hooloovoo

Tue, 13 May 2008 21:11:27 GMT

should there be anything anyone likes about me, this would be the place to post it. :)
oo, and then link to your thread so i can comment.

the what i like about you meme | my thread

ok, also, i just woke up from the most bizarre dream. it was like bandom/hp crossover apocafic. oh, and some sga. (no chuck, sorry new chuck people. but hi! *waves*)
ashlee's dad was the bad guy. at various points i was john sheppard, harry potter, girl!frank and spencer. it was actually really cool and interesting, except at the end when i was me and real life people were there and dying. that was just sad and scary.
anyone else had any odd dreams lately?

random sga ficlet

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:12:49 GMT

"Hello Rodney," Teyla called from her chair, where she was nursing her son.

"Hey Teyla. Do you need anything? Water or a pillow or something?"

"No thank you, I am quite comfortable. Have you seen my chair?"

"No, is it new?" Rodney bent to inspect the chair, "Hey, this looks like a rocking chair. Did someone send it from earth?"

"No, though John asked the same thing. Ronon built it for me. It is a Silla de la Madre, the traditional chair of mothers on Sateda. They're usually passed down the maternal line to each new generation. Some were very old, hundreds of years."

"Hmm. Could I sit in it? I'd like to read him a story, the Anthropology department helped me with it."

"Of course, Kanan loves stories."

Rodney took the baby from Teyla very gingerly, like he was reciting the rules of baby-holding in his mind.

Teyla helped him sit in the chair, and checked that Kanan would be warm enough.

"He may need to be changed soon. All of the gear for that is on the dresser. Radio if you need anything..."

"Teyla! Wait, please. Um. I'd like it if you listened to the story as well. To see if it's ... appropriate."

"I doubt I need be concerned, but yes, I will stay."

Teyla sat on the nearby couch.

Rodney cleared his throat.
"Mickey Mouse Learns How to Fly.
One day, Mickey Mouse decided to learn to fly.
So he found his friend Goofy, and asked Goofy to teach him."

"Rodney! You are speaking Althosian. Did the anthropologists translate it for you?"

"No. I mean, they helped, but it isn't translated. I had some free time while you were missing, since Sheppard wouldn't let me go on the raids. Anyway, I thought I'd put my time to good use and learn Althosian. It wasn't very hard, though I still don't understand why you need so many tenses. But anyway. I wanted Kanan to have people to talk to. I think most 'lanteans will learn at least a few words. Or I'll make them. Either way, it will help. But. It's ok, right? I could not..."

Teyla pulled the couch closer to the chair and grabbed Rodney's right hand.

"This is one of the most thoughtful gifts I have ever recieved, Rodney. I thank you. More importantly, my son thanks you. This will do much to help him remember his culture. Now. Let us hear more of the exploits of Mickey Mouse. I am quite curious about Goofy."

Day of Silence

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 00:53:18 GMT

So it's Day of Silence today. I'm not really doing anything, but I like the remembrance posts so I thought I'd do that. It's a bit longer than I really intended.

I remember being 9 or 10 and deciding that I wasn't going to be gay because I'd already read too much about homophobia and how hard gay people's lives can be.

I remember my dad and his girlfriend trying to convince me I'd be more comfortable if I started shaving my armpits.

I remember refusing to wear a bra because that would involve admitting I was growing breasts.

I remember being called a lesbian because I read a magazine with an article about gay rights in it at school.

I remember calling my aunt's girlfriend 'Uncle Trish'.

I remember my friend coming out to me as bi with really convoluted sign language, because we were in line at the cafeteria and someone might hear.

I remember joining the gay club without even thinking about it, months before I realized I was bi.

I remember that the only thing less surprising for my friends than when my friend came out was when I did.

I remember spending my first year of college kind of totally in love with my roommate.

I remember how amazing it was to meet people who completely understood when I started going to the trans group.

I remember the first time I said, "I think I'd kinda like to be a guy."

I remember that my boyfriend responded, "That'd be cool, because then I could give you blowjobs, and blowjobs are awesome."

