-waters and looked over the battlefield. "Many of the men who died here will be seen again. Some will be seen in the final moments of the Last End. When we line up before the beat-giver he unfurls the hide of our hearts and examines the colors we dyed there. Should he find there are more colors of lust, hatred, envy, or pride than of love for one another and Him... We will have to answer for that."
Rows-in-loud-waters rose behind him and looked over the battlefield, he knew even the Deceived, flawed, and wrong, stood before the judgment of the beat-giver, regardless of their beliefs. Mangled men lay with broken arms and legs twisted in unnatural directions. The great wolves splayed out with matted fur and broken jaws. He scanned the carnage and another tear came along the curve of his cheek. "Will they attack again?" The sound of men directing clean-up echoed throughout the mass grave before him.
"The enemy will continue to push, ever-escalating the power at his disposal until he is finally defeated in the final moment of the Last End." The chief of the alligator clan offered his words and it warmed Rows-in-loud-waters' heart.
"I don't understand why we must wait for the living spirit of the forest to take on human flesh to defeat Naríhììnanathìnafòò'', a hint of anger rose in Rows-in-loud-waters’s voice as he placed his hatchets back against the belt that held his pants in place. "Why can we not hunt the enemy." He kicked the head of one of the enemy soldiers near him, forgetting his place and not respecting the dead that now belonged to the spirits.
"Even if you hunted every vessel of evil. Even if you slaughtered all the clans of Chììktonààn. You would remain with yourself and the evil in your blood and heart." The chief’s mouth twitched a bit, as he knelt and placed the enemy’s head back where it lay before the kick.
Rows-in-loud-waters took a step back, staggered by the thought he harbored some part of Naríhììnanathìnafòò in himself. "What do you mean? I have never accepted the tenets of evil. I do not forsake my vow to stewardship. I do not forsake my family. I do not forsake my god." He listed out the beliefs every man of the tribe agreed in their ideology. But the chief shook his head in response.
"You are thinking too largely, my friend." The chief pointed softly to the muscles over the heart of Rows-in-loud-waters and pointed out to the battlefield for them both to see. "It is not these large acts, though terrible, that will weigh our hearts with the ink of debt. It is the small ones. Like putting your wants above your wife's needs. Or talking back to your parents. The taint of Naríhììnanathìnafòò is in all of us from the earliest days of his coming to us. Big and small all these evils stain our hearts the same. The smaller ones are easier to commit."
"I... I don't know what to say", Rows-in-loud-waters stammered and stared down at his own feet.
The chief shrugged his shoulders. "Seldom does anyone. It is hard to imagine the taint or the extent of contamination that exists in the world. What we can do is attempt to bring our cousins back into the fold, so to speak, and lead them to a life of stewardship over the realm Wááchlachtat has given to us." The chief’s eyes closed and he mumbled under his breath. Turning again, he left the battlefield and the warrior behind him.
The banners flapped against the wind as they packed up. Men from each clan gathered the dead they had and placed them either over the backs of horses or over their shoulders. The three sisters, moons each larger than the last, trailed across the sky in various phases. Rows-in-loud-waters chose to carry Nilchiiltatnawànàat instead of casting him to the side on the back of a horse. The man's limp arm fell down Rows-in-loud-waters’s back and blood dripped. It trickled the sections of bare skin on Rows-in-loud-waters’s back.
They marched on into the night, headed back south toward their families in Eversun and the drums played a slow, solemn tone with each step they made through the woods. His eyes scanned from person to person. All their eyes cast down to the ground as if looking to make sure they would not trip and fall, but he knew they felt the pain of losing a young one or an unnamed one, or even a brother or a friend.
As they marched, the air started to smell more like home and less like sulfur and metal. The hint of pines, the stench of swamplands, and the sound of water lapping against the sides of shallow ponds in the soft wind. An inhale drug air into his lungs and past his nose where he sniffed the familiar smell of rotted leaves. As they left, he heard a voice from his left. When he turned to face and looked at the voice, no one stood in the darkness of the trees. A voice in his ear, or his heart, told him all calmed for now.

New York Knicks at Indiana Pacers

Gainbridge Fieldhouse- Indianapolis, IN
ESPN
TV/Radio

Time Clock
Final

	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Total
NYK	14	27	22	26	89
IND	34	35	32	20	121

Player Stats

New York Knicks

Player	MINS	PTS	FGM-A	3PM-A	FTM-A	ORB	DRB	REB	AST	STL	BLK	TO	PF	+/-
J. Hart	23:51	2	1-6	0-2	0-0	0	3	3	2	0	0	2	1	-29
P. Achiuwa	24:00	8	4-7	0-0	0-2	5	1	6	0	0	0	0	0	-22
I. Hartenstein	21:39	4	2-3	0-0	0-0	0	5	5	0	0	0	2	1	-28
D. DiVincenzo	32:03	7	3-13	1-6	0-0	1	4	5	4	1	1	2	2	-40
J. Brunson	30:44	18	6-17	0-5	6-9	2	1	3	5	2	0	2	1	-27
M. McBride	32:17	16	6-17	3-11	1-2	2	3	5	4	1	0	3	3	-16
J. Sims	15:48	4	1-1	0-0	2-2	3	3	6	0	2	0	0	0	0
A. Burks	23:03	20	5-11	2-6	8-10	2	3	5	2	0	0	0	2	-12
S. Milton	14:32	3	0-5	0-2	3-4	0	1	1	1	0	0	0	0	2
D. Jeffries	12:44	5	2-7	1-4	0-0	1	2	3	0	1	0	0	1	4
M. Diakite	9:18	2	0-2	0-1	2-2	0	1	1	0	1	1	1	1	8

Indiana Pacers

Player	MINS	PTS	FGM-A	3PM-A	FTM-A	ORB	DRB	REB	AST	STL	BLK	TO	PF	+/-
A. Nesmith	24:07	8	4-8	0-4	0-0	2	10	12	1	0	1	1	4	23
P. Siakam	22:24	14	7-9	0-0	0-0	1	3	4	2	1	0	0	3	23
M. Turner	25:40	13	5-5	3-3	0-0	2	3	5	2	1	3	3	2	24
A. Nembhard	21:14	9	4-5	1-2	0-0	0	1	1	5	0	0	2	3	16
T. Haliburton	27:32	20	8-15	4-10	0-0	0	6	6	5	0	0	0	2	31
B. Sheppard	18:44	6	2-6	1-5	1-1	0	7	7	0	0	0	0	1	21
O. Toppin	18:29	14	6-11	2-3	0-0	0	1	1	2	1	1	0	0	21
T. McConnell	20:39	15	6-12	2-2	1-1	1	3	4	10	2	0	2	4	27
I. Jackson	19:01	10	4-8	0-0	2-2	3	3	6	0	2	0	1	3	4
D. McDermott	12:00	0	0-1	0-1	0-0	0	0	0	1	0	0	1	2	-6
K. Brown	10:26	0	0-2	0-0	0-0	0	2	2	0	0	1	1	0	-8
J. Smith	10:26	7	2-2	1-1	2-2	0	3	3	1	1	1	0	0	-8
J. Walker	9:18	5	2-4	0-0	1-2	0	1	1	2	1	0	3	1	-8

Team Stats

Team	FGM-A	3PM-A	FTM-A	AST	PF	STL	TO	BLK	OREB	DREB	REB
NYK	30-89	7-37	22-31	18	12	8	12	2	16	27	52
IND	50-88	14-31	7-8	31	25	9	14	7	9	43	55

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New York Knicks at Indiana Pacers

Gainbridge Fieldhouse- Indianapolis, IN
ESPN
TV/Radio

Time Clock
Final

	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Total
NYK	14	27	22	26	89
IND	34	35	32	20	121

On the court

New York Knicks

Player	MINS	PTS	FGM-A	3PM-A	FTM-A	ORB	DRB	REB	AST	STL	BLK	TO	PF	+/-
M. McBride	32:17	16	6-17	3-11	1-2	2	3	5	4	1	0	3	3	-16
J. Sims	15:48	4	1-1	0-0	2-2	3	3	6	0	2	0	0	0	0
S. Milton	14:32	3	0-5	0-2	3-4	0	1	1	1	0	0	0	0	2
D. Jeffries	12:44	5	2-7	1-4	0-0	1	2	3	0	1	0	0	1	4
M. Diakite	9:18	2	0-2	0-1	2-2	0	1	1	0	1	1	1	1	8

Indiana Pacers

Player	MINS	PTS	FGM-A	3PM-A	FTM-A	ORB	DRB	REB	AST	STL	BLK	TO	PF	+/-
I. Jackson	19:01	10	4-8	0-0	2-2	3	3	6	0	2	0	1	3	4
D. McDermott	12:00	0	0-1	0-1	0-0	0	0	0	1	0	0	1	2	-6
K. Brown	10:26	0	0-2	0-0	0-0	0	2	2	0	0	1	1	0	-8
J. Smith	10:26	7	2-2	1-1	2-2	0	3	3	1	1	1	0	0	-8
J. Walker	9:18	5	2-4	0-0	1-2	0	1	1	2	1	0	3	1	-8

Team Stats

Team	FGM-A	3PM-A	FTM-A	AST	PF	STL	TO	BLK	OREB	DREB	REB
NYK	30-89	7-37	22-31	18	12	8	12	2	16	27	52
IND	50-88	14-31	7-8	31	25	9	14	7	9	43	55

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Alexander Vraciu was one of the Navy's finest flying aces during World War II. But before that, he was a simple lad at DePauw University who played football and a prank for the ages.

At DePauw

The son of an East Chicago policeman, Vraciu earned the four-year Edward Rector Foundation Scholarship to DePauw on May 3, 1937 out of Washington High School, where he was the editor-in-chief for the school yearbook and captained the tennis team.^[1] The scholarship, worth $1,000 ($21,689.72 today), was awarded to 110 high schoolers across sixteen states that year.^[2]
Upon matriculating at DePauw that fall, he tried out for football—in secret, against his parents' wishes—and joined the freshman team as a halfback.^[3] They struggled early on, getting shut out 32–0 by Butler (in fairness, Butler's freshmen had not lost to anyone in four years at this point) while playing Wabash to a scoreless tie.^[4] Still, his contributions earned him a starting spot on the varsity roster.^[5]
In 1938, DePauw's 50th season began with a 13–0 win over Franklin. Playing in all three phases like many at the time, Vraciu was the backup halfback behind the baseball team's star pitcher Karl "Curly" Randells while also doubling as a linebacker and the Tigers' lead return man. His special teams value came in handy in the third quarter when Franklin was forced to punt from their own end zone and Vraciu returned it to the 17-yard line, which set up John Scott's one-yard touchdown run to break the scoreless draw.^[6]
His season was upended in the following week's 41–0 victory over Evansville College when he twisted his knee in the second quarter; fellow backup running back Robert Soule was also knocked out for the year with an arm injury.^[7][8] Not wanting his parents to know that he was playing football behind their backs, he had to hide the injury from them, which proved difficult as he was also a member of the mile relay and tennis teams.^[3] Even with his football career cut short, he still earned a spot on a postseason all-American roster, kind of: he was first-team All-Unpronounceables, for players whose names all-star team creator Ed Nace could not say properly.^[9]

The Prank

In the summer of 1939, Vraciu was attending a psychology class taught by Paul J. Fay. The class was intended to study "a human's ability to observe, and accurately recall what was observed," and Fay tested his students perhaps a bit too zealously as he frequently started random "fights" before asking the class who was involved and what happened.^[3][10]
Tired of this, Vraicu decided to see if Fay "could take some of his own medicine." On the final day of class, while taking a quiz, he suddenly stood up and threw an eraser at the professor. Vraciu then proclaimed, "I just can't stand it any longer!", and made a beeline for the window before jumping out.^[10]
Since the classroom was on the second floor, Fay immediately rushed to the window in horror. Upon gazing down, he saw Vraciu laying on a tarp held by his Delta Chi fraternity brothers and thumbing his nose at him.^[10][11]
The prank made national headlines. The Chicago Tribune, who had Vraciu and his friends re-enact the prank for a photo, quipped, "Give him an A in the course!"^[11][12]
"I like to see students on their toes," Fay remarked.^[13] "Vraciu is an excellent jumper and a good student besides. I'm giving him an A in the course."

