Can We Google It? Yes, We Can!

The longest night has almost reached its end.

I stand at my first home and await my first true morning.

I stand firm, I have decided, but I have turned away.

I do not fear it, but I cannot face it.

I wait.

The day is stirring on the moors behind me, and I wait to feel the first rays of morning upon my naked back. My skin glows like the pale sliver of moon that still hangs in the distant west. My clothing lies discarded and forgotten along the path I tread alone. I stand as a newborn, unclothed and utterly open.

Chill autumn air wraps around me, but I offer it no embrace. Damp soil sucks at my feet like a corpse’s kiss, but I offer it no warmth of my own. Sharp granite stones bite into my soles, but I do not feed their thirst. Earth, water, and wind can take nothing from me, and they have nothing more to offer me. They are futile, and I ignore them.

Thus, I have returned to Bodmin Moor to find fire. Memories are here as well, but I have no need of them. I need fire, but not one kindled by human hands, nor one made by my own. Nor can I use those nature offers, whether they be forged in the bowels of the earth or thrust down from the heart of the sky. Time and again, those fires have proved to be as futile and as false as every other earthly thing.

No, I have returned to my first home to seek the true fire.

I have come to find my first true morning.

I have stripped, and now stand naked as a newborn to feel the sun’s fire.

My naked back trembles now as the hills in front of me climb up out of night’s shadow. Their tops brighten, and I see the ancient granite tors flashing against the retreating darkness. I remember them standing straight and new and know that behind them lies deep shadow. I am tempted, but like the tors I stand immobile. I know that the darkness they offer is only temporary, and I await a more permanent gift.

First light touches more of the landscape in front of me. I imagine dew on the rolling heather-strewn moors sparkling like stars. The thought calms me, and I search the western sky a final time. I spy the hem of night’s cloak on the horizon, a thin dark band where a few stars linger. The familiar sliver of moon still hangs there. I pretend it is watching me, and I feel comforted.

The skin on the nape of my neck suddenly tingles. The fine hair on my arms and legs prickle and stand erect. My flesh feels awake, engorged by the half-light that begins to surround me. The sun is rising, and the moors continue to brighten. On the heather in front of me, a dim outline is gradually taking shape. It is barely there, but I recognize it.

I have not cried since before I was driven from my first home here so long ago, but my eyes burn now as though they would try to force tears where none could ever be. I know the shape being born at my feet. It is my shadow, a harbinger of the dawn at my back.

Every inch of my skin has come alive. I relish the pain coursing hotly through me like blood did so long ago. I laugh with joy at the feeling. I stretch my arms out to the side as though I am about to fly from the edge of a precipice. My back no longer trembles. My legs are straight. I am steady now.

The first beams of sunlight touch my shoulders.

My true morning has come at last.

The fiery rays hiss into me like freshly forged iron blades thrust into water. The last thing I see before my body bursts apart is my black shadow lying upon the dew-strung heather.

Then, everything turns to light.

Pop Goes the Google

On the edge of the village, right next to the deep forest, an old woman lived in a tidy little cottage.

Her name was Maigret. She had been married once, to a fine young woodsman, and they had two handsome sons. When a terrible fever raged through the village and snatched away her family, Maigret made a place for them in the center of her flower garden. Within a circle of tall sunflowers, their tombstones were there, wreathed in blue flowers and curling ivy, and so was a little wooden bench. Maigret sat on its worn seat every dawn and every dusk to tell her husband about her dreams and to sing to her children. Her only company was a fat toad that lived beneath the bench and a pair of doves that nested in the ivy. The creatures did not fear her. The toad would hop out and rest on her foot. The doves would fly over to perch on the stool beside her.

All the animals in the village and in the nearby forest loved Maigret. She was a gentle woman, and the beasts knew that she loved all living things both little and big. She never spoke too loud and frightened them. She never moved too quickly and disturbed their homes. She never shooed them away. When she learned that the rabbits and the deer were nibbling her lettuce, she planted some closer to forest just for them. When the mother crow nested in her chimney, Maigret ate cold meals and slept with an extra blanket until the babies could fly on their own. When the village miller tied up his mouser’s kittens in a bag and left them in the forest for the wolves, she rescued them and suckled them with a twisted cloth dipped in milk until they were strong.