I remember telling my dad I'm bi, and after a really long pause he said, "But how will you get a job?"

I remember all of the conversations I've had with my parents about trans stuff, particularly the ones that ended in yelling.

I remember my dad and I debating if Keira Knightley could beat Jessica Alba at Jello wrestling. (She totally could.)

I remember playing baseball with my baby brother and his friend who thought I was crazy because I thought his black nail polish was really surprising and awesome.

I remember every time my eight year old brother has said, "Duh," when I said something about how it's wrong to judge people because of their sexuality or gender identity.

I remember how far we have to go.

I celebrate how far we've come.

not finished thing...

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 12:33:11 GMT

so i saw this request for submissions for a queer project thing. they want performances pieces that have some thing to do with glbt stuff written by young people. because i'm crazy, my first thought was oh, it'd be awesome if people could just randomly switch sexes, whenever they felt like it. and it'd be even cooler if those people not only weren't ostracized, they were respected and important to society. so. i'm writing that. it's a monologue, and i can't decide how long it should be. on one hand, it's prolly 7 or 8 minutes long now, which seems kinda long. but i still have more things i could add! i dunno. so. this is not finished, it will probably get cut down some later, but i want people who aren't me to read it and see if it makes any sense outside of my head. :D

Yeah, my first time I was about twelve. I was looking at this dress, right? I remember thinking it was pretty cool, and next thing I know, I’ve got the body to wear it. I was really surprised, because no one else in my family was Gifted. I was at a department store with my mom, so once I got over my shock I ran to show her. She was excited; both my parents were. And proud, I guess. Who wouldn’t be? I mean, I guess I’ve heard parents of normal kids say they’d rather not have a Gifted one, but I don’t know anyone Gifted whose parents say that.
There are definitely kids who would rather not be Gifted, at least sometimes. Everyone says you should feel proud and honored, and we do, but it’s also a lot of work and pressure and responsibility. Gifted high schools are different from typical schools. It’s boarding school, for one, since there are only one or two in each state. And the classes are different. Harder, of course, but also different. We learned four languages and spent hours each day on international politics. Lots of history, and business and law. Not as much math and science. People did different fine arts, everything from marble sculpting to rock and roll drumming. No one really did sports. Pick up Frisbee games, yeah, but nothing organized.
I don’t mean to say it was miserable. Even when it was hard, it was fun. How could a school full of teenagers able to change their bodies at will be anything but fun? It’s a good thing you can only change so much, or we’d have all had to wear name tags. You can’t change bones, or external things like hair and fingernails. But pretty much everything else is malleable. Fat and muscle distribution, most primary and secondary sexual characteristics, even little stuff like eye color and vocal range. It was pretty amazing to be in a place full of people who literally couldn’t divide themselves on along any physical lines. Everything that could possibly separate us we chose. Race, sex, appearance, they were all just choices, and every possibility was valid.
They still are, for that matter, though most of us grew out of wanting to look completely different everyday. I change my sex more than anything else, now, and both ways I try to look pretty androgynous. But I’ve spent time, out in the real world, as pretty much every kind of person, just to see what it’s like. It’s expected of us, and it’s enlightening. That’s why the Gifted make great diplomats, or judges, or politicians or CEO’s. We can see both sides of an argument because we’ve been on both sides.
That was frustrating at school. When you grow up Gifted, you grow up knowing you’ll change the world. So you can’t blow off school or the model UN or anything like that because what if you miss something that could make the world better? But it’s how things are. There are a couple of small groups who don’t like it. They think it’s anti-human discrimination that some jobs are only open to Gifted people. It’s mostly stuff that requires a total lack of bias, like judges, and high ranking government people, from Congressmen up to the president. The rules don’t really matter though, because no one would vote for a candidate that wasn’t Gifted.
The Gifted have always been the leaders, since the Coming Out in the 1600’s. We think the Gifted population had been increasing in the centuries before that, but numbers are hard to come by since many of them were killed or hidden away by their families. Then, around 1605, the first Gifted settlement was formed in England. It wasn’t just Gifted people, of course, everyone was welcome. But it was the first place where they didn’t have to hide. Unfortunately, the rest of England was not as accepting. Parliament even passed laws making it illegal for Gifted people to work in most industries. Which, hello, not at all effective. You can’t tell someone is Gifted by looking at them. If they don’t want you to know, you won’t.
Anyway, the growing town started hearing about all this free land, far away from the English government, in a place called America. They were all about that, and soon a fairly impressive immigration had begun. They settled near this colony called Plymouth. The Gifted immigrants named their town Boston. When they got there and started building, they met the Native Americans. As it turned out, the Native Americans valued Giftedness highly. They considered Gifted People, who they called Two-Spirits, to be sacred and holy, closer to the gods than normal people. So the Native Americans and the Bostonians quickly agreed to fair terms about the land, and even convinced them to stop attacking Plymouth.
Both Gifted people and normal people who wanted to live in a place of equality and respect started coming to America. Eventually we won our independence, and ever since, all our leaders have been Gifted. My favorite part of the story is that it caught on with the rest of the western world too, and by now nearly every country elects mostly Gifted people.
So, that’s Gifted people 101. My life is pretty standard; I’m studying Latin America, working on my masters degree. I’m engaged to a very nice lady. She’s not Gifted, since I’m sure you were wondering. How could we call ourselves unbiased if we only dated each other? People marry people. We wouldn’t stand for anything else. Oh, pronouns, I almost forgot. Pronouns are based on presentation. Every few years someone wants to make up special Gifted pronouns, but then you have to correct people all the time. So address people based on how they look like they want to be perceived. But don’t stress about it, since we change a lot, we’re not very invested in gender identities.
Like I said, I really only change my sex now, appearance wise I’m pretty settled in to this. I’ve gone weeks without changing anything, and I’ve switched back and forth more than once in a day. It just depends on my mood. It’s odd to talk about, because I don’t really think about why I’m male or female on any given day. It’s almost like asking why I’m wearing blue socks today instead of black. [laugh] Although, I do occasionally still look at a cool dress and accidentally switch to the right body to wear it.