World War II

A pre-medicine major, Vraciu had plans of becoming a doctor after graduating.^[14] Those plans were dropped when the United States entered the Second World War, and he opted to enlist in the Navy in 1942 as an aviation cadet. He underwent training at Naval Air Station Glenview.^[15]
In November, while training in California, his training plane collided with another mid-air, forcing him to "re-enact" his prank again as they hopped out.^[16] DePauw's student newspaper even headlined their story "Vraciu Parachutes from Wrecked Plane; Repeats Procedure of Stuent Prank."^[11]
His first assignment was over Wake Island in October 1943, flying an F6F Hellcat for Fighter Squadron 6 (VF-6) under Edward O'Hare, who would receive the Medal of Honor after being killed in action the following month. Vraciu scored his first victory in just his second day, then became a flying ace with his fifth kill by January of the following year. By the time VF-6 was rotated out, he already had nine wins.^[17]
Still, he elected to continue serving and was reassigned to VF-16.^[17]
Vraciu's finest day came on June 19, 1944, during the Battle of the Philippine Sea. In a day that came to be known as the "Great Marianas Turkey Shoot", he shot down six Japanese bombers flying close in formation in eight minutes. He told a correspondent for The New York Times:^[18]

We went out at a high altitude and from a far range we could see scattered groups of from twenty to fifty Jap planes each coming toward our carriers. They were all Judys. As squadron leader, I tallyhoed to the carrier and climbed to 25,000 feet, about 2,000 feet above the enemy planes.
For unknown reason they were all massed together with the groups at various altitudes. It was a brilliantly clear day, about 10:30 a.m. and from my observations there were enough Japs around to satisfy everybody in my squadron.
They were thirty-five miles away when we started after them, and as they tried to separate from their groups I was able to apply the simple process of picking them off the edges. You might say it was comparable to riding herd in the sky.
Just as the first Jap approached, my belly tank ran dry and I shifted to an auxiliary and took that one out easily. In making the shift, a lot of oil got on my windshield and made the vision so poor I had to go within 150 yards of the next one before stopping it. The next two were knocked out on a run of about fifteen seconds.
Next in line were three heading for an American destroyer. I was able to get two of those, and must have hit the bomb of one of them, for he exploded, scattering plane parts through the air. The third was foolish enough to attack a battleship, which was the end of him.

Although nominated by seven Navy admirals for a Medal of Honor for his performance that day, Vice Admiral George D. Murray of the medal review board instead gave him a Navy Cross. They tried again after the war in 1947 but was rejected by Murray again.^[19]
"I do not, in any way, mean to detract from the very enviable record made by Lt. Vraciu during the war," began Murray.^[20][21] "His superior performance of normal duties brought distinction upon himself. His failure, if it had occurred, to engage the enemy, on 19 June 1944, would have brought censure upon himself."
In 1990, Army veteran and aviation buff Harry Block convinced Rep. Andy Jacobs Jr. to organize a United States House Committee on Armed Services hearing to review the case. Although most of the committee including chairman Les Aspin were supportive of Vraciu, Navy assistant secretary for manpower and reserve affairs Barbara S. Pope—the lone Navy representative in attendance—questioned the need for a hearing 46 years later. Although Vraciu was supposed to testify, the hearing ran out of time and ended without a decision. The only positive takeaway was that the committee agreed Murray's reasoning for denying him the MOH was poorly written and missed numerous key points like listing Vraciu with the wrong squadron and aircraft carrier.^[22][23]
By Vraciu's death in 2015, he was still without the MOH.
His last combat flight came in December 1944 when his oil tank was punctured by a Japanese bullet over the Philippines, forcing him to—you guessed it—jump from his plane. He was rescued by the Filipino resistance and supported them before returning to American ends.^[18] At war's end, he had 19 victories in the air and 21 on the ground.^[17]

References

[1] Washington High Senior Given $1,000 Scholarship, The Times, May 3, 1937
[2] DEPAUW LISTS 110 RECTOR AWARDS, The Indianapolis Star, May 2, 1937
[3] STORY OF LEGENDARY WORLD WAR II HERO ALEX VRACIU '41 TOLD BY CALIFORNIA NEWSPAPER, DePauw University, February 24, 2003
[4] Shooting From Taw—Out of Butler's Delta by Wm. F. Fox Jr., The Indianapolis News, November 11, 1937
[5] 21 Varsity Letters, 15 Frosh Numerals Awarded at DePauw, The Indianapolis News, November 20, 1937
[6] Tigers Tally Twice in Second Half For 13-to-0 Triumph Over Franklin, The Indianapolis Star, September 25, 1938
[7] TIGERS SWAMP EVANSVILLE ELEVEN, 41-0, The DePauw, October 3, 1938
[8] Aces Smothered By Tiger Passes, The Indianapolis Star, October 2, 1938
[9] Inside Stuff, The Morning Call, November 20, 1938
[10] Prof. Proves He Can Take It As Well As Dish It Out to Class by the Associated Press, The Courier-Journal, June 2, 1939
[11] Pranker pursued flying by Heather Crawford, The DePauw, November 15, 1996
[12] STUDENT SCORES 'A' MARK FOR LEAP OUT OF WINDOW, Chicago Tribune, June 8, 1939
[13] Psych Pupil Turns Tables On Professor, The Honolulu Advertiser, June 9, 1939
[14] Always a diverse city, many contributed to rise of culture by Lu Ann Franklin, The Times of Northwest Indiana, February 23, 1993
[15] TRAINING CAMP NEWS, Chicago Tribune, December 28, 1941
[16] DePauw Alumnus (December 1942)
[17] Vraciu, Alexander, Gathering of Eagles Foundation
[18] Five Down and Glory: A History of the American Air Ace by Gene Gurney (1958)
[19] World War II pilot anticipates Medal of Honor by the Associated Press, Journal and Courier, July 25, 1990
[20] H.J.Res. 33 (104th): For the relief of Alexander Vraciu.
[21] Medal of Honor sore subject for World War II flying ace by Rex Redifer, The Indianapolis Star, September 13, 1988
[22] Navy won't reconsider medal for Hoosier by Rex Redifer, The Indianapolis Star, January 31, 1990

My partner had foot surgery on Friday and is not able to put any weight on the foot. He is using a knee scooter for mobility. He also has balance and strength issues that have necessitated a walker prior to this. We live in a first floor apartment in south city. While we are on the first floor, there are 6 steps to our floor, plus one step to get in the door from outside.
We have to figure out a way to get him out of and into the apartment for his doctor appointments. When we came home from surgery, we had three relatives plus myself and it was extremely painful for him the way we had to lift him because none of us are all that strong and he’s a lot bigger than us (6’3 and 300 lbs). We’d like to avoid that situation again plus I’m worried we’re going to drop him and he will really get hurt.
Are there any resources that can help with a lift and carry to do this? Does the STL fire department help? Medical transport type companies? I’ve been googling and searching for possible help but can’t find anything. Just thought I might post here and see if anybody is aware of any local resources.
EDIT: his insurance doesn’t cover medical transport. Services don’t need to be free. Was just hoping for some possible been there advice or the like. He doesn’t have to leave daily as he works at home. He will only need to leave 2-3 times for doctor follow ups.

Sorry if I format this wrong or any other issues.
Background: Granny is 88, good health. Multiple broken bones in the last few years, first breaks of her life. On meds and supervision from her adult children due to osteoporosis.
Previous history of the above mentioned breaks and Guillian Barré many years ago (60s /70s), fully recovered. Also rheumatic fever many years ago, fully recovered. Previous bad reaction to steroid nebs, jittery, and morphine, vomiting.
Current issue: She has a trapped nerve in her spine due to some arthritis near her neck. This surfaced about a month ago and has caused horrific pain in her shoulder blade. And if this lady says she has pain, that means it has to be absolute torture. She's on a lidocaine patch, tramadol x 2 three times a day, and an anti inflammatory that starts with ex twice a day. Plus stemetil to manage nausea from drugs.
Thursday, she had no pain all day, then that night she was so weak. Couldn't walk, panting, needed to be pushed to the bathroom on her wheelie walker and even that required rest and struggle to breathe. We felt the levels from the patch had built up and overwhelmed her.
Friday, tried to go without the patch. I was minding her that day and within half an hour of waking, she was in horrific pain. Struggling to breathe, doubled over her knees, moaning involuntarily. I put the patch back on, figuring we'd try 6-8 hours instead of 12. Took a long time to kick in, but between that and tramadol she eventually got some relief. Was much better last night.
Saturday: this morning, she was in an awful state, both pain and massive struggle to breathe. She had all the drugs she was allowed, including patch, and it didn't touch it. We called the out of hours doc but weren't happy that we could give what she needed at home, so we brought her to hospital. Her stats at home were BP 120/70, ox 92%, no temp.
Hospital: did bloods, ecg, chest X ray, arterial blood due to low pulse ox (dipped below 90). She has been diagnosed with pneumonia and admitted. She's on IV fluids, oxygen (which was lowered a bit when her ox went back above 90, she was at 94% last we knew), antibiotics. And we were told she'd be given a neb (and watched due to previous history),amd strong painkillers through the night for the trapped nerve.
We're happy with the care she's receiving, and she's pain free and breathing ok at the moment. But I'm concerned how much this might affect her due to her age. Other than this, she's got bad balance so is a bit doddery, but otherwise healthy as a horse. But she is 88, and likely a bit frail. Is this likely to turn into an end of life scenario or do you think she might be ok?
Thanks so much for any answers

So for background, I had a car accident some years ago. Shattered pelvis, broken ribs, broken ankle, liver cut 3/4 in half, head injury causing short term memory loss for over a year. 2 plates, 9 screws and 3 months in a wheelchair, I graduated to a walker and learned to walk again. 2 years after that was diagnosed with stage 3 arthritis in my hip with severe bone loss, (blood loss was too long previously and they didn't realize it) and had a hip replacement. I am over weight due to physical activity being extremely difficult so that compounds the situation. I worked my butt off, went back to college at 34, graduated 5 years later, and have since been blessed with a job I can do sitting down from home. I've refused, so far, to request a handicap permit for parking because there are many who need those spaces more than I do, although I'm beginning to think I'm just being stubborn. In addition to the damage and hardware in my body, my pelvis is not even. This causes me severe pain if I stand for any length of time. If I sit, I have to reposition myself constantly. If I'm laying down, I have to have a pillow between my knees to even tolerate it. The thing is, I know my limitations and try hard not to push my body to the point where I'm either crying or down for 3 days to recuperate. And so I don't appear disabled at first glance. Even even second glance. I, of course, do not walk normally, but it's not overstated. It would be if I pushed, but I'm not into self torture beyond the chronic pain I already deal with. I feel like people treat me like I'm being dramatic or lying because my disability isn't more obvious. Or im just not disabled enough for any sympathy or accommodations. I also have ADHD and ASD which makes it harder because of sensory issues and comorbid conditions like digestive issues and hypermobility. My adult son lives with me and helps me which I am forever grateful for. One situation we had about a year ago was this: My son ensured I had a parking space close to our apartment. He painted it blue (it's not state property), and spoke to the neighbors and they all agreed to let me have it. We had a new person move in who has a permit. Instead of speaking to me rationally about it, she started yelling about how she was disabled and I was not and that the spot was hers forever and I was never parking in it again. I didn't realize she had a permit yet, or I would have approached her first to make sure she was taken care of. I understand she may have been treated badly or unfairly in the past so I calmly handled the interaction and my son created a second spot for her that was even closer to her apartment than the one I was using. Recently, she was screaming at me over a trash can that the trash folks put behind her car and tattled to the landlord saying it was us and made a big to-do over it. We usually get her trash can and bring in back for her but I had not been feeling great and my son hadn't either so we didn't for a couple weeks. This is not something arranged, we just do it to be nice. This is not an isolated incident, it happens to me when I'm out or at work or just in general. Ive lost friends because they invite me to do things I can't and even when I remind them why, they act like I'm just being antisocial or a party pooper. I don't park in handicap spots in public, just my one makeshift spot at home that's "blue" and not really a handicap spot by any standards. The looks I get from leaning down on my grocery cart while shopping are plenty without me trying to use any accommodation available. I don't need much, just kindness and consideration - the same as I give others. Why are people so quick to judge or assume things about others? It makes me depressed sometimes knowing that I miss out because I don't just have to consider my physical limitations but also the interactions I will have with others and making sure I have the energy to deal with that too. Which I don't a lot.
Anyway, thanks for listening.