The animals saw these things, and in their simple ways they returned her many kindnesses. The deer and rabbits let her garden grow unmolested, and the crows ate everyone else’s corn but hers. The cats, once full-grown, kept the weasels and the skunks from her chickens, and the grateful chickens laid their eggs right on Maigret’s porch. Her garden prospered more than any other in the village. She could have sold the extra vegetables and eggs at the market, but she always chose to share with her companions in nature. She had such a kind heart that she even set some eggs and vegetables far out in the woods for hungry creature too scared to seek near the village for food.

Other than her family, her garden, and her animal friends, Maigret’s other love was for weaving. Each night, she spun her own yarn from flax she grew in her garden, measuring it off click by click on her spinning weasel, and then by candlelight she wove blankets and fine linen fabric until her tiny bed finally called her to sleep. In the winter months, while the garden took its rest, she colored her cloth vibrant dyes she had made from flowers and berries and then sewed shirts, aprons, and dozens of other useful items. The only times she stopped her work was to sit with her family in the flower garden – not even the coldest winds and deepest snows could keep her from that daily visit.

And like the extra produce from her gardening, the fruits of her spinning could have made her a small fortune, but Maigret had no wish for profit of that sort. Some cloth she offered to the doves, to the other birds, and to the little mice and shrews in the wood to line their nests. Colorful rugs softened the wooden floor of the cottage porch for the cats, and even the fat toad had a little blue pillow under its wooden bench. The rest she would take late at night and leave on the village church steps for the parson to hand out as he saw the need.

Yes, Maigret had a beautiful, loving heart, and she was a blessing to her animal neighbors, who blessed her in return.

But Maigret’s beauty was all on the inside. Sixty years of bending and kneeling over her flowers and vegetable plants had hunched her over and left her crooked. Spinning and weaving had also bent and gnarled fingers permanently stained black from fabric dyes. Squinting at her sewing in candlelight had also changed her from the comely blacksmith’s daughter she used to be also. Her face now had as many wrinkles as the fruit she strung and hung to dry from her cottage ceiling. Her voice, too, after the decades of singing and speaking in all types of weather to her husband and children’s graves. Her speech was deep now, rasping and cracking, like the trees that creaked from root to branch tip on windy nights.

So, Maigret’s kindness and beauty was hidden inside a crooked body that seemed to twist in on itself like a briar. And like a briar as well, her voice scratched and scraped at her human neighbors’ ears. The villagers avoided her as surely as they would have if she had surrounded her cottage with a mighty wall of thorns. They whispered ‘witch’ and ‘demoness’ when her garden plants grew greener and bigger than any of theirs. They blamed ‘dark magic’ and ‘devil’s pact’ when the ‘forest vermin’ slew their hens, stole their eggs, but left hers untouched. They shunned her sewing, fearing it unless the parson spoke prayers over it first, and then wearing it only after washing out the fey colors. In their eyes, her cottage and its devilishly plentiful green garden lay far beyond the village’s edge rather than right on it.

So Maigret lived alone on the edge of her busy village, her human family long dead, the animals her only living companions. So it was until one evening, just after dusk, she didn’t get up from the bench after she had finished singing to the two smaller tombstones. The fat toad stayed on her foot and the doves on her lap until she fell to the soft ground. Then, they moved to her side, leaving room for the cats who came to curl themselves around her. The rabbits and deer came next, and with them silently slunk sleek weasels and skunks. Even a limping, gray-furred bear, too old to risk the villagers’ traps but fat from Maigret’s offerings of eggs, ventured out into her garden. The little creatures of the forest were last – crows, mice, shrews, and all the birds – and they scattered over their friend’s still form a shower of leaves, twigs, blossoms, seeds, and little slips of colored fabric pulled from their own little nests. By dawn, a sweet-smelling blanket of their gifts screened her entirely from the first rays of morning.

The sunrise called some away. Others left as hunger or other needs drove them, but they came back. The villagers wondered and whispered but never set foot past her gate. The parson wondered why the gifts of clothing stopped but busied himself with other pursuits and never visited the empty cottage. As weeks passed, they found it easy to forget her entirely and gladly watched weeds and ivy cover her bright flowers and neat vegetable rows.