meme thingie

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 18:50:06 GMT

ganked from andcrashrewind and paperdollmuse

1) My username is ______ because ______.
- my username is hooloovoowrites because... hooloovoo_writes was too many letters.

2) My name is _____ because ______.
- my name is hooloovoo because i'm a giant nerd and read the hitchhikers guide too many times when i was little. a hooloovoo is a super-intelligent shade of blue. that's maybe a little egotistical, but... too awesome to resist.

3) My journal is titled ____ because ______.
- my journal is.... uh, isn't titled. hmm. yeah, i can't think of one. ideas?

4) My friends page is called ____ because ______.
- my friends pags is called 'the square root of awesome is u+me' because. uh. i'm a cheesy geek?

5) My default userpic is ____ because ______.
- my default userpic is a sunset pic because i wanted something simple but pretty.

and another one, because two meme posts in a row would be silly.

Name: hooloovoo
Age: 20. lol. wierd. (my birthday was 2 weeks ago)
Location: the land of rain. actually, it's really nice today. anyway, seattle FTW.
Something you're currently squeeing about in bandom: well, i don't know how to say this, but.... ryan ross' clothes. i kinda totally want to dress like that. and possibly occasionally do.
Something you're currently squeeing about anywhere else: lol. ok, this is dumb, but. my family has season tickets to a minor league baseball team partially owned by the ex-husband of the sister of the fiancee of pete wentz. lol. he bought the team last year and i still think it's hilarious.
Interesting face, please?: wait, interesting face or fact? how about a fact about faces? the edge of your eye socket, below your eyebrows, is called the supraorbital tori.
One bad habit: keeping my laptop next to my bed. definitely haven't gotten up yet. even though i woke up... god, two hours ago. i should get up.
Anything else: um. nope, that's it.