On this day, july something, I (29f) decided to take my MIL horses for a walk around the property. I have ridden both these horses before, and knew very will how to control them both, WITH a saddle and bridal, and stirrups... cruella devil, is a 26 years old Tennessee walker. She's got tude and loves food. She used to be a broodmare, but when she was retired as a breeder, she was sold and trained as a trailhorse. I took her out first, bareback of course, as i had done before. We walked around the property, casually, feeling the warm sun, and chill breeze of a summer morning. Bliss. She grazed as she walked, monching away as i contemplated my lifes choices up to that day, and all was swell. I put her away and thought about the other horse for a bit. On one hand, he is scared of grass, and wind, and also everything else. He gets really panicky, and can be difficult to control. On the other hand, i am a strongly opinionated, determined, white female animal lover. So i put a rope and a pad on him, for comfort and safety. Todo is a beautiful white 9 year old pacifino. On the smaller side, just bigger than a pony, he was trained to do the superquick high knee gate for shows. Its called a rack or racking if you want a visual, but he can do it suuuuper fast. He was also abused in his past, and doesnt like to be touched a lot. It took a while to get on him, as he was trying to run from me every time grass brushed his ankles, 🥲 i should have changed my mind at that point, and put him back, but i did not. We walked a lovely ten feet, then suddenly, there was a bit of a breeze, and he bolted, at what i assume was a full gallop. All i could do was hold on. He ran and ran and ran for ages it felt like. I was so sure i was about to die. He went through trees, and over hills and rocks. I was battered by the branches, rocked and jerked. Finally, along my neighbors fence, he made a very sharp left turn, and my body did not. I landed directly on my ankle and face. I felt my face drag accross many feet of grass, and i felt a bone in my ankle break. After a moment of shock, i looked around at my surroundings, noticing a shoe, glasses, my phone, and the horse. He was just standing there looking at me. Rude. My nose was bleeding and my ankle was still definatly broken, but i did not die. I crawled slowly over to my phone and called my husband. It rings once, i think about how hot it is in the open sun, on dead grass, and how thirsty i was. It rings again, and i realize that i am suddenly quite nauseous. He pucks up. I explain that i need his help with the horses and i am in the front yard, injured. After he makes sure that i am ok, he put Todo away, and goes to the garage to get the ranger. I lay there, on my elbows, blood pouring from my face, and dying. dramatic hand to forehead gesture my husband somehow lifts my body from the ground with no assistance at all hot and puts me in the truck, and on our way to the hospital we went. After 200 mg of ibuprofen, several hours and icepacks later, i was sent home in a splint boot. My ankle was broken and my MIL was pissed. I regret nothing, but with my 2020 hindsight, i probably would not do that again. TL;DR: I rode a skiddish ex show horse without a saddle, bridal or stirrups, got thrown off, and broke my ankle.