Only the beasts and birds were true and loyal companions, the toad and the doves more so than any, visiting with her season after season, year after year. And when they passed, their children still lingered in the spot, finding that the garden still provided more than enough for their needs even with her gone. After many years, when the village had forgotten her completely, the deep forest itself moved in to separate the ruins of her cottage in a final leafy embrace. And when the villagers eventually packed their things and moved away, the forest pulled Maigret where she lay beside her family deeper into its loving embrace.

And today, hidden far within the forest’s shadowy edges, a tangle of heavy brush and berry brambles hides a ring of tall sunflowers. And inside that blossoming ring, three ivy-covered stones – one big and two small – stand next to a rounded mound covered in bright flowers of every kind found in the forest. If a person makes it to that mound and stands very still, he would hear something strange indeed. It is the sound of a new generation of toads and doves singing, in their own voices, the forest’s praises of a beautiful friend that hasn’t been forgotten.

Hotter Than Blue Googles

“Mom! How much longer? I’m hungry!”

The little boy was shouting from his booster seat in the back of the minivan. He was five and wore a ball cap that was just a little too big since he had gotten his summer haircut.

“My hungry!” whined his little brother, who was three and strapped in his car seat in the middle of the van. He had brown hair like his grandma and tear streaks on both flushed cheeks from where he had lost a battle earlier with his mom about wearing sandals instead of green frog galoshes.

“Da-da-da!” yelled the youngest, a little girl just recently promoted to a seat where she didn’t have to ride everywhere backwards. Her hair was blonde and just long enough to start curling at the ends. She didn’t really care about being in the van so long, so long as she was buckled and could yell whenever her brothers did.

The children’s father stopped singing along with the Wiggles long enough to twist around in the front passenger seat and shout back, “Not long, guys! Not long!”

The dad wore mismatched tennis shoes to be silly and had, like the oldest child, a new summer haircut. He told everyone that the short hair made him look a little like George Clooney, but the truth was that he thought he was closer to a combination of Shrek and Peewee Herman.

“I’m hungry!” was the response from the back of the van, so the dad, when he turned back around, rapped his knuckles on his window. “Hey! Look at that big dump truck over there! Wow, it’s a big one? You guys see it? And hey! There’s a digger!”

“Cool!” yelled back the oldest, pressing his face against the window as they passed another construction site. The other two didn’t say anything. The other boy, who was a little past three years old, was looking out of the wrong window, and the little girl was too busy trying to take off her shoes to even look.

“There,” sighed the dad. He reached over and pinched the mom’s elbow. She tried to slap him with one hand, but he jerked away too quickly. He laughed, “Now, that gives us about a minute before they start thinking about food again. How much farther is this place anyway?”

“The next light is the road it’s on, so not far,” she said. She had blonde hair, like two of their children, and a little spattering of freckles on her nose and cheeks. Her shoes matched, but she didn’t mind that her husband mixed his colors up on purpose. She also liked his haircut and didn’t agree at all with the whole Ogre-Peewee thing.

They made the turn not longer after that and hadn’t gone very far, when the dad said, “Hey, this is the road the quarry’s on. Are you sure the restaurant’s this way? There’s nothing really back here that I remember.”

The mom frowned at him and turned the Wiggles’ volume down a bit. “You never listen, do you? It’s new. That’s why we got the coupons stuck on our door.” She reached down and dug between the front seats until she found a bent flyer. She waved it at the dad, but he wouldn’t take it.

“Okay, I remember now, but I’ll get sick if I read it. Did you forget that? Huh?” He poked her in the side with one knuckle as she stuck the coupons up behind the sun visor on her side.

“Stop it,” the mom laughed. “Anyway, the kids eat free and we get buy-one-get-one free. We can’t get beat that anywhere else. Plus, the ad said that it had a play land, so the kids will like it.”

“Cool.” The dad started biting his nails and then stopped. “What was it called again? Furry Chickens?”

The mom rolled her eyes and grinned. “No, Goofy. It’s Safari Chick’s – it’s supposed to have a jungle theme – monkeys, giraffes, elephants…”

“Ellies!” yelled the youngest suddenly. She liked elephants and had several stuffed toys lying all over the place back home.

“Yes! Ellies!” echoed both parents happily.

“Ellies!” everyone shouted.