12 Hours Later

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 07:13:58 GMT

Title: 12 Hours Later
Rating: R for darkness, death and cussing
Word Count: 2466
Summary: How John and Rodney do and don't cope.
Characters: McKay and Sheppard, with a little Carter, Woolsey, Keller and Ronon.
Spoilers: Heavy spoilers for the season 4 finale.
Author’s Notes: This is angsty and dark. and people i'm fond of die. so be aware of that.
on a more positive note, this is my first stargate fic, so please tell me how to make it better. also, this was first posted on sga_flashfic on my other journal.
:D

“Keller! I think my wound is getting infected! I need antibiotics! But not penicillin, I’m allergic. And maybe-”

“Shut up, Rodney,” Sheppard ordered from the next bed, “You’re fine.”

“I’m not fine! I have a very delicate immune system; I’m very susceptible to infection. And the whole building was disgustingly dirty. And rusty. When was my last tetanus shot? What if Pegasus rust is different?” McKay’s eye widened as he spoke, a clear sign he was only getting started on his freak out.

Sheppard didn’t notice. His left leg was propped up on pillows and encased in plaster. Below the short sleeve of his scrubs, his left arm was covered in bruises from protecting his face from falling debris. The scattered bruises on his face showed he wasn’t entirely successful. His eyes were closed, but he clearly wasn’t sleeping. He was tense and alert, looking prepared to crawl to the Gate if it meant he could do something.

“-Obviously a trap. I can’t believe we fell for it. Clearly your tendency to rush head first into things is impacting my judgment. I made a chart; we fall into significantly more traps per year than SG-1 did. Of course, Pegasus is more dangerous, and statistics isn’t a real science anyway. But-”

“Rodney! Just-” John opened his eyes and turned towards the approaching footsteps, “Doc? How are my men?”

Keller looked exhausted.

“Assorted minor injuries, just cuts and bruises. Major Lorne broke five bones in his right foot, but he’ll be fine. Sergeant Henderson’s left arm was shattered and he’s still in surgery, but he should recover most use of it. Lieutenant Garcia had several broken ribs and fairly severe internal bleeding, in addition to other broken bones. I operated on him, and he’s stable, but… We’re watching him closely.”

She took a deep breath. McKay opened his mouth, but she continued before he could say anything.

“Ronon has an epidural haematoma, a bleed in his brain. We drilled a burr hole in his skull, which should have relieved the pressure, but it hasn’t helped as much as I’d like. With the Ancient scanning equipment, we can see almost exactly what’s happening, but there’s still nothing we can do but wait. Dr. Van Densen, our neurosurgeon, and I have agreed on a timeline we’d like to see in terms of reducing the haematoma. If he falls behind that, we’ll have to operate further.”

Keller had shadows under her eyes and her normally perky posture was drooping, making her seem even younger and smaller than she was.

“Why not operate now?”

Sheppard’s face was blank, but his voice was so intensely calm Rodney jumped.

“There’s a significant risk of infection, and at this point that outweighs the risk of brain damage. If the blood keeps draining at the current rate, we won’t have to do anything else. It’s slow, but it’s not too slow, not yet.”

She looked at McKay, who was mumbling and jabbing forcefully at a tablet computer. He didn’t look up.

Sheppard nodded curtly.

“When will Henderson be out of surgery?”

Keller looked relieved the question wasn’t about Ronon, and she sounded more confident as she answered.

“It’ll be several more hours. Reassembling bones is slow going. But Dr. Morrison is one of the world’s leading researchers on adult osteology. Actually, he’s been working on using some of the ultra light alloys used to build Atlantis in joint replacement. Really amazing stuff, it makes titanium look like iron, in terms of relative strength to weight. James thinks…”

She trailed off, realizing neither man was listening. McKay was engrossed in his tablet and Sheppard was staring into the distance, his face blank.

She blushed, but squared her shoulders and continued.

“I need to get back. Colonel, I’ll let you know when you can see your men.”

His eyes focused. He looked slightly surprised that she was still there.