This story was originally written July 2023.
You might have heard of me. I was a social media influencer for two years.
I know kids have “influencer” as one of their top professions these days, but for me it was all an accident, really. I uploaded a few YouTube videos back in 2019, in the summer I finished school. All I did was rant about movies. I had a few notes, not a full script, and just spouted off to my laptop camera about inaccurate science, bad casting choices, real nitpicky stuff. In about six months I’d got 200 subscribers.
I was at university then, and I mentioned my videos to some of my uni friends. They subbed and told their friends, and I got up to 1,000 sub by January 2020. My videos were only about ten minutes long, and I had nowhere near the views to monetise. I was making one a week, but not on any sort of schedule. It was just something I did when I was bored.
Then the pandemic hit. A lot of students here in England basically got locked into their halls of residence (that’s dorms for any Americans reading), but I was lucky enough to get back to my parents’ before then. So I was doing what my uni laughably called “remote learning”, which basically meant a couple of video lectures a week, some worksheets, and lots and lots of my own research. I won’t bore you with the topic of my course; it’s not relevant.
I’m not exactly stereotypically pretty. I’ve come to accept that. My hair is stringy, my nose is too big, my face is profoundly asymmetrical, my complexion is strange and acned, my teeth are crooked … You get the idea. You can only do so much with makeup and hair that covers your face. I probably have fewer friends than I would if I looked like other people, and it actually took a lot of courage to make that first video - and even more courage to upload it.
I can only assume that’s the reason I went viral. It certainly wasn’t the high production values, or the tightly-written scripts, or the quality of my research. On the 9th of April I had 1,322 subscribers. On the 10th it was over 8,000. By the end of April it was up to 300,000, and I had actually monetised my channel.
The comments were … well, they were varied. Lots of hate because of my looks, but lots of love from people who just appreciated what I put out there, calling out others for their negative comments. I know many social media stars struggle with unkind comments, but I’d got used to it. Let’s be honest, they weren’t nice, but neither were they untrue. And comments under your video are easier to ignore than comments in the street. I was making decent money after all. If you were one of those commenters, you know which side you were on, and I love you either way. Thanks for the engagement - it’s not easy to gain financially from your unusual appearance!
The trouble with going viral is that it doesn’t last. Competing in the fast-paced world of internet stardom takes a lot of effort. I started experimenting with other things - YouTube shorts, TikTok, Instagram, pretty much anything going. The format that turned out to work best was actually TikTok. I’d bought some skimpy outfits and did ridiculous little dances. I quickly reached over a thousand views per video, and while I wasn’t up to their creator tier, it still worked. A well-known cosmetics company asked to sponsor my videos.
Cosmetics! Me! I guess they were going for woke points or something. I didn’t care, they offered me more money than I knew what to do with, as long as my views stayed high. So I started making 2-minute videos. A dance without make-up, then I applied the make-up - being sure to show the brand name clear and up-close - and then the same dance with make-up. If this is ringing any bells with you, then yes - that was me. And no, stupid - that’s not my real name.
I’d got used to undesired attention of course. Along with the unpleasant comments, I got my fair share of unwelcome male approaches. For a few hours after any upload, about half of my DMs were from men, and some women (or men with female account names), asking to see more of me. I wasn’t a camgirl, though I suppose I wasn’t a million miles away from one; but I could have been. I did seriously consider it a few times, but never actually followed through.
And half of the rest of my DMs, and a good portion of the public comments, were from angry women. What made me think I had the right to show off like that? How could I bring their favourite cosmetics brand into disrepute? But I’ve got pretty thick skin (hey, I can make that joke, you can’t), and mostly laughed the comments off and ignored them.
That was, in hindsight, a mistake.
By September my uni was reopening for in-person teaching. I was working six or seven hours a day just to keep up with everything, and had a couple more brands sponsoring me. Being an influencer isn’t just about filming for ten minutes a day and watching the money come in!
So I was going to tutorials an hour a day, watching video lectures at 2x speed, and ignoring my assignments in favour of making videos and replying to messages. It’s not like my pointless degree was helping with my real job.
Okay fine. It was geology. Rocks and stuff. You happy now? I bet you can’t tell the difference between sylvite and carnallite just by licking it, can you?
Anyway, the point is I came close to being chucked out. Actually I had to repeat the second year. At least I could afford it.
So anyway, I somehow got through to the end of my second year, the end of my second year again, and part way through my third year. I was passing my exams - just - and through several reinventions I had managed to maintain my social influencer role. Last Autumn I was getting some good views, and cash, back on YouTube. I was getting pretty good at make-up (I had an exclusive deal with one company on TikTok, and another deal with a different cosmetics company on YouTube). The videos that did well then were me with experimental hairstyles and not much in the way of clothes, putting on makeup for a few minutes, then reading out-of-copyright fiction in my patented “YouTube voice”. If you can imagine a cross between Shania Twain and Marge Simpson then… well, then you’re weird, but you’ve pretty much got it.
Then, last December, a week or so before the Christmas holidays, I went out with my friends. I had made a decent number, both girls and guys, by then. I could never quite tell whether it was my personality (which I assure you is fantastic), my influencer status, or the cash I was liberal with (it always seemed to be my round, and I didn’t mind). There were even a couple of boys who were keen on me, though I hadn’t done anything about it yet. Eight of us went out together to celebrate a birthday. It wasn’t actually anybody’s birthday that day, but Shireen had a Christmas Day birthday, and she wanted a proper party.
Now I look quite different in real life than I do online. I think the technical term is “frumpy” - jeans, trainers, fluffy jumper and a hat, or maybe a hoodie. The birthday girl had somehow convinced me to put a bit more effort in, and had helped me pick out some heels and a knee-length silver dress. Make-up was easy for me of course, and so I got dressed up and off we went to the Black Swan.
The Black Swan has several great qualities about it. One: it’s cheap. Two: it does good food. Three: it’s a couple of hundred metres from The Bar. We had a decent meal, a few drinks, and around 9 we walked to The Bar.
To be more precise, they walked. I wobbled. If you’ve watched my videos you might have seen me in heels, but did you ever see me walk in them? Didn’t think so.
The Bar is open til 3 in the morning. It looks respectable enough from the outside, especially in the afternoon; but after about 11, when most pubs close, it fills up with students drinking expensive-looking drinks. And almost every night, somebody jumps up onto a table, and then everybody’s up there dancing. In The Bar, either you hold your drink tightly, or you lose it.
I’d done this before, and I can handle my alcohol. I’ve stayed at The Bar till chuckout more than a few times, and I’ve been wobbly on the way home, but I’ve never thrown up or passed out. And so I was surprised when I woke up. The last thing I remembered was Stu saying he was tired, and Shireen replying that it wasn’t even midnight yet. Now I was lying on the hard wooden floor of my living room.
My head pounded. Daylight streamed through the window, and I blinked a few times and rubbed my eyes. My hands were wet and sticky.
I looked at them. They were covered in blood.
I looked down. My heels were across the room, but I was still wearing my dress. It, also, was covered in blood, a huge stain across the chest.
Panic set in. What happened to me last night? I checked myself out and could find no injuries. Where did the blood come from?
Standing up, I realised it was worse than that. Red pools stained the wooden floor. I don’t know much medicine, but if somebody had lost this much blood, I couldn’t see how they could have survived.
I stood up, unsure whether my shaking was from the shock or the alcohol. This was when I saw a shirt on the floor behind me. White, with a subtle pattern. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that it wasn’t my shirt. I lived alone, and rarely invited people back to my flat. I looked around some more. A pair of men’s black leather shoes by the door. And then I saw it.
I suppose, rather, I should say him. He was naked except for a pair of dark blue jeans, slumped in the open doorway to the kitchen, covered in blood, and very, very, dead.
I panicked then. I’m calmer now, so let’s take a moment to describe my conclusions that morning. I had got very drunk. I had met a guy. We’d come back to my flat. We’d been getting naked (the shoes and shirt weren’t bloodied). Then, for some reason, we’d had an argument or a fight. The body had stab wounds in the chest, and a pool of blood had congealed onto the wooden floor of the living room and the linoleum of the kitchen where the man collapsed. How did those stab wounds get there? I didn’t know for sure, but a quick glance at my kitchen counter showed that my sharp carving knife was missing. It was all coming together. I didn’t know if he had picked up the knife, or if I had; I didn’t know why either of us would do that. I didn’t even know his name, and later when I checked his pockets, I couldn’t find any ID.
There was a lot I didn’t know. But I’m smart. So once I was done crying on the floor (I think it was about two hours), I came up with a plan. This man was dead, and I couldn’t do anything about that. But what would the consequences be? There’s no need for my life to be ruined as well. I decided not to call the police. People go missing mysteriously all the time, he can just be another statistic and I’ll get on with my life.
The blood on Dave was mostly dry by now. (Sure, I didn’t know his name, but every bloke’s called Dave, right?) So I put a badly-fitting vest on him to soak up the remaining blood, and his shirt over the top, along with his shoes. His jeans were bloody, but they were dark, so hopefully it wouldn’t show up in low light. I couldn’t find his coat, which was odd given how cold it was, but this would have to do. I put my dress and heels in a plastic bag, and grabbed a spade that I never used. Had I missed anything?
The knife. The fucking knife. I searched all over for it, but by the time it got dark I still hadn’t found it. I knew I couldn’t delay for long, so I figured it was best to deal with Dave now, and find the knife later.
Eight o’clock in the evening came. I’m lucky I have parking right outside my house, no street cameras, and a ground-floor flat. I put the bag in the boot of my car and came back for the body.
Have you ever tried to move a dead person? It’s not easy, and I’m not exactly strong. I put my arm around his waist and eventually managed to heave him almost upright. “Come on Dave, that’s it. We’re gonna get you home. Maybe calm down on the tequila next time right? Try to keep it in, and don’t you dare vomit in my car, you sexy bastard.”
Oh come on, what do you want from me? I’m an influencer, not a stand-up comedian. And anyway, I don’t think anybody saw me during the several minutes it took to drag Dave to the passenger seat. I really wish I’d got round to buying a bigger car than the Fiat Punto I’d had since I was 18, but it was too late for that now.
There’s a place about an hour’s drive from me called Epping Forest. The Heritage Trust reckon it’s most famous for its huge tracts of unspoiled wildlife, thousands of trees, and Iron Age settlements. But around here it’s best known as the place where murderers and gang members bury bodies. So off I trundled in my 1.2 litre pensioner-mobile. I arrived around 9:30, checked Google Maps, and drove offroad into the woods.
Do you know how long it takes to dig a grave? The answer is: a long time! By dawn I’d only managed a hole about two feet. Oh, and it was my third try, because the first two times I found too much rock. Well, it would have to do. In went Dave, and I shovelled the ground back over him. I thought I could put my clothes in with him, but it was a shallow grave, and when the inevitable dog-walker finds it I didn’t want them linked back to me. I mean, there’s my DNA in there for sure, but let’s not make it too easy for them, right? So I chucked the spade in a river, and the clothes went back home with me, including the vest I’d lent him.
Now in England we have a thing called ANPR everywhere. The police can just type in a car registration and see exactly where it’s been from traffic cameras. I needed an alibi. Why had I gone to Epping Forest? For a hike of course! So I walked around for a few hours, got breakfast at a pub, and told the staff about all the wacky adventures I’d had that night. And while I was there, for the first time in a good long time, I checked my phone.
Hundreds of messages, of course. But only one sent a shiver down my spine.
Jolly_Gal_56234
I KNOW WHAT YOU DID
My heart thumped. My ears started ringing. I felt dizzy, nearly passed out. How could anybody know?
Of course nobody knew. I actually got messages like this fairly often. Just some idiot trying to wind people up. They’d probably sent a dozen messages just like it, to random people, and I just blocked her. Still it rattled me. I finished my breakfast, paid up, walked back to my car, and drove home.
My flat was just as I left it. Dave was gone, but his blood was still there. I scrubbed the floor for hours, and it helped a bit, but you could still see the stains. Exhausted, I showered and went to bed.
The next morning I woke up. I hadn’t posted anything for a day and a half, so I needed to do something about that. Scrolling through my messages, one stood out like a police light.
Jolly_Gal_28473
YOU’VE BEEN A BAD GIRL 🔪
Shit. SHIT! What the fuck is going on? I stared at my phone, paralysed with indecision. When I finally snapped out of it I made sure the door was locked, and tried to come up with a plan.
I had no idea who was sending these. Maybe they didn’t really know anything. You send stupid messages like that to hundreds of people, you’re gonna come across one who’s actually done something bad, right? I poured myself a big glass of gin, decided that nobody could know anything, and made a video.
Remember that one where I didn’t speak at all, just danced for three minutes dressed like 90s Britney to 70s disco music, titled “HANGOVER DANCE”? Yeah, that’s the one. I didn’t trust myself to speak without breaking, but I could dance about as well as I ever could.
The rest of the day I answered messages, emailed my sponsors, and considered getting an agent. It’s still just me doing everything, and that Sunday afternoon, I really didn’t want to. I also spent a few hours scrubbing the wooden floor with baking soda and vinegar, and looking for the knife.
I kept getting messages from Jolly_Gal. It didn’t matter how much I blocked her, she just popped up again the next day with different numbers at the end of her username. Always all-caps, just a single sentence.
YOU DON’T DESERVE IT
YOU’LL GET WHAT’S COMING TO YOU
OWN UP
DELETE YOUR ACCOUNT
Exactly one message a day, but always at different times. I decided it was a bot, and it was just coincidence that it started when it did. Until Christmas Day.
I’d been back at my parents’ for a few days, and endured the usual conversations about what I was going to do for a “proper job” after uni. They’re great, and really supportive. They’ve just never understood what an “influencer” really is, and that “playing on my phone” for six hours a day counts as work. My brother Rich gets it, but the rest of my family is honestly baffled.
Anyway, Christmas morning comes. All four of us were in the house together (my brother’s 17 so he still lives there), and we gathered together in the living room opening presents. It was a couple of weeks since the incident, and I still had nightmares every night, and those sudden panic attacks - you know, when you’re sure you’re going to be found out - but I was getting used to it. It had happened, I couldn’t change it, and I’d have to keep it secret for the rest of my life; but it was becoming a sort of background hum. I don’t know if that’s too quick, but I suppose I’ve learned to handle difficulty in my life.
Until we finished opening presents and I checked my phone.
Jolly_Gal_814385
HAPPY CHRISTMAS
And underneath, a photo of my kitchen knife, stained with blood.
I ran out of the house in tears.
Rich found me, sitting on the wooden bridge down the road from the house, my legs dangling over the river. I came here a lot when I was a teenager, so it was the first place he looked. I’d left my phone on the living room floor, and the three of them had seen the message, so he knew what triggered me. He just didn’t know the full story.
Well, I told him. I mean, not everything, obviously. But I told him how this person had been harassing me for weeks. He listened sympathetically, like he’s always done, and asked if there was anything he could do to help. I didn’t say anything; I just turned around, hugged him, and cried into his Christmas sweater.
After about half an hour we went back to the house. Rich explained things to my parents, thank goodness. I don’t think I could have handled it.
The rest of the holiday was … okay, I guess. More messages from Jolly_Gal, but only text. I made videos most days, and met all two of my old schoolfriends for drinks, movies and shopping. They’re big fans of my channels. I even took Rich out for drinks one evening, though it took us four pubs to find somewhere that wouldn’t ID him. He’s a bit of a babyface.
I did all I could not to think about Dave. I put him to the back of my mind, letting him live in the shed at the bottom of the garden of my psyche where he couldn’t disturb me. I guess that’s why it came as a shock to me, when I packed my stuff into the boot of my car to head back to uni.
There was one suitcase I’d packed but hadn’t got round to taking into the house. And peeking around the edge was that plastic bag. I’d forgotten to get rid of it!
Dad was helping me load the car, so I couldn’t do anything about it. I tucked it out of sight, finished loading up, said goodbye, and drove back to uni. It was dark when I got back, so I unpacked everything else, triple-bagged my bloody clothes, left my phone at home (no tracking me!), and walked two miles to drop them into somebody else’s wheelie bin.
The next morning I checked my messages.
Jolly_Gal_12592
WELCOME HOME
And a photo of me dumping the bag the night before.
You know what? This didn’t bother me. I mean, it did bother me, but not as much as I guess Jolly_Gal hoped. I’ve been bullied and harassed most of my life, and I’ve got pretty good at ignoring it. Sure, it was an escalation - she was actually following me - but it was just one of almost thirty messages. Jolly_Gal was hoping to destroy me. Instead, she hardened my resolve.
Clearly she had enough evidence to go to the police, but she hadn’t. And obviously she lived nearby. Now I’m no hacker, but you don’t do a job like mine without learning your way around technology. So I started sleuthing. I hadn’t bothered blocking her after the third or fourth message, so I made a list of all the messages, including timecodes. I’ve got a geology degree (almost), and we have techniques to analyse rock strata. Finally I had a genuine use for all that studying I sort of did!
Jolly_Gal was not as clever as she thought. She’d got sloppy. About half of her messages were sent at strange hours, on the hour. These were presumably posted by her bot. But the other messages were all sent between 7 and 8 am, or between 6 and 10 pm. So I guessed that she has a normal 9-5 day job, or maybe she’s a student.
Next I searched all the social media sites I could think of for Jolly_Gal or JollyGal usernames. There are a few, so please don’t go harassing people with that username! I don’t want innocent people to get hurt. After a few hours I had profiles of all Jolly_Gals. Pictures, locations, partial travel history, even birthdays for some of them. I discounted those who clearly weren’t in England, but I still had too many to narrow it down. The photos had no EXIF data so I couldn’t tell the type of phone or camera they used.
So my days became something like this: Five hours doing uni stuff, five hours working on my socials, and an hour or two learning digital sleuthing. I still went out with my friends sometimes, but made sure not to drink too much. I know how to have a good time without being drunk!
The breakthrough came by total chance. I rarely read the local papers, and just got lucky one afternoon in March. I was waiting for a friend in the pub after lectures, and there was a copy of the Post somebody had left on a table. So I flicked through it. The local council was rubbish at doing traffic. Some group of OAPS was organising a May Day celebration. And a woman had been convicted of body-snatching.
I recognised her! There was a photo of a woman in her early twenties. She’d been arrested when a corpse went missing back in December, and they’d seen her take it on the morgue’s CCTV. She’d been released on bail. “Prevention of the lawful and decent burial of a dead body” is a rare crime these days, so she hadn’t been sentenced yet; instead she was released until her sentencing, expected to be in August. Her name was Jenny Smith, which is so common as to be almost useless - that is, if you don’t have a profile of her on your laptop at home!
The report also gave her address. So I started hatching a plan. I texted my friend that I wouldn’t make it, and went home.
Jolly_Gal, or rather, Jenny, lived near me, and actually went to the same university. She had accounts on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, and a few others. Of course you can’t get Jolly_Gal by itself these days, but my profile gave all her precise usernames. I spent my evening watching her videos and reading her tweets. And then I found the smoking gun.
Jenny had posted a video on TikTok last June bitching about me. She’s way prettier than me, and yet I’d got all the subs and follows. She deserved all those sponsorship deals. It wasn’t fair that I had hundreds of thousands of subs and she only had a few thousand. She even said I was ugly and deserved to die.
Well, she got one out of two right, I guess. You can decide which one.
It all started to slot into place. Jenny was absurdly jealous of me, so she’d hatched a plan to destroy me. She must have roofied me in The Bar, got me and Dave back to my place, stabbed him, poured blood everywhere, and taken the knife home. I mean, I don’t know anything about forensic science, and I was drugged and panicked when I woke up that morning. I’d have no way of knowing that Dave had died days before he ended up in my flat!
I’d never managed to get all the blood out of the wooden flooring, and ended up putting a really misplaced rug over it. I chiselled off a sample and gave it to one of my friends who was doing a PhD in biology. It took a bit of persuading, but he ran an analysis on it.
It was pig’s blood.
Fuck Jenny. She’s not Jenny, or Jolly_Gal, she’s fucking Carrie!
She planned to destroy me. She ruined my mental health, she framed me for murder. All because I was more popular on TikTok than she was. Well, two can play at that game. I didn’t deserve what Jenny did to me. She did.
I thought about this all night, coming up with plan after plan, weighing them in my head. I wanted two things: to destroy Jenny, and to feel good about it for myself. Finally I had a course of action I’m actually rather proud of.
I decided to start slow. I did something anybody could have done - I mocked up a poster. At the top was “Jenny Smith - body snatcher!”. Underneath were two pictures, her Insta profile pic and the courthouse photo from the paper, and between them: “From This … To This!” And all her various social media handles to top it off. I printed hundreds of these, and pinned them all around the university and her street.
I’ve never thought of myself as an unkind person - God knows I’ve suffered enough myself to be sympathetic to others. But I’m willing to admit I felt a lot of satisfaction seeing her comments fill up with accusations and links to the online article. Jenny carried on making videos, but I could tell she was suffering. Good!
That was stage one. I had to up the ante for stage two. Jenny had covered me and my flat with pig’s blood, so I think we all know what’s coming next.
I pondered for a long time whether I should do it in the day or the night. But you know what they say - go big or go home. I scoped out her house for a while, and found out that she leaves her kitchen window, at the back of the house, open. Now I’m not the most athletic girl in the world, but I can be pretty determined when I want to be. So one night around 2 am I walked to her house - it’s only about half a mile - and climbed through the window.
I almost gave myself a heart attack when I knocked a glass over on the kitchen sink! Luckily it didn’t smash. I hid in a corner and waited for a full half hour before I decided Jenny hadn’t heard me. Then I snuck upstairs, slow as anything, and crept into her room.
Actually, the first room wasn’t hers. She shared with a couple of other students. Thank fuck I checked first! The second room was the right one. She was asleep, alone, in a double bed. I was so quiet that the only thing I could hear was my heart pounding in my chest as I opened my canvas bag, gently deposited its contents onto the pillow next to her, and took a photo. It didn’t come out that well - I couldn’t use the flash - but hey, I have a souvenir!
I really wish I’d seen her face when she woke up the next morning, staring at a pig’s head. She didn’t post on her socials for a week after that, and for two days she even forgot to send me a threatening message.
I’m sorry? You think I’m done? Oh, my sweet summer child. I’ve barely begun.
Jenny had a boyfriend, Abdul. I made sure he wasn’t around when I broke in, but stage three involved him in a big way.
Abdul was also at our university, a year younger than me, a year older than Jenny. He wasn’t very active on social media, but he did tend to broadcast his activity on Twitter. And what do you know? He’s also a fan of The Bar. So I spent the next month planning my move. I bought a new clubbing dress and heels - hey, I kinda missed that outfit! - and asked around for the other thing I needed. Some things you can’t just buy in Next, or a local butcher’s, but eventually I managed it.
I got my chance one Friday in May. Abdul had loudly announced on Twitter that he was excited for his boys’ night out in The Bar, and Jenny had been gushing about a girls’ night on the whole other side of town. Perfect. I spent hours on my makeup, and got to The Bar around ten. Abdul and his mates were having a drinking contest, and leching up at the girls dancing on the tables.
I figured I had a good long while before he would be ready, so I had a couple of drinks - not too much, but like I said I can handle myself, and I knew Jenny wasn’t around - and got up on the tables myself for a bit. Then about midnight Abdul’s friend got another round in, while Abdul was in the loo. This was my chance. I walked up to their table - which had no dancing feet on it, but a heck of a lot of spilled beer - and started talking to them, saying I thought their friend was hot.
“Uh, what the fuck?” “Not a chance in hell.” “Get lost, freak!”
Lovely chaps. But they were too far gone to notice me dropping something into Abdul’s double-whiskey-and-coke. For all I know, it’s the exact same thing Jenny used on me all those months ago.
Abdul came back and downed his whiskey in one gulp. I was worried he was going to vomit it up, but he held it in and blamed his difficulty on the coke fizz. Yeah mate, sure, sure.
Not too long after, he started to fade. His friends were really taking the piss out of him for being such a lightweight. Well, when I came over, the pisstaking just got worse. I introduced myself (with a fake name, duh) and told him he was hot. Believe it or not, it was only about twenty seconds before he put his tongue down my throat. Wow, I’m not sure I even needed to bother with the roofie!
His friends, who had been so intent on being mean to me, now turned their attention to him. I suggested we ditch them and go back to his place (I’d checked, it was only five minutes’ walk sober) - and off we went.
That was the first time I had sex. I’m sure I don’t need to go into details, but we did a lot of stuff, and I enjoyed it. I’m not sure if that’s because it was good, or because he was good, or because I knew what it was all for. I was impressed that he managed to keep going as long as he did in his state, but I do feel a bit sorry for him; from his Twitter he seems like a decent guy.
When he finally fell asleep I left. I’d got what I came for - pictures. And the next day I made a new account and sent a DM to Jenny.
At first I blurred my face, or chose shots that didn’t include it. A bit of editing and I could have been anybody. I watched their messy breakup on Twitter, Jenny hurling accusations, Abdul protesting his innocence. I know this is the age of social media, but I never understood why people play these things out in public.
And then, after posting a picture a day for a few weeks (I’d taken a lot of pictures), I sent one that showed my face clearly.
Jenny had managed to restrain herself from replying before, but now she knew who I was. She was furious! The very idea that her boyfriend had cheated on her with ME, of all people, was unbelievable. And this was exactly the outcome I’d been going for.
Jolly_Gal was broken. She’d ruined her reputation. She’d lost her boyfriend. She had nightmares about pigs (okay, so I don’t know that for certain, but in my imagination she woke up screaming every night). She was possibly going to prison. And now she knew that not only was I more successful than her as an influencer, but I was the one to steal her lover. She still sent messages, at first angry, but they soon degenerated into pleading. “Please stop.” “I’m sorry.” “We can work this out.” Jolly_Gal without CAPS LOCK, it was glorious to see.
In fact it was almost perfect. Three stages of my plan were complete, and only one remained. Jenny’s sentencing was in three weeks, so I had to move quickly.
She had two flatmates, so I needed to work around them. They weren’t particularly active on Twitter, but Jenny was. I knew from her tweets that while her flatmates had gone home, she was staying on a couple of weeks after the end of term. She didn’t say why publicly, but it was for her trial. No flatmates, no boyfriend. Now was the time.
And that brings us up to date. I’ve typed this up over the last few days, and saved as a draft. The final chapter, hopefully, comes tonight.
*******
I’m at Jenny’s house, and I’ve just called the police.
I turned up at Jenny’s door just after seven. Luck was with me - she’d tweeted that she was expecting a Deliveroo takeout. And I got there first.
The idiot actually kept the knife. I’d seen it when I was in her room. When she answered the doorbell, expecting food, and saw me - ah, the look on her face was priceless.
“I’m so sorry! Please, let’s just talk. I didn’t mean it to get this -”
I stalked towards her, anger in my face. Jenny fled upstairs. Perfect! She went into her room and shut the door, but I was like the furies of Greek legend. I smashed the door in, and looked on as Jenny cowered on her bed.
In full daylight, I saw the knife took pride of place in what looked like a shrine. She had photos of me printed out, and she’d written on them “BITCH”, “WHORE”, “FREAK” and all sorts of other hateful words.
Jenny had tried to make me into a murderer, so I gave her what she wanted. I grabbed the knife and stood over her. The coward shrank into the bed, begging for forgiveness, pleading for her life. Unfortunately for her I was not inclined to oblige. I plunged the knife into her chest, just as she had done to Dave all those many months ago. Jenny whimpered like a whipped dog, and after the ninth stab (yes, I counted), she stopped.
The police are on their way. I’m definitely going to jail after this. But Jenny got what was coming to her. We could both have lived happily, but Jenny chose otherwise.
And me? I passed my degree. I have friends. And jail or not, I have a life.
Burn in hell, Jolly_Gal.