The little girl threw both her arms up and yelled something else utterly unintelligible. She let go of her left sandal – which she’d been holding ever since she finally un-Velcroed it from around her ankle – flew into the air and hit the brother next to her right in the side of his head. He screamed the high-pitched distress call only a three-year-old can make, flailed his feet against the back of his dad’s seat, and lashed out with a little fist at his sister. He popped her right on the forehead. She let out a shriek like the raptors on those Jurassic movies. The dad felt his eardrums buzz with feedback. The mom swerved slightly but stayed in her lane.

“No hitting! It was an accident!” The dad shouted. “An accident, okay? You’re all okay! Stop the drama!” He twisted around his seat and tried to separate, calm, and console all at the same time. It didn’t work. The two toddlers just screamed and smacked at each other like two crazy raccoons. Then, he spun back to the front and turned the volume knob on the radio up a few spins. Over the crying and blaring kids’ music, he yelled, “Hey, the Wiggles! Let’s sing! That’ll be fun! Hey there! Shaky Shaky!”

Gripping the steering wheel with both white-knuckled hands, the mom screamed louder than anyone, “I’m turning the van around and going home if everyone doesn’t shut up! You too, Dad!”

The dad stopped singing and switched off the Wiggles. The two youngest children stopped crying and just sniffled. The oldest boy all the way in the back looked up from his action figure that he had just beheaded and made eye contact with his mom in the rear view mirror.

“Mom! Are we there yet? I’m hungry!”

Home Is Where the Heart Googles

“How ‘bout ya play somethin’ we know, Checkie!” someone yelled from the back of the old warehouse depot. I couldn’t see who, but it sounded a lot like Eightball.

“It’s Czechie, ya igmo!” I yelled back. “Ya gotta get your tongue all up ‘gainst the roof of ya mouth to say it right! Cizzz-ZHECK-ee! Like that – did ya hear it?”

A bald, grease-smudged head popped up from behind some wooden pallets that we’d stacked up to block some of the wind comin’ off the lake. Just like I thought, it was Eightball. He had his ugly face all pinched up like he always did whenever he got mad. I knew he didn’t see me right away ‘cause he didn’t say nothin’. He just blinked his big eyes at Czechie, who stood on some rocks just outside the shelter on the lakeshore. Czechie didn’t see him and probably hadn’t heard him either since he kept on playin’ that same foreign tune on his trumpet. I was sittin’ a little off to the side, up beside one of the rusty supports for the depot’s shingled roof, with my legs dangling off the side into the weeds. I had to wave to get Eightball to see me.

“How ‘bout I stick my foot ‘gainst the roof of yer mouth? Huh, Ajax?” he yelled, spraying spit all into the air ‘round him. “How ‘bout that, huh? I weren’t talkin’ to ya noways, so why don’t ya keep yer big mouth shut!”

I snorted and leaned back on my palms. I didn’t look at him, just stared straight up at the sky through one of the holes in the roof, and said, “Ah, go wash yer bald head, ya filthy monkey!”

Eightball cussed, and I heard him hock up a big mouthful of snot. I twisted and looked just as he reared his skinny neck back like a copperhead and spit at me. The big glob of yellow snot spun in the air but barely cleared the pallets. It didn’t get nowhere close to where I sat, and I just shook my head sad-like.

“That was just sorry. I’m shamed to have ya as a brother if ya can’t spit better than that,” I said, tryin’ to sound like I remember our dad’s voice bein’ when he was mad at us.

Eightball cussed again and ducked back behind the pallets out of sight.

Maybe half a minute later, he shouted from back there, “Whyn’t ya go wash yerself! Ya stink, ya dirty gorilla!”

I couldn’t help but bust out in a big laugh. Growin’ up, my brother never had been good at tradin’ insults, and now that we was out on our own, he still stunk at it. He must have heard me laughin’, even over Czechie’s foreign music, because he started bangin’ around and bein’ all noisy with somethin’ back behind those pallets. He probably had his collection of plastic bottles stashed back there. We took most to the ‘cycling plant to get money, but Eightball always liked savin’ the green ones for some reason or other. When winter came, those’d have to go with the rest.

I probably sat and laughed for five minutes, banging both my heels against the crumbling concrete the whole time, before I got real bored. I had always enjoyed makin’ Eightball mad, at least ever since he got old enough that Mama didn’t care when he cried anymore.
I was hopin’ that he’d come back out to yell at me some more, but he was still poutin’or maybe he dozed off.

