Swarm Reigns

We have a destination.

Some runner called Buggy has a crew holed up in a town back on mainland Canada. Got his own little commune together. Apparently they move - Kari met up with them in Ohio. She has all sorts of stories. A bohemian lot in the extreme. When they're not on the move they set down roots. They pass the time taking hallucinogens, staging group sex parties and poring over the kinds of philosophy and spiritual books that would make your head spin even without the LSD and the glazing of other peoples' sweat. All the life and love and magic they can cram into what time left they have, apparently. They tried to talk Kari into joining them but the rumours that she maimed some other runner caught their attention halfway through her stay. But now they're offering us somewhere to stay, some company, and a free exchange of information. Apparently he's not a blogger - he gets his issues down via automatic writing. Tomes of it. Could be an interesting read, though the drugs and "magic" doesn't really sound like my cup of tea.

Sometimes it feels like no-one's satisfied with just the simple pleasures of a nice sit down.

Can't say I've ever heard of this Buggy before. No blog but at the very least, he seems like enough of a character to have a reputation. Has anyone else heard of him before at all?

Anyway, it's a shame we're leaving here. Vancouver Island is really nice, especially this time of year. It makes me wish I had my camera, I could show you guys. But instead, we're headed for some little ski town called Revelstoke, and the hippie collective that waits for us. Kari better be right about this, or it'll be a massive waste of time.

Lines Across Eye

So Kari has a theory. She's insisting that they know about these blogs, that they're using them to follow us. She keeps saying that if we stop posting on our blogs, they won't know where we are. Something about the blogging being a

what was the word she used?

a histemin...something. I looked it up. It's the response to a disease, like sneezing. A way to try and fix illness, and often enough it just spreads it. But she thinks it's a compulsion. She's on radio silence, and she doesn't know I'm writing.

I think she's talking crap, and Natalie agrees. We're humouring her with the blogging - as far as she knows - but we're staying connected. Not that we could tell if they weren't tracking us. Kari's insisting that we move every other day, with a rest day inbetween. She's even more paranoid about moving around than we are.

Kari's...Kari's something we weren't ready for. She's very, very good at hiding what's wrong with her. Very convincing. She's been hiding it for a while now, you can tell. But at the same time, around the edge? Emotionally crippled, unflinchingly exploitative, unhesitatingly criminal. When the façade falls, Natalie can barely control her, and I'm at a loss here. At the same time, though, she seems like she's being sincere to us, and it's been almost a month, so I guess we'll have to trust her.

Then again, we have no idea what her agenda is. And she has one. She's smart, smarter than either of us by a long way. I can only hope her goals runs parallel to our own. I want to trust her but I can't shake the notion that she'd stab us in the back with even the slightest provocation. I want to be able to talk to Natalie about this. I know she must be feeling the same way. I could see the relief at having someone else around give way to her panic at who she'd gotten weeks ago. But it's impossible to get her alone. Kari's always there. Either way, I'm losing confidence that this will end well for anyone involved here.

The Other

We're in Vancouver. Natalie's friend shows up late by two days. Supposed to meet Wednesday, here on Friday. Two days in one place that we weren't anticipating and we're already twitchy, and we're not going to be able to move anywhere else until tomorrow. Where we're going to move is still a mystery as well.

Her friend, Kari, is...weird. Her blog reveals an awful lot of crap she and her boyfriend went through, but a year's a long time, and all that paranoia and mania has gestated. She looks like crap, for one. Massive bags under her eyes, obviously sleeping rough. It must have been a while since she last used a shower. She says she's been staying in hostels and homeless shelters. Doesn't say where the money came from, but she keeps a knife on her belt and I don't trust her not to have used it. Hopefully she hasn't hurt anyone. But what happened with Nessa is sounding more and more likely to me, no matter how many times Natalie calls her a liar.

That said, when she was reunited with Natalie, she was...different. For all her inscrutability, she seems genuinely pleased to see Natalie, genuinely affectionate. I don't trust her on a personal level, but I don't think she'll do anything to hurt Natalie. And where she goes, I go.

More updates as they arrive.

Garden of Light

We're in Seattle. Got a hotel room, just for the night. Warm food, new clothes. A chance to shave. Showers. Trying to find a way to cut food, to wash and dress myself, all that crap, with just the one arm. It certainly limits your clothing options.

Everybody winces whenever they see me. I read once that the human brain will accept anything as the "right" way for a living thing to look, so long as it's symmetrical. And I'm there, all one-armed, looking...off. They try and hide it, bless 'em.

I don't know how I feel about my arm being taken from me. I know I should focus my hate on the big guy, but it's more diffuse than that. In my idle moments, when I'm stewing in rancor, I find my acrimony resting on Benjamin, who performed the operation, or on Natalie, who okayed it. Who can't even look at me if she can help it. I'm not her friend anymore. I'm not a potential boyfriend for her anymore. I'm a constant reminder of what happened.

The hotel we're staying in has two beds, and I just want to crawl into mine and hide under the sheets so no-one can see me.

No signs of anything nasty just yet though. No proxies, and no big guest star cameos.

The Beginning And The End

I read somewhere, a long time ago, and I'm not sure it wasn't in a comedy or a children's book so I may be lending this sentiment more gravitas than it was meant, that when someone is deeply, truly, mortally afraid

hopelessly afraid

they become immediately aware of just how far they are from the place they were born. And I say I think it was a comedic book because I remember it surprising me with how much the sentiment resonated with me within the context.

I was born in St. Michael's Hospital in Bristol, and for the last year I have felt every step I've taken from that place. I have been driven from my home. I've seen my friends slaughtered. I've been taken apart. I've witnessed horrors on a scale and depth I certainly hope you cannot imagine. I have wept and bled and screamed and quaked and ached. And though I look for refuge, I look for a way out, I suspect I shall never find it.

We tried, my friends and I. We found a town, settled down. Hundreds died. I was maimed.

We found new friends. Both led psychos right to us.

And now it's just me and Natalie. Natalie, who I trusted and really genuinely cared about. Natalie, who never thought I noticed the look in her eyes whenever she saw my stretched out, maimed arm. Natalie, who sometimes goes days without talking to me, in that passive, non-statement kind of way that genuinely shows that she doesn't have anything to say. She's driving right now - I can't drive since I had my arm taken from me. We're going to meet up with an old friend of hers in Vancouver in about a week. Another runner, named Kari. We're not sure, but she might be crazy. We hear she did something pretty bad to some famous runner. Hoping she's gotten her shit together since then. Hoping she has some ideas about what to do next.

We have to have something to do next. We stop moving and we're dead.

So we keep moving and every step takes us further and further from the place we were born.

They took my fucking arm.
I know it was necessary, I know it needed to be done. It's a damn sight better than what was there.
But they took my fucking arm, and it still hurts.
It still aches.

Typing with one hand is a weird thing to get used to.