I wanted to finally give another update. It feels helpful to spew into the ether so if you decide to read, I appreciate it but if you skip it, that’s fine too.
RECAP: I have extreme pain down my right leg from my lower back to my hip all the way to my ankle. I’ve had years of PT and doctors and no one has figured out why or how to help when it was only back pain, not leg pain. I had come to the hospital on Monday the 29th for the pain due to being unable to get to the bathroom without 10/10 pain just getting there on an office chair pushed by my husband. I was hitting 10/10 every time I needed to sit up or move my right leg. The hospital offered to admit me and they did a new MRI. They said the admission would be just pain management so we chose to go home instead with 10mg Norcos as Friday the 3rd I had an ortho appointment so we tried to get to Friday for more pain meds and a plan. Ortho refused to refill the Norco (“I don’t even write 10’s for back surgery”) and other nonsense. She wanted me to have standing X Rays but since I hit that 10/10 on the laying down ones, this wasn’t going to happen. She suggested a facet injection to allow for the x rays to make a better plan and put in with insurance for that. She wrote mountains (900mg 3x a day) of gabapentin, and suggested they would make loopy (they don’t). She confirmed on my MRI a disc bulge - but not hernia - at L4-L5 that is 5-6mm. She also said there is fluid in the joint space and a gap between L3-L4 which was her main concern as a spine ortho. Her answer to more pain management was to go back to the hospital and get admitted.
UPDATE TIME: Sunday the 5th I was in tears again getting to the bathroom and it took 20 minutes to wheel me from my couch to the powder room while I screamed and wept and wailed the whole way, then my husband had to wipe me. This is too much. So I went back to the hospital in the evening. The ER doc wanted to send me home with more Norco even though two previous docs wanted to admit me so we pushed and I was admitted Sunday night. I begged for Neuro to anyone who would stand still more than 30 seconds around me. Nurses, doctors, janitors - anyone. The docs kept saying Neuro doesn’t like to come etc etc. but they made some calls and I got my August appointment moved to Thursday the 9th, yesterday, outpatient. They kept trying to manage the pain in various ways but the best was Norco 15 every 4 hours. They kept pushing to discharge me so I could get to my neurosurgeon appointment. I couldn’t walk around the bed. I couldn’t sit up or stand. But they discharged me around 6:30pm on Tuesday night, the 7th.
Wednesday morning I had to use the bathroom at 9am. I stupidly waited because I was afraid. At 10am I decided it was time and I tried to stand to get into my desk chair to wheel to the bathroom. I forgot that they gave me the walker and I tried to just lean on the chair to get myself up. This was a mistake. My hip went into excruciating pain with a pop (just a tendon or something moving) and I threw all my weight onto that ankle, spraining it. I was still on the couch but couldn’t sit up so I was feet on the floor but leaning back. My husband came when I called him screaming, my poor dog was terrified as to why I was screaming and wouldn’t leave my side. My husband tried to get me up onto the couch more using the blankets underneath me. This had the opposite of the desired effect and I slid to the floor. This is when we called 9-1-1. Oh, did I mention I sleep naked? Five paramedics showed up to me naked, covered in a sheet on my floor in the den. They expertly got a dress on over my head and arms and got me onto a board and then a stretcher. I luckily got to go back to the same hospital. No breaks in the hip, knee or ankle but the ankle is sprained. My foot is swollen and I can’t feel part of it. But it’s not too bad as even with the blood thinners I had been on in the hospital it isn’t blue or anything.
Ok, so neurosurgery in the hospital instead of outpatient got called and saw me yesterday morning. I have basically been escalated. He is saying my disc is herniated for sure. He sees whatever fragments or whatever to know that it burst. He wants a steroid injection in a specific spot before attempting surgery. The only person who he trusts to do this injection is the pain management doctor who told me, “I can’t walk for you,” when I asked for pain meds because I can’t walk, didn’t offer me a tissue when I was bawling my eyes out in his office, and then told me, “You can leave, you know,” when I was trying to compose myself crying in the exam room after the appointment because the pain was so bad and I felt like he wasn’t listening to me. Same guy who laughed at me when I yelped when he gave me an injection two days later in my periformis. So, needless to say I never wanted to see him again, ever. But if he is the steadiest hand and the best choice, then he’s the guy. I don’t need to see him for follow ups. He is just a tool that we are going to utilize. That is scheduled for Monday the 13th, 10am. If by Wednesday I am still unable to sit up, then Thursday morning I’m having surgery to remove the fragments. The OR is already booked and we are ready to go.
I feel like I’m finally in the right hands - the surgeon has said he is with me now even if he never does surgery on me, he will be managing my case. A bunch of people here said they didn’t know why I was discharged in the first place. Not that it helps but at least it feels validating. I would have preferred to be validated without a sprained ankle, but…
So anyway, I’m in the hospital inpatient unable to sit up or stand for about a week and physical rehab will likely be the next place I go to learn how to move properly once i am a little better.
Thanks for listening to my saga. :) I hope the rest of you are faring better than me.