Keller nodded awkwardly and walked away.

Twenty minutes later.

“Rodney,” Sheppard said suddenly as he sat up.

McKay twitched and almost dropped his tablet. “I thought you were asleep! No one likes ninjas in real life, Sheppard.”

“What are you working on?”

“Oh, I was reading an article in this neurology journal. I hate biology; there are all these experimental treatments for haematomas, but none that can be consistently replicated. I’m also looking into modifying the Ancient scanner to be more accurate. I can’t believe that with all the injuries we’ve had no one’s done a more thorough report on it. But I suppose everyone can’t be a genius.” Rodney was trying to act normal, but he was quieter and his gestures were smaller than usual. The knuckles on the hand holding the tablet were white. He was even quieter as he continued, “She’s right. There’s nothing to do but wait.”

“No. Get me crutches. If we can’t help Ronon we’ll help Teyla.” In contrast, Sheppard was totally controlled and blank.

McKay nodded and tried to stand up, but his right leg wouldn’t support his weight. His calf was covered in bandages, and the foot below was swollen and purple. He looked around the infirmary, clearly frustrated.

“Push that IV stand over here.”

Sheppard complied wordlessly.

Rodney limped slowly towards the supply closet, clearly trying to look casual. He opened the door and slipped in, surprisingly agile. Two minutes and several crashes later, he emerged, awkwardly holding two crutches in his left hand and leaning on a cane with his right. He stopped trying to be inconspicuous and hurried towards John’s bed.

Sheppard took the crutches and stood up. His movements were smooth and fast, evidence of too much time spent injured. As one, they headed for the door.

Once they were safely out the door and around a corner, Rodney stopped.

“We’ve escaped, good job, but now what? We can’t exactly head off into battle like this, even if we knew where to go.”

“Is there a lab we can use? An empty one?”

“Uh. Yeah. On the west side of the city, part way up that tower with the giant sundial on top. We don’t use it because it’s the only lab near that transporter; the rest of the tower is living quarters.”

“Meet me there in an hour. Bring computers, paper, anything you need to work. I’ll get MRE’s and Powerbars. Probably want to change out of your scrubs too. We’re going to stop Michael. This was the last time he hurts one of my people.”

“As much as I support hiding in the lab, we need to talk to Sam first. I don’t think she’ll object and I don’t really care if she does, but all disappearing will do is piss her off, and I’d like to keep her happy with us as long as possible. Although, she is really sexy when she’s mad…”

“You talk to her then. I’ll see you there.” Sheppard turned and strode off, towards the military offices.

“Sheppard! Hey, Sheppard! John! What I am supposed to say to Sam, sorry, John’s not here right, leave a message and he’ll get back to you when he’s less crazy?! This is not what I meant by not making her mad!”

Sheppard turned the corner and was gone.

McKay sighed and rolled his eyes before starting towards the transporter at a much more sedate pace.

“Excuse me,” Carter asked to a passing nurse, “Do you know where Colonel Sheppard and Dr. McKay are?”

“They should be in the beds at the end. If they aren’t, then no, I don’t know. I’m sorry, I need to go.” She pulled a mask up over her mouth and nose as she hurried off.

Sam’s radio beeped.

“Yes?”

“It’s Rodney. I need to talk to you. Meet me at my lab.” The radio clicked off.

“Rodney? What’s going on? Why aren’t you in the infirmary? And where’s Colonel Sheppard?” Carter started asking questions before she was even all the way into the room. “What are you doing?”

McKay was leaning against his desk, to keep his weight off his right leg, and shoving stuff into a duffel bag. As she walked in, he looked critically at two notebooks before dropping them both in the bag.

“John and I have elected to spend our recuperation time away from the infirmary. I’m sure you understand. Call if you need anything. Actually, no, email if you need something, if it’s important we’ll respond. Radek can handle whatever comes up. I’m not going to let Teyla die because I was busy fixing the plumbing.” He continued packing haphazardly as he spoke. Abruptly, he zipped the bag closed and grabbed his cane.