That just left Czechie. He’d been livin’ with us in the old depot for nearly a year but kept to his part of the shelter most of the time. He was a lot older than me and my brother, but I didn’t mind him much. He’d been a lot of help, collectin’ food and addin’ old plywood and boxes to keep the wind and rain out of our place. It seemed no one but us cared ‘bout this place ‘cause no one ever came ‘round and messed with it. I was glad of that, but it did make life pretty borin’ most of the time.

Czechie’s foreign music was getting’ me pretty bored, too. I felt like I wanted to sing somethin’, but I couldn’t sing to what he was playin’. It was too foreign for me to even try to make up words, too. I needed somethin’ old and familiar to really get my voice movin’ and my blood stirred up. It was almos’ time to go down the lake and walk the fencerow to see what people tossed out on the overpass.

“Hey, Czechie!” I said, sayin’ it right and sayin’ it loud in case my brother might be awake after all. I cupped one hand on the side of my mouth and said it again even louder. “Hey, I’m talking to ya, Czechie!”

I had to yell a third time before he stopped playin’ and looked at me. I waved and drummed my heels against the concrete as I made my offer.

“Czechie, I wonder if ya can play ‘Oh Say Can You See’ on that goofy foreign trumpet? I’ve got half an orange I’ll give ya if ya can play it good and loud.”

The old man licked his lips a few times, then hocked and spit something brown into the weeds off to the side of where I sat. He cocked his head and rubbed the grey whiskers on his cheek with one hand. He looked at his horn, and then he looked at me.

“This,” he said, cradling the instrument in one hand like it was made of gold ‘stead of tarnished and dented, “This is not trumpet – this is rozhok … like me from Czechia … and my name is Bretislav Svoboda …not Cizz-sheki as you try to say … and as for your ‘Say Can You See’ song…”

He looked away and lifted his horn to his lips. I heard snickerin’ from back behind the pallets. I opened my mouth to say somethin’ smart but didn’t get out a word before the song started. Oncet the first note played, I couldn’t do nothin’ but sit with a dumb look on my face until the whole thing was over. Blamed if the foreigner didn’t play the song better than I’d heard at any ball game or parade in my whole life. I didn’t even mind when Eightball came out and sat down beside me to listen.

A Bird in the Hand is Worth Two in the Google

Stories about the creatures began popping up all over the Midwest as early as November last year. Photographs and video were next – spreading the rumors of alien visitation all over the world via Youtube and Flickr. Experts scoffed, sci-fi fans rejoiced, skeptics laughed, some religious groups cried armageddon.

Then, five hikers in Arizona’s Ramsey Canyon Preserve used their wits – and a large waterproof blanket – to end the controversy. And in so doing, they laid claim to the find of the past two millennia.

Like the rest of us, these five students from the University of Arizona had heard the stories. They’d read the news feeds. They’d squinted at the pictures online, trying to see what the captions claimed was there. They’d laughed at Jay Leno’s take on the whole alien scenario. They’d laughed at David Letterman’s monologue about alien visitation. Two of them had even blogged about the ‘alien nonsense’ on Facebook.

But when they woke up on the second morning of their trek into the national park, what they saw put them among the ranks of the believers. What they did set them apart.

“I probably blinked a billion times,” says Andrew Ragnarris, 20, from Phoenix, the first of the group to awaken just before dawn on Tuesday, April 2. “We had camped on top of a little bluff, and I woke early to watch the sunrise. I looked down and couldn’t believe that I was awake and seeing what I was seeing. It was RC – real and right there below our camp.

RC is the nickname the vacationing college students affectionately give to the creature whose capture put their names and faces in newspapers and feeds around the world . Ostensibly, the initials stand for Ramsey Canyon, the location of the capture, but also for ‘Radical Creature’ and ‘Recreation Crasher’ according to the five friends who delivered it alive to stunned park rangers with the help of a summoned Newschannel 9 helicopter Tuesday afternoon.