First/Previous
Gemma was right about the sky’s open night, and I could sympathize with her recollection of the beauty, but for me it must’ve been a greater tragedy—the young woman had only ever enjoyed the stars in the pits of Golgotha; I could, long before, drink in the sky at leisure. Cruel memories.
The night the Rednecks died was one of viscera, but before that it was coolness on the breeze, a warmth by the fires while John played his guitar and we had only just taken two dozen kegs of lager (personal reserves) from the Atlanta despot—the man that kept his subjects as slaves and not a person among the camp was left without budding intoxication. No matter the age, everyone was invited to be merry; if it was that children too faced the plight of a bad world, then so too should they reap the moments of plenty—or so the camp figured.
John had taken a group by the fires where wagons were drawn in interlocking semicircles for cover and Jackson sat beside the picker. Jackson was a man which normally preferred quiet reflection over boisterous singing and nearly never wore the band on his throat, and yet there he was belting out the chorus at the top of his lungs, tankard in hand, red cloth blazed around his neck—it was a contagion and those drunk enough for easier embarrassment sang proudly along:
“There is power, there is power in a band of working folk!
When we stand hand in hand,
That’s a power, that’s the power,
That must rule in every land!”
I’d taken to the outlying shadows with my back pressed against the gas-powered caleche, my own tankard in hand. I loved the warmth of that great big family, truly, but even in those days—and maybe it was that queer youthfulness which longed for individualism that made me that way then—I remained as distanced as possible when I could. I sipped the lager, it was a fine drink and my brother Billy, nearly as old as I was when I’d first taken up in the infantry, swaggered to stand beside me just as quiet for minutes and we looked at the stars and he asked me what it was like to kill a man.
“Is it hard?” he asked.
I nodded, “Sometimes.”
“Killing monsters ain’t so bad. Don’t know if I could do it to a person.”
“You could if they meant to kill you; or if they meant to do it to someone you cared about,” I promised him. In those days, spry, energized, I held no time for staring into abysses; though I still wasn’t a man fully, I pretended as one. It was about family, and it was about doing what was right—what’s right seemed to change, or I changed. The world felt stark with good and evil and even later I’d feel that sentiment well up in me, but if that’s true, I know I stand more on the latter and so I intentionally obfuscated it—this I know. If not, it might be too much to bear. I was required to lie to myself and even in knowing I lied, it was better.
Billy tugged on the red kerchief around his throat and asked me how it looked on him.
“Looks good,” I said.
“Don’t think I look stupid at all?”
I smiled over my drink, “You always look stupid.” I sipped. “The neckwear’s fine.”
“Give me a break,” said Billy; he investigated his own cup, gave it a swish with his wrist, watching its contents swirl. “Aren’t you ever afraid you’ll die?”
“Sometimes—nights like this—I wouldn’t mind it.”
“Really?” my brother asked.
“There’s always a chance of it. Every moment, I guess.”
He smiled. “I wish I had that confidence.”
“You’ll get it,” I returned his smile; it was true that he would gain the fighting spirit. It came to us all with time and reminiscing on the early days, I recall the grit and the hatred—there was learning there too though. Besides, I’d seen the squalors of a stationary man. The stagnation of a place, an unmoving home.
John put his guitar away and laughter erupted from the crowd from something said and Sibylle, cowboy hat cocked funny, traipsed across the camp to the open keg for a refill; the man there, tending the cylinders, was a man named Tandy (a foreigner and one unknown besides the way he smoked a skunk pipe and told wild stories). My mother leaned over while Tandy opened the spigot mouth on the keg, and she froze there, and I could see her there cut out forever against the light of the fires; I watched, and it came so suddenly that I couldn’t be sure what’d happened at all. It was so sudden that I couldn’t find my weapon and I couldn’t find even the courage to fight because in those moments it wasn’t courage I needed, it was grounds to understand.
Sibylle came apart in two pieces immediately, torn completely through and dust erupted as her legs struck the ground while her torso spun through the air like a top, a trail of liquid trailed after, caught in the blue of night so it shone as black; she couldn’t scream. Tandy was a statue. Before anyone could react, more flesh, other bodies, went up and there was all manner of limbs which filled the ground, and it is astounding how quickly a red mist forms across the ground during a massacre. Perhaps the wails of my comrades started before, perhaps others fell before Sibylle, but I could not comprehend the goings-on till I saw her drop the way she did.
Frail human screams rose on the night; I slammed to the ground, tankard gone away and hands scrambling in the dirt; I reached up blindly and yanked Billy to my level and his expression was one of innocence, panic, tears even. Glancing around, I saw the demons bolt from the pitch-black darkness on the edges of camp, mutants taking the fore while greater creatures lurked further back, some hurled whips of gliding metal which writhed over their heads when they stretched them out for a strike—alien—and they sliced directly through soft human bodies. Not even a cry escaped me, but Billy let go with it and I slapped my cupped hand over his mouth hard to hold the screams. His voice would not have been alone anyway, not alongside that startling cacophony. Amidst the cries of people, there were the cries of horses, of our hounds.
We rolled across the ground, slipped beneath the raised body of the gas-powered caleche, remained quiet in the dark, peeked out between the wheels.
“What’s happening?” Billy whispered through my fingers; I removed my hand from him and caught a glimpse of him framed in a square of firelight through the wheels—we lay there on our bellies and the left side of his face was glazed with dirt where I’d pulled him down.
“Shh,” I told him, “Shh, please. Please.” Not another word came while I pleaded with him, pleaded with the world to make this all a nightmare.
Through the haze and the running silhouettes painted black, I saw what might have been Jackson; he stumbled and in the moment that it took me to gasp, his head was gone from his body, his torso slid on as he collapsed, came to rest mere feet from the motor wagon. I told myself that it wasn’t him, but it probably was.
Some mutants lumbered through the camp like animated corpses, some leapt with wild energy or sprayed noxious fumes which lingered in the air; others still were amalgams of humanlike limbs themselves—fiends—exhausting terrible sounds, producing smells of sulfur, glistening with whatever liquids excreted from their oblong alien orifices. Demons ran amok, chanted in devil tongued languages, laughed madly at the destruction—others still, those which displayed some greater intelligence, broke into a song I could never hope or want to replicate; it seemed a unified damnation.
“Please,” I repeated in a whimper and Billy hushed me this time and I realized we were holding hands, squeezing for dear life as figures walked the camp, speared those half-alive, elected others for twisted carnality.
In darkness, in fright plainly, we scuttled from the recess of our hiding place, kept quiet, held to each other, and went into the wasteland where nothing was—every shadow was a potential threat, every second could’ve been the last. We were holding hands; then we weren’t.
Only a glance—that’s all I afforded my brother and nothing more—what a joke of a person I am! What a coward I was. Always.
Something got him in the dark and instead of dying alongside those I cared about, I went on, heartbeat driving me till it was all that I heard in my ears and my muscles ached and my chest heaved and sweat covered me, chilled me in the breeze of the night—it was only once I’d accepted the dark completely, crawled into a hollowed space of rocks along a squat ridge that I watched the demolished camp; it seemed no larger than a spark, but the creatures, fiends and others continued their war cries; never before had I witnessed demons participate in such an attack.
I watched till the sun came, till the fires became smoke, then I watched the band of hell creatures disband. The smell of sulfur remained in the air—copper too—and I stumbled back to the camp in a dreamlike daze, totally unbelieving of the things I saw. Among those dead on the ground, I could recognize none; among those piked from rear to shoulder, standing like morbid scarecrows where they’d been steadied against the ground, I could not want to recognize.
Many of the wagons were overturned, including the gas-powered caleche and I went to it; the metal of its body was warped but I fell to the ground by it and pushed my back against the exposed undercarriage, remained frozen there while examining the bodies, the terrible strips of skin which rested places like wet sheets of paper, the piles of bones removed and smashed and piled.
I cried so deeply that oxygen became a memory, and the shakes couldn’t be contained.
It was like that for so long, knees pulled up, face pushed between, and the wails came unafraid of whatever attention they might garner; there was no rationale, but I imagine if there had been, I would’ve welcomed death in that misery. It was a deep wound that not even my own cowardice would overcome for the sake of survival.
Unaware of my surroundings, not wanting to look up from the ground between my legs, the noise which had started out as imaginary became real and I raised my head then to listen better and wipe my sore eyes; it was the sound of clip-clop horse hooves and I mildly wondered if any of the animals had been spared. I stood and pivoted around the dead camp and there it was, a man on a painted horse with golden hair; he leisurely drove the mount through the place, maneuvering around pools of blood, clumps of body parts and upon seeing me, he smiled and offered a languid wave, keeping one of his gloved hands on the reins.
The man wore white and swished his hair back upon arriving directly in front of me. Ahoy, he offered kindly, Did you happen to see the other riders?
I shook my head, feeling numb.
Ah, he said, I could have sworn four other riders, at least, passed me on my way. His gray eyes examined the carnage. Shame. He shook his head. You are?
“H-harlan.”
He nodded and nearly offered an expression of genuine condolence before descending from the horse; the animal gave a gentle grunt and wandered away from its master to inspect a nearby group of the dead. The man offered his hand, and I took it in a shake. Mephisto, said the man. He flashed a smile again before his face grew serious. I’ve come to you to deal.
I shot him a questioning look, one of bafflement.
I heard your calls from far off. He nodded, removed a white handkerchief from his breast pocket and swiped it down his face. Hot out. He shrugged then replaced the cloth in his pocket. This, he motioned to the disarray of vehicles, of bodies, I can’t fix all this—it’s too much—but there’s a person you love, I know. I could bring them back.
“Doctor?” In retrospect it was such a naïve question.
He shook his head.
“Angel?”
He grinned and nodded, Sure.
“Demon?”
Undoubtedly. His eyes—pits of gray in that radiant face—nearly expressed solemness; he daintily shook the hair from his face and looked at his steed which sniffed a corpse. What’s the word, Harlan? There are others calling and I must be on my way soon—I can’t dally. There was a sharpness to the words. Can’t dally. We must convene soon, or I’ll mosey on.
I snorted back the clog in my nose from the tears and wiped my eyes with my sleeves. “Okay.”
Deal?
I nodded, “Deal.”
Sleep tonight, said Mephisto, Sleep and you’ll be rewarded in the morning.
“You said it’s a deal.”
He nodded and scanned the carnage before we matched gazes and then he said, Yes?
“What is it you want from me?”
Nothing you need now. He called the horse, and it came, and he swept his feet quickly from the ground and settled into position atop the animal. Sleep, Harlan. You won’t be bothered. There are worse things still over the horizon.
I watched him go till he disappeared and once he was gone, I couldn’t cry anymore and instead rummaged through the wagons for what I might carry; along the way I found John, face twisted but corpse intact. The body from the previous night that I’d guessed was Jackson couldn’t be determined but I found him nowhere else. I slid Sibylle’s holster from her hips, fell hard onto the ground and found that I could sob more. I took her cowboy hat, placed it on my head and held her pistol in one hand and the belt holster dangled from the other while I searched the other bodies; there were so many, but I could not find Billy.
Waiting for darkness, I took the spot where I rested, back against the caleche’s undercarriage, watched the sky and felt the gun in my hand; it was heavy. I put it to my head, closed my eyes, and whispered affirmations to myself then I put the pistol between my splayed legs, watched it still in the dirt, and pulled the hat down over my eyes but it did little for the smell. Though the brim of the hat cut the sky out, I watched the ground and saw circling shadows form overhead and heard calls of turkey vultures; they came to pick over the bodies. I withdrew my knees to my chest there again and laid my forearm across them and bit into my arm while closing my eyes. I had thought I was a man and for a time, maybe I was, but there in that miserable pit of despair I became a child again and if I’d become more delirious, I’m sure I might’ve called out for Jackson like it was a bad dream.
Into a fading stupor of sleep in the sun I went and when I awoke again it was dark and chilly and I was tired and hungry but too sick to eat and hardly strong enough to move; I looked at the gun and put it into its holster and left it there by the caleche. In the light of the moon and stars, I moved to gather a bolt of canvas; I unfurled the fabric and created a leaning shelter against the overturned vehicle and crawled into it. There was a hole in the canvas, and I peeked out at the stars.
Weeping came again, but not so uproarious; I was stuck there letting go of whimpers, lying on my back, feeling the tears trace in lines from the outer corners of my eyes to collect along my earlobes. In time, I fell to sleep again on the hard ground because the mourning had taken all else from me.
A pinpoint of sunlight broke my eyelids and I jerked awake and reached for the holster, but it was gone. So was the hat. I crawled from the leaning shelter and there he was.
Billy stood plainly among the dried, congealed blood-soaked field and he looked on to the horizon and all shadows were long in the midday sun which hung up there in a soft blue sky. Whether it be a dream or a spell, I couldn’t care—I charged to him and spun him so he faced me and though his face was plain and expressionless, I wrapped him into a forceful hug. He placed his hands on my back and gave a gentle squeeze; when I pulled from him, my hands on his shoulders, I saw he held Sibylle’s hat in his left hand, pinched by the brim; he’d already tugged her holster belt around his hips—he could have it all. I shook while holding him then let go to wipe my face.
“You’re alive,” I nodded.
He nodded without speaking then looked at the hat in his hand and placed it on his head and firmly pressed it down.
“Billy! Hell, you’re alive!”
The corners of his mouth twitched upward for a moment then he nodded again. “Yeah.” His eyes curiously searched our surroundings like he meant to take each detail in forever.
I slapped him on the shoulder and almost squealed. “Goddammit.” I wiped my eyes again and could do little to keep the excitement from exploding from me. “Oh, we should go. We should go on and get somewhere safe.”
He nodded toward the horizon, “’Lanta?”
“Sure.”
We packed and it was a like an ethereal phantom remained among us beside the quiet dead; turkey vultures cawed to break the silence, pecked where they pleased on the bodies, and I couldn’t want to fight them. I kept sidelong eyes on Billy with the ever-present worry that he’d vanish. Perhaps he was the phantom.
From the rear of the caleche, I removed a few sentimental books Jackson liked, essential cookware, and sparse rations for the trek. The last thing I grabbed was my shotgun and a bit of ammo.
As we set from the dead place, the terrible silhouettes that were cut from there on the horizon behind us grew in my mind with every backward glance—I wanted to fall to pieces, but I saw Billy walk alongside me and although contented is not the right word, it is the nearest. The steps of our boots were all that was heard because I could not fathom to pierce the space between us with words for fear that it would all end. It was a dream, surely. I’d lost my mind. With my hands thumbed into the straps of my pack, I saw I my hands still shook, and they would shake a lot longer—years and with memories too. The crunch of earth underfoot became a rhythm and instead of looking at my brother, I watched his shadow on the ground.
“Everyone’s dead?” He asked.
“Yeah.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah,” I repeated.
“How ain’t I? How ain’t you?”
To say that it was luck would’ve been too morbid. Instead of saying anything, I shrugged, kicked a loose stone, watched my feet some more, and felt a queasiness come over me. For the moment, the immeasurable deaths of those I’d left behind were forgotten in the company of my brother and a sickness welled up inside of me so suddenly that I felt that I’d fall to pieces at the slightest provocation. Finally, I did speak again, but only after steeling myself to the troubles, “Yeah, how are you alive?”
Billy shrugged at me then stumbled up a hill which overlooked trash wood wilderness where sticks lay twisted and bare and further on the sight of Atlanta was visible and I cupped a hand across my brow and Billy did the same and we looked on at the shadows of the place out there where strings of smoke rose from the skyline as a signature for the desolation of the city; it was dead. I felt it in my bones.
My hands were light while my head was heavy, my throat was dry, and the entire world seized in moments of stillness or perhaps it was my own vision which construed the world in that way; I took to the small hill which Billy had climbed and sat there and stared at the place between my feet to steady myself.
“Fire,” said Billy.
I nodded and nearly choked.
Leviathan—till then I had no belief in dragons—glided over the broken city, its winged shadow little seen but its voice was deep across the scene, letting go of roars which shook the ground. We hid among the trash wood and moved down the hill and watched the creature thrash in the air as if it was angry for its abominable life. Whatever millennia it spent in the pits of hell seemingly thrust upon it a love of destruction and pain.
My brother moved with a more assured stride and kept a cool distance and upon fleeing from the wreckage, from the outlying area of Atlanta and the place we’d left our family, he spoke little and watched me strangely whenever I took to melancholic fatiguing. We lit no fires for fear of what it could draw from the night so in the dark I’d see him watching some far-off place, maybe seeing through the reality which surrounded us, and he’d snap from it, catch my eye, and disappear for minutes to scan the perimeter of whatever place we stayed. Being alongside my resurrected brother was lonelier than I could bear, and I hoped he’d disappear for good or that I could work up the courage to end my own life. It was like purgatory explained in books and for a time, it felt endless; upon witnessing the destruction of Atlanta, we pushed to Marrietta, and it was much the same. As was Chatanooga, Nashville, Knoxville, Louisville, Charlotte. The ocean had risen so that Fayetville was gone underwater, and the Florida leg disappeared completely as far as I’m aware. I understood later that Memphis was overlooked and more places further west were alive too, but when we’d exhausted the south, we moved north and found strongholds of families or traders or even small groupings of civilization, but by and large we found nothing much in the two years that we hoofed it from place to place; it was my doing mostly—I wanted to find a place untouched by the mayhem in the area my family had once patrolled.
In retrospect, I am certain that Billy only stayed by my side for convenience; there wasn’t any of my brother left in the man that was my travelling companion for that time. He was a ghost of a person and Mephisto had preyed upon my desire in the worst moment of weakness in my life. There were nights—maybe we’d taken up in a natural alcove for shelter or we’d locked ourselves in some ancient structure for sleep—I’d watch Billy lay where he was, Sibylle’s hat and holster lying beside him, and I’d think of putting him down but he’d stir and in a brief shadow I’d see my brother as he’d been and withdraw to bury my face in fake sleep to be met with images of the night the demons attacked where I’d shake, sweat, and bite my lips so hard I’d drink blood.
Two years we marched around the Appalachians and in that time, I felt myself wither and disconnect.
Upon moving further north we met Indianapolis—that’s what it was called back then—and it was run by an older woman called Lady Lazarus; I reckon her father, affluent and dead, was a fan of Plath. Indianapolis was fortified more than most with its high walls, and its wall men, and its underground facilities which produced substantial ammunition. We—me and Billy’s revenant—were travelling with a group of traders we’d taken up with from out west; they called themselves wizards and although they seemed of the occult, their spirits discounted whatever suspicions I might’ve had of them.
I remember first pushing through that big gate; the town kept with it an indisputable malaise and though we were greeted at the gate by the leader Lady Lazarus—her brothers came along with her—and her jovial demeanor carried a certain infectious quality, I could not help but notice that the regular denizens maintained a healthy distance from their leader (the guards which followed the Lady everywhere probably had something to do with this).
Lady Lazarus touched each of our hands in greeting with enthusiasm and I could not help but notice how soft they were, how vibrant her eyes were, how much she smiled, and how beautiful she was given her age; already her head was fully gray.
Upon meeting each of us, going through the wizard traders first, she came to me, and Billy and she shook my hand then pivoted to Billy.
“Welcome. You can call me Lady.”
Billy caught her hand in his, held it longer than she’d intended so that they held eye contact, and he smiled broadly, tipped the cowboy hat on his head back to expose his smooth forehead and said, “And you can call me Maron, mam. You are quite a sight for a tired man.”
Though Maron—as he’d named himself—was more boy than man, Lady took a disturbed liking to him immediately and we prolonged our stay in Indianapolis after the wizards departed to head west.
Under the rule of Lady, Indianapolis was a theocracy, with her addressing the huddled masses at the steps of her grand abode, she’d preach for hours on sin and strife and quote her favorite passages; though reminiscent of my time with the Rednecks, I never found any truth or sincerity or freedom in her teaching—hers was more trouble, brimstone, fire and I’d had enough of that for a lifetime. Public execution was common. As was torture.
Maron distanced himself further from me, but I remained to keep an eye on him—it was not sentimentality but rather I existed without purpose and conjured some from watching my brother.
Often, Lady invited Maron to her private rooms and though the rumors and speculation ran the full spectrum of perverse speculation, every denizen feigned ignorance at her pregnancy.
Upon giving birth, the infant was malformed with two heads—her brothers took this as an omen and killed the child, put their leader in the stocks for months, and stripped her of dignity while the denizens did to her what they pleased.
Maron rose through the wall men while Lady’s brothers assumed control of Indianapolis and called themselves Bosses; in the time since Lady’s reign, the place was renamed to Golgotha for its closeness to a messiah.
I went west but always found myself drawn back to Golgotha because of some emptiness in me. It was only with Suzanne that I wanted something more and knowing them, I almost believed in a world like the one that children dream about. The world that Gemma and Andrew chased after when they left home, like the one Aggie talked about in her mother’s books. There’s a hopelessness in me that I’ll never be rid of. In the interim between our initial arrival to Golgotha and that flight from that terrible city, I cannot know how many people I sacrificed in convening with demons because I refuse to know because the number would destroy me. That is the worst of it; I do not even have courage enough to face myself or the actions of my past in any substantive way.
Mephisto tainted me so that I could speak with his kind as a dealmaker and the disease grew.
Billy or Maron or whatever he is should have been reaped long ago or better, I should never have brought that abomination alive. Such a cruel world where a deep longing like that can be inverted, weaponized. Me and him should both die; me and him should have died a long time ago.
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i broke my femur a week ago today. it happened so fast, i just remember hearing a "pop" and flipping my body over, and my leg not following behind. it didn't hurt in the moment, i was obviously in shock, i remember joking with my friend that i looked like when someone dies in family guy. as soon as the paramedics and my mom arrived at the scene, it set in that this was real. the paramedics gave me ketamine, the rest is a blur until about two hours later when i woke up at the ER.
it hurt so bad. i was in the ER for a few hours until about 3am when they transferred me to a room. it wasn't until 5pm that day that i got surgery, they put a rod in with three screws, i have an incision under and on the side of my knee, and one on my upper thigh.
i was so doped up that the next few days are kinda fuzzy in my memory, i just remember that it was 2 maybe 3 days post op that the nurses finally realized my body didn't like morphine, it made me violently shake and sky rocketed my heart rate. a few days into my stay, they found two small blood clots in my lungs, they have me on blood thinners for the next few months but i was put on bed rest for a whole day while they ordered, did, and read my CT scan. i was sent home two days ago, now im trying to recover.
initially it was pretty bad, my leg was so swollen it looked like it would pop any second. it has been spasming so much, i haven't been able to do much but just lay here. i can make it to the bathroom with the help of my mom and a walker, but i haven't even been able to have a bowel movement since my accident. i can barely eat, sleeping is hard because i can't get comfortable, my hips hurt my lower back hurts, im dehydrated. i cant do stairs so i haven't been to my own room, and i haven't been able to shower because the main floor bathroom doesn't have one. i'm missing work during the beginning of my career. my boyfriend is visiting soon (LDR) and we can't do anything we had planned, cant even have sex.
the worst part is how depressed this has made me. this shouldn't have happened. i am a healthy, 19 year old girl. it was not a bad fall, i didn't fall long distance, it was a freak accident. my legs were just in the right position for the tension to be too much. i wasn't even going to go skating, i had worked later than i was supposed to, and the park was super busy when we got there. i should have just gone home.
i just want my normal life back.
sorry for the long post. TLDR; broke my femur, leg hurts, super depressed.