When he was halfway to the door, Carter called out, “Rodney, wait. I’m taking a team of marines to the planet to surprise Michael. I’m going to bring a couple of engineers too, maybe there’s something salvageable in the wreckage.”

He turned and looked at her, his face uncharacteristically unreadable. “Good.”

The lab was impressive. It was roughly oval shaped, with one long side all windows. The other side was covered in the Ancient version of whiteboards. Rodney set his bag on the large round table in the middle and started unpacking. He sorted everything into piles in descending order of complexity: computers: laptops then tablets, a life signs detector, full notebooks, empty notebooks, papers, blank papers, pens. He looked at the row for a minute, and moved the pens to between the notebook stacks.

He walked around the room, looking out the windows and more closely at the whiteboards. One of them was hinged. He pulled and it swung open. The newly exposed room lit up, revealing two sets of bunks and an open door. Through the door was a basic but functional bathroom.

“Rodney?” John called from the lab.

“Hey, check this out, we can sleep here. Well, if the mattress is decent. Ancients had odd taste in beds. Why would you want a mattress as sharp and pokey as a bed of nails? Probably part of the Path to Ascension. No pain, no gain, they were into that kind of thing…Oh, these are nice, actually.”

“Rodney,” John sounded more urgent this time.

“What? What’s wrong?” McKay hobbled as quickly as he could.

Sheppard was pale and not focusing on anything.

“Ronon’s dead.”

“But…There’s only a 10% chance of death from epidural haematomas. It should be even less here.”

“He had a seizure while they were drilling another hole. I didn’t ask for details,” he paused to watch Rodney react. When Rodney finally raised his head and looked at him questioningly, he continued, “The Althosians will arrange the mourning ceremony. They know the Satedan traditions. We need to find Teyla. I… We can’t lose them both.”

Three days later.

“Hey, did you hear that? Look and see if there’s food outside again. I should have locked myself in my labs years ago. Check the math while I eat. I don’t make mistakes, but for Teyla… We have to be doubly sure.”

One week after that.

“It’s her due date, John. We’re supposed to be celebrating, everyone together. But we’re not, because I’m not fucking good enough.”

Rodney spent most of the day in bed, crying and sleeping. John spent all day sitting on the floor next to him, keeping watch.

Eight weeks after that.

“This is all useless. We’ve rewritten physics, and we’ll win a Nobel, but we can’t use it to find her. We have to try something else. What about a life signs detector big to sweep whole solar systems but sensitive enough to pick up degrees of Wraith. We have her DNA to calibrate it. Or maybe…”

One month after that.

“You had hair.”

“What?”

“In the future, you had hair. I lied.”

Two months after that.

When Rodney opened the door to collect the food for the day, Carter and Woolsey were there. The room was a mess. The table was covered with papers and computers. There were more laptops open on the floor. A small corner of the room was full of food debris: trays, plates, napkins and leftover food. The white boards were covered with frantic writing, some of it circled in red, some of it crossed out, one board with ‘NO NO NO’ in huge letters over the equations.

McKay and Sheppard didn’t look much better. They were mostly clean, but scruffy. Sheppard had a beard and hair down to his collar. McKay’s hairline had receded further, or maybe he just wasn’t hiding it. His hair looked like a grown out buzz cut and he had several days of growth on his chin.

Carter and Woolsey looked at each other. Woolsey stepped forward.

“The IOA has sent me to inform you that if you do not return to your proper jobs immediately you will lose your positions and ranks. In addition you will not have access to the restricted parts of Atlantis, including the Gate room and the Puddlejumpers. In recognition of your great contributions, we will allow you to stay in this lab if you so chose, and in Atlantis permanently once you leave the lab, whenever that may be.”

He sighed and relaxed, when he spoke again it didn’t sound like a committee statement.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t find her. And I was sad to hear about Ronon. But it’s been six months, and it doesn’t look like you’re on the verge of a miracle. It’s time to come back. Atlantis needs you, the city and the people.”