Ragnarris describes his initial reaction: “I kept seeing it – big, green, furry – similar to the pictures and sketches I’d seen on the net, enough to tell me that some of those stories must be true. But others are way off. RC didn’t have spines and alien battle armor and the rest. It was totally alive and alien, but just moving around, poking at plants and rocks, just below where we’d slept. More like ET than Alien,” he says, referencing the Steven Spielberg and Ridley Scott classic alien encounter films. RC was right there, plain as day. And it had no idea we were there.”

Ragnarris credits their lack of discovery by the alien to his father, a seasoned hiker and camper whose love for the wildlife and landscape of Ramsey Canyon Preserve inspired the group of friends to spend their Spring Break roughing it instead of on the beach.

“Dad dared us to really go back to nature on this trip. I mean, it’s not the typical spring break, but we were stoked about it. We brought our cells in case of emergency and our cameras, but that’s about it. No mp3 players, no PSP, no GPS. We planned on becoming part of the canyons. We even brought jerky and dried fruit so we wouldn’t need to have fires. We really were trying to blend in, which is maybe why RC didn’t see us. It gave us enough time to think.”

His friends also have another meaning for the alien’s nickname: ‘Ragnarris’s Conquest’ – but Ragnarris insists on sharing the spotlight. According to him, all five college students played crucial parts in humanity’s capture of the world’s first alien life form. However, he admits that he was the first among his friends to spot the creature.

Plus, he had the presence of mind to do what others who claimed similar encounters failed to do. He quietly awakened his friends rather than clicking away on his digital camera. He explains his actions this way: “I knew that pictures weren’t enough – I mean, it’s just way too easy to edit photos now. I didn’t want to end up being another wacko on Letterman with blurry pictures. No one trusts pictures anymore,” he says, “I knew I wanted my friends to witness what I was seeing, and I knew that I needed their help.”

Tracey Swain, 19, from New Castle, Montana, was the first awakened by Andrew. “Of course, I didn’t believe him until I saw RC. Then, it was surreal. I kept looking around for cameras. I felt like I was on Punk’d or one of those prank shows. But it was real!” She immediately helped rouse their sleeping companions.

Maggie Carpenter, 19, from Bradsford, and Chas Dierra, 20, from Carlsbad, woke next. Dierra describes his excitement: “I’m a huge Stargate fan, and I know it’s cheesy, but I love Star Trek, too – I’ve watched every episode of every series, even Enterprise. I play all the games, so I’m a sci-fi geek, I guess, but for fun only.” The third year Accounting student with a 4.0 average claims that he had always kept his leisure interests separate from his real world plans. “Up to the second, I looked down and saw RC thought the whole alien visitation business on the news was a load of crap. It was all fiction and fantasy to me before that. Seeing that the alien was real was a shock, but in a good way! It kind of brought everything together – the real and the unreal. It was wild!”

Carpenter describes a very different reaction upon seeing the alien for the first time. “I was terrified,” she admits. “Complete paralyzing terror. I’d read some of the crackpot attack stories and laughed at them, but when I saw it was real, I felt like I couldn’t breathe, I was that scared. I wanted to call the Army or FBI right away.”

Her friends, however, calmed her down and changed her mind. “Maggie was really freaking out!” reports Dartanion “Gouda” Waggon, 21, from Mylers Point, AK, the oldest of the group and the last to be woken up. “She was shaking and almost in shock. I know she was close to screaming, but we got her back down to reality. We reminded her about the government conspiracy spin on the aliens and brought up lasers and satellite tracking. She’s a Psych major and into the whole Green Party things back on campus, so that made her forget about calling anybody and get serious. That’s when Andy told us about his plan.”

High school wrestling captain, third-year Corporate Business major, and amateur rodeo bulldogger, Andrew Ragnarris based his plan on what he knew best – incapacitating and controlling something larger than himself. “I knew that we had to act quickly and not act scared,” he says. “That’s key to any struggle, physical or financial – don’t let the opponent psych you out.”

When asked about whether or not he was scared, the college junior responds, “I’ve wrestled bulls and even a few guys bigger than this thing, but I wasn’t sure what it was going to do.” He adds, “But being scared inside and going on is different from being scared all over and just running away. I knew we had a one-time shot at something huge, so I wasn’t going to let us run. I needed to find something to give us the edge we needed, and we had it thanks to Tracey.”