Hi all! I'm 40F, living in New York with my husband and dog and generally pretty content when my needs are met. I'm on SSD, Medicare and Medicaid and I have a lot of diagnoses so strap in: Treatment-Resistant Depression, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, PTSD, Agoraphobia, Epilepsy, Lymphedema, some sort of undiagnosed extreme pain in my knees and tailbone that no one will take seriously but which causes me great pain and inability to walk much further than the bathroom, and more mobility issues caused by the Lymphedema (fluid build-up is very heavy). My current meds are Rexulti, Gabapentin, Viibryd, Seroquel XR, and Keppra. I use a walker because of the mobility issues, a snazzy one with a seat so if I have an emergency "legs collapsing now" moment I have a place to plop into. Sounds fun, right? Haha. If anyone wants to trade diagnoses we can set it up like baseball cards and we can use them to make our bike wheels make that spinny noise.
So I had an appointment with a new psychiatrist a little while back, and it still upsets me to this day and I wanted some feedback from you guys to see if you think his behavior was inappropriate or not. First of all he was about two hours late, which I have been told is not only normal for him but people have waited six hours to see this man, I guess just twiddling their thumbs in the damn waiting room while HGTV plays (seriously, they only play HGTV for some unknown reason.) My name is finally called, I start awkwardly walking down the hallway because of course his office is at the end of the hall. I make it to where the nurse guided me, and I sit down in a seat. By this point I'm crying a little because I'm stressed out. I also, a full-grown adult, had a Baby Yoda doll in my arms for comfort. Clearly I was not stable or on any kind of even keel. He continues to look at whatever is on his desk, and he mentions my Lymphedema. I asked him how he knew I had it and he said "Your legs are two different sizes." I was stupidly hoping that people wouldn't be able to notice my legs are two different sizes in pants, but he sure burst that bubble.
I'm crying much more by now, as in there is no way he couldn't have heard it. We were in a super quiet office where you could hear a pin drop. He continues to look down at his desk, ignoring my tears (I mean even just a token "Are you ok? Would you like some tissues?" ANYTHING to acknowledge my distress, but no.) He asked me a few more questions (the memory is starting to get blurry, thanks Keppra) that I don't recall, and that was mostly it. I don't even remember how he dismissed me but I know he didn't even bother to stand up as I left sobbing. The man never looked me in the eye ONCE. Not a single second of eye contact, like I was some undesirable he didn't want to deal with. He also prescribed Spravato for me without really even asking me if I wanted it (I do, but he just kind of went "We're gonna do Spravato for you." Spravato is a super serious medication, it should warrant a good conversation about benefits and side effects. But he didn't even ask me if I was interested in it, just decided for me.) I waited two hours for a stupid 5 minute appointment. I know that's common with doctors, they're overbooked etc, but I have a life too and it's damn hard for me to sit in that waiting room with my skin crawling and just wanting to bolt.
My biggest issue with Spravato right now isn't that I don't want to take it, I desperately do. It's just that I have a very overwhelming case of Agoraphobia that requires so much preparation and Xanax and my husband supporting me the whole way, and I'd have to show up something like every other day at the office for a month which to me sounds like someone saying "Oh, come on, you can climb Mount Everest, lots of people do, how hard could it be?" like yeah sure, I'll just power through my Agoraphobia because obviously if it were that easy I... would just stop having it? Where can I sign up for that superpower?? If I become a Jedi or a Mandalorian or something can I receive a "Get out of Agoraphobia free" card? This is about when people start to get snippy with me, lol. I really do try not to be rude to people who are ignorant of my disabilities, unless there's malice or degradation present. I prefer to respond to a person pleasantly and then get away from them quickly because talking to strangers (in person) makes me so uncomfortable, haha.
So what do you guys think? Was this psychiatrist rude and dismissive, or just busy and blunt? I admit I don't do well with people (especially healthcare professionals) who are blunt; they just seem cold to me more often than not, with no real empathy for the patient. It really sucks because I've been told he's a great doctor and I definitely am not leaving the clinic he's a part of because I really like the counselor that I see there. Although there's an addendum to be added to the "He's a great doctor" praise. Some years ago he had been prescribing something that someone decided he shouldn't have been to someone or something like that, and now my husband says he doesn't seem like the same doctor. Apparently he used to be very cutting-edge with treatment and would try all kinds of left-field meds in an attempt to help people. I think that's admirable, and it sucks if he genuinely got caught up in some DEA bullshit. I'm also very glad his clinic administers Spravato since they are the only ones in my area who do and I'm holding out hope that I can get my anxiety under enough control that I can do a course of treatment. It could potentially change my life; but first, I have to be able to actually go outside and go to the clinic. So yeah, that was entirely too long-winded but I wanted to get the details right. If you're seeing this, thanks for reading to the bottom!