Carter stepped forward, “Zelenka and Lorne do well, but they aren’t you. Michael is plotting a direct assault, and we need all hands on deck.”

Sheppard just stood there, looking like he was listening a little, but mostly thinking about something else.

McKay had been fidgeting since they walked in. Finally he looked up.

“I’m sorry, John. I can’t, I have to… Jeannie. I’m sorry.”

John turned and walked to the white board and continued working on the equation.

Rodney walked out of the room, slouching with his head down. Carter and Woolsey followed him. Woolsey stopped at the door.

“John, if you need anything…..”

Sheppard kept working until the door shut behind them.

Then he threw a laptop across the room.

Three days later.

John erased all of the whiteboards. Starting at the top of the furthest left board, he wrote the names of everyone he didn’t save. Sometimes he didn’t know the names; they were just humans that happened to be in a hive ship he blew up. Or the men Ford led around the galaxy stealing enzyme. Or the people on the planet with the death by Wraith island. Or the Hoffans. The list took all day and all the whiteboards.

The next morning, John Sheppard stood on top of the tower and thought about flying.

Boots

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 20:32:23 GMT

Original poem, 300 words, written... septemberish 2007

My boots are loud on the granite streets, but it seems appropriate in this deserted city on a rainy Sunday morning.

I don´t know if it´s the pouring rain, the gray sky, or just the lack of people, but Salamanca is different today.

Muted.

It doesn´t lose anything for that though, in fact, it seems more real, and more mine.

As if I alone walk these streets in my noisy shoes.

La Demanda

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 20:13:39 GMT

Original fiction, 550 words, written 11.7.7

It is not a small mountain, La Repuesta. It isn’t the tallest, or the hardest to climb, or the furthest from civilization. But it is tall, and difficult, and far. Ryan stood at the base and looked up. She was just below the tree line, at the monastery where the monks of La Repuesta live. They help people find their question, and quite often their answer. Ryan had stopped at the monastery only to sleep. She didn’t know her question, but she would find it before she reached the summit. She looked up at the mountain and saw the trail that would take her there. It was fairly well marked, as it was September, near the end of the climbing season. People climb La Repuesta in all seasons, of course, but those who attempt it in winter are too desperate to worry about the lack of trail. Ryan was that desperate, even though she didn’t know her question. She knew there was something she needed to know, and that was enough to send her up the mountain. She started walking. It is dangerous to be on La Repuesta alone, though there are less deaths than one would expect. The monks say the gods protect it. Others say it is the monks rescuing people, though they can’t explain the Book. El Libro de Verdad, the Book of Truth. They say it can answer any question, but you have to know the question, and that is the hard part. Ryan stopped for lunch at the edge of the tree line and sat on a large sun-warmed rock. She looked up, trying to read her question in the slope of the snowfields, in the lines of the cliffs, in the trails of the ants carrying food two rocks over. She walked. She made camp at the base of the glacier. She slept under the stars, bright in the thin air. Days passed. La Repuesta is not a technical climb. If you can walk uphill for days and days, you can climb it. The monks say that’s the point. There is a false summit, a few hundred feet below the real one. Ryan camped there. She woke up in the morning and looked down. She saw the snow and the trees and the rocks and the monastery. She saw the mountain range, miles away. She saw the fields that have borne fruit for a thousand years. And she yelled. She yelled that she didn’t know what she wanted, or what to ask. She screamed that she just wanted to be happy, for life to not be quite so hard. She raged at the world, at her life and at herself. The words bounced off the ice and the rock. And then she was quiet. She shrugged on her pack, and stood at the trail. Up or down? She started walking, but walking is not the right word. She stomped up the trail, anger pouring from her boots in to the ground. At the summit, she looked at the battered stone room. As far as anyone knows, it’s always been there, and it looks it. She went inside and looked at El Libro de Verdad. She wanted to yell more, to scream more, but the room was quiet, and peaceful. Ryan opened the Book and wrote.

Will I be ok?

Yes.