He is referring to an item brought by Zoology major Tracey Swain that inspired Andrew’s plan and guaranteed the group’s success. “I wanted to sketch some of the rarer species in the canyons, like the lemon lily and the elegant trogon, and I didn’t want my pads and pastels getting wet,” she says, explaining why she brought a waterproof blanket in addition to the small but weather-resistant tent each hiker had in his or her pack. “My dad actually uses it to protect his motorcycle when he hauls it to races, so it’s pretty big plus it’s tough. Gouda and Chad made fun of me the whole trip because it takes forever to unwrap my art supplies, but I wanted my drawings protected in case there were flash floods or something.”

She didn’t count on confronting and capturing an alien being when she packed that blanket, but that is exactly what her friend Andrew’s plan called for. Just a few short minutes after awakening his fellow students, he led them in a surprise attack that rendered the alien they dubbed RC unconscious, completely immobilized, and unhurt. Carpenter then used her cell phone to report their find, not to park officials, not to the military, not even to the government. She sent some phone pictures of the victorious group with the swaddled alien to a sorority sister with an internship at KSAZ - FOX Channel 10. In little more than an hour, a KSAZ helicopter arrived to carry the students and their exotic cargo to a press conference at the Ramsey Canyon Preserve Welcome Center.

Although it was ultimately Ragnarris’s planning and Swain’s preparedness that gave the five university students what they needed to capture the alien they dubbed RC, the group also had Andrew Ragnarris’s wrestling experience (with both humans and steers), Gouda Waggon’s strength (he plays nose tackle for Arizona Wildcats), Chas Dierra’s strategy (he ranks among the top PvP players in Star Wars Galaxies online gaming, Swain’s knowledge of comparative anatomy (she used the alien’s body type to decide how to safely incapacitate the creature) and Carpenter’s willingness to support her friends (she credits Ragnarris’s confidence as inspiring her to overcome her fear). This unique blending of humanity’s diverse skills and abilities gave these young hikers the edge that has put their names in the world’s history books.

A Penny Saved is a Penny Googled

The first time Professor Wilson ended class early, we all thought it was a joke.

It was spring semester, not long after midterm in our Literary Criticism class. Every other time our class had met, he’d kept us right up until the last minute, so we weren’t prepared for him to break tradition the way he did.

On that particular day, he had embroiled us in a debate about Walt Whitman’s poetry for about twenty minutes when someone quoted a line from “When I Heard the Learned Astronomer.” I don’t recall who quoted it or what point it was supposed to prove, but I remember a strange look come across Professor Wilson’s face. The next thing we all knew he was packing up his leather book bag and telling us that we’d continue the discussion at the next class. He went to the door, stopped to tell us to continue the assigned readings on the syllabus, and then left.

We all laughed quietly but stayed in our seats. You have to understand something about our class. Most of us were seniors, and all of us were English majors. We’d been trained by all of our teachers, Professor Wilson included, to look for meaning everywhere. So we sat and waited for him to return to class and make his point. I fully expected him to stroll back in and somehow connect what he said and did to Whitman’s work. In fact, I remember racking my brain, trying to figure it out myself. After five minutes, I was still trying to remember the rest of that Whitman poem when someone got up to see if he were waiting out in the hall.

He wasn’t in the hall. Someone checked outside. He wasn’t on the stoop or on the benches. Someone got up the nerve to call his office. He wasn’t there either. We didn’t know what to do. Someone suggested calling the dean – I don’t remember who – but the idea was shot down. Finally, after about fifteen minutes, even the most studious and suspicious of us decided that he actually wasn’t coming back. He had actually meant for us to leave when he did, but we had stuck around. We’d been conditioned, someone said, comparing us to a bunch of dogs needing a bell to tell us what to do. We left, laughing at ourselves and trying to guess why he had stopped class over an hour early. You see, we still were seeking meaning, looking for symbolism – we just couldn’t help it. I told everybody that he would probably explain it all to us at the next class and probably assign us an essay about it. Everybody laughed. Then, I headed over to the library to get a head start on the reading.

Professor Wilson didn’t explain it though. I expected someone to ask, but no one did. Maybe they believed me about the essay and were afraid to. Or maybe they didn’t want him to know that they couldn’t figure it out. I wanted to ask him, but I didn’t want to look stupid in front of everybody. So we all just let it drop.