The patches so far has seemed to be ill-informed knee-jerk reactions. And the removal of the shrapnel effect from Eruptor has been the most glaring. It seems that the devs didnt realise how much damage the shrapnel are doing, when they have all the numbers and effects! And if those shrapnel are doing more than 100++ damage, then why is a mere 40 aoe damage considered a buff?
Tuning the ricochet to allow them to redirect back to helldivers seems to be arbitrary difficulty too. And there is a lot of arbitrary difficulty added over the patches. Here are some of those:

• Why can't helldivers land on tall structures? Its not game breaking, both bugs and bots have ways to take you down. Rockets, Tanks, Bug artiliary, Bile Spewers, Teleporting Bugs. Tons of options!
  
• Added explosive resistance to walkers? I understand that's targeted at eurptors but that affects scorcher, plasma punisher, grenades, auto cannons and many others! Of which some of them sorely needs to be buffed, not nerfed! Its a nerf for all explosive weapons and most of them ain't even good!
  
• Enemies are still able to walk through and shoot through terrain too! Factory Striders can poke their head in a mountain and promptly ignore terrian before it miniguns you to death from the other side of a mountain.
  
• In defense missions, why cant we land on top? then why does the bots drop off tanks, hulks and devastators on the very places we cant land? Seems very fair to me. They even stick their heads into the very terrain and shoot through it! Fancy!
  
• Shield devastators also got buffed insanely too. At launch, they were powerful pushers that can insta kill you at less than 20m. Then they buffed their accuracy to insta kill you at 50m. Its insane! They can score consistent hits past 80 too!
  
• Its odd what they did to the crossbow. They created a AOE weapon which barely worked, then instead of bring it up to par, decided to make it another slugger shotgun, which is over shadowed by... the slugger shotgun. Like you had a great niche carved out, buffing it to fulfill its niche would give players more options to have fun around. Its like they screwed up a concept, and instead of fixing it, they decided make it similar to what they made before and be done with it.
  
• And why are we increasing the aggro distance of the air units? They already home in on you from 100 miles away, we don't need to give them the extra 20 miles. They can "SENSE" you simply by you stepping foot within 150m of their factory/nests! an with how annoying it is to fight them, taking them out in the distance is the key
  
• Why are bot gunship factories immune to 500kg /380mm too? Heck the gunships are also immune to most small arms, making it mandatory to carry an AT for that, meaning in bot missions, it is almost mandatory to take either autocannons or quesars! Heck even the AMR. Theres no reason that a bunker can be taken down with 500kgs/380mms but the fancy factory cant be!
  
• Heck even the fact that there's Factory striders make it mandatory for everyone to carry ATs in Bots. And Bugs have Bile Titans for that. And Bile Titans can't be killed without very specific weaponry too.
  
• And what is the head armor of bile titans made off that even the most powerful anti tanks cant strip it off?!
  
• Theres also the weird fact that bots are not affected by ion storm, like why can they summon reinforcements then? Wont that screw up their comms, and their dropship?!
  
• Quesars are not powerful, they are just far more useful! It requires accurate shots and high value targets to be useful, meaning it requires a lot of player skill to use. Now there's 5 addition seconds of wait time for... well... no reason? People are still gonna use it as it is still the most useful! While other weapons are being relegated to paper weights.
  
• Patrols too home in on players , like they seems to path their patrols right over players whenever possible.
  
• And why does destroying their spawners, cause more of them to spawn?! Shouldn't we be rewarded for destroying it? And where are they coming from? if they are coming enmasse from elsewhere, shouldn't we know?! I NEED TO KNOW THE LOGIC FOR THIS!
  

Many balance changes seem to be ill tested and badly planned. Seems that someone is simply lazy in finding ways to bring other weapons up to the fun level, and simply decide to bring the odd ones out down, so they can do less work, and chalk up complains to skill issues.
It is an easy way out to balance things, but things has been noticeably less fun. Alot of these balances seem to be done at lower difficulty and not at the highest. And why are we talking about the highest difficulty? Cause that's where the funs at. Diff 7 - 9 are fun to play and challenging, with hordes thrown at us. Completing mission with no reinforcements left.
We even plan out loadouts which falls into meta, because they are the most useful for whatever we face! You cant avoid that! And we don't want a meta to be nerfed constantly as it is a downward spiral! It simply gets worse very balance path it seems!
What we want is have fun while being challenged, and fun gets old when we keep using the same few weapons. The Devs need to bring other weapons up to fun so that people will branch out their choices. ITS PVE GAME FOR GAWD SAKE!
And if people keep having fun, more people will remain. But if this pattern of nerfing spiral continues.. i fear that the game may fizzle out over the next few months. God even i feel that the game has been noticeably LESS FUN. For some reason ,dealing with a lot of bullshit that was MANAGABLE back then, is ANNOYING now.
If the plan is to annoy players.... i fear that will not bode well for player retention.
To whoever balances the game: Get a team to playtest at difficulty 9. And don't get the really good ones. Get the AVERAGE player. 90% of your player base are CASUAL AVERAGE SKILLED PLAYERS. The videos and guides you saw online? Thats the top 10%. Most players don't have the skill for that. Don't lose sight of the 90% you should not be targeting for the shiny, glaring and loud 10% that easily clears evething (of which I'm part of, of course. FOR SUPER EARTH!)
I only hope someone overhauls the balance team's direction and bring more fun into the game.