Then, a week later it happened again. This time, we were talking about Emerson and the transcendentalists. We’d reached the halfway point of class, when he usually had us get up and stretch to get blood flowing up to our brains. Instead, he looked at us strangely and started packing up. He told us the same thing he had before and left just as quickly. A few of us went to the window this time. We saw him leave the building and walk across the Drill Field, in the opposite direction of the cafeteria and the faculty offices. Where he was going, we had no idea, but he walked briskly and didn’t look back even once.

We still waited. For about ten minutes, we laughed and talked about class ending early again. We made up reasons, most of them silly and many of them pretty scandalous, so I’m glad that Professor Wilson didn’t walk back in that day. Then, we all left, calling out a few late corny jokes – I didn’t want to waste the time, so I went to the library again to read.

The third time he left early was the very next class. We had barely started analyzing a Dickinson poem when he packed up, said goodbye, and was gone. We did the same as the last time. We watched him walk away, we waited ten minutes, and then we left. But we didn’t laugh or joke around though. Most of us used the time to read. A few whispered to each other, but that was it. It was really weird. And when the first of us got up to leave, the rest of us followed out quietly. I went to the library again, but I didn’t stay long. I just couldn’t concentrate on nineteenth century poetry.

I mean, the whole thing was just odd. At least, that’s how I felt. I had no idea why he was doing this, stopping class early all of a sudden. I remember instructors and grad students doing it all the time in the core classes I had back in my freshman and sophomore years. But upper level lit courses didn’t work that way – at least none of my other ones had, and I’d even had Professor Wilson for Modern English Prose and Poetry last semester. He’d worked us to death and had been entirely predictable and efficient.

So why the change? I had to admit that I had no clue.

I dreaded the next class. I didn’t know what to expect. I read the assigned poems and stories on the syllabus but really couldn’t remember much. I hoped that he wouldn’t call on me, and part of me was kind of expecting him to not even show up. He did show up though, and he did call on me. I embarrassed myself, but I didn’t care because as it turned out, he stayed for the entire class. I was relieved. I could tell everyone felt like me– we all seemed to hold our breath whenever he got near his book bag, but he didn’t pack it up until the very last minute of class. I felt mentally exhausted by then, so I decided to break routine and go back to the dorm to take a nap instead of studying at the student union.

The next class went well, too. And the next. He kept us debating and criticizing, wearing us out. Everything had returned to normal. I just chalked up his eccentric behavior to the professorial equivalent of spring fever and figured that it had run its course. We were approaching the last month of the semester after all, so it was buckle down time for everyone.

Then, it happened again. This time during an essay exam.

He’d given us all these quotes and asked us to incorporate them into an essay about one of the themes we’d discussed in class over the past week. I was barely halfway into it when I noticed him fidgeting at his table in the front of the room. When he started pacing, I really had a hard time focusing on my exam. I noticed a few other people frowning, too, and I wondered if anyone would be brave enough to say something. When he went to the window and began drumming his fingers on the sill, a hand – not mine – did go up to get his attention. He didn’t see it – he was looking outside – so I faked a cough to get him to look around. He didn’t. He kept drumming his fingers and looking outside.

Another hand raised, this one closer to him. Someone else coughed. I scuffled my feet. The girl next to me sneezed. A pencil tapped on a desk. He was oblivious. Then, someone behind set off a cell phone – a risky move since Professor Wilson had named them as his number one pet peeve, but effective because he spun around instantly before it had more played than half a second of “Sexyback” by Justin Timberlake. Whoever had played the ringtone shut if off, but I expected the professor to be mad. A few more hands went up, but he ignored everything.

Instead, he went right for his book bag and told us he needed to leave. He made it to the door before someone asked about the exam. He gave us a strange look and told us to slide it under his office door or bring it to the next class. Then, he was gone.

Stunned, I acted on impulse and stood up, shoving my exam into my own book bag. “I’m following him,” I announced as though that were the only logical thing to do. “Anyone with me?”

It was a small class, only fifteen of us, but I’m still surprised that they all came with me. I imagine that we looked pretty silly, too, our whole class trying to follow our professor and make it look entirely natural. We spread out a little so that we weren’t all bunched up and noisy, but I know we looked weird. I led the way. I had no idea what I was going to say if he turned and confronted me, but I felt compelled to know where he was going.

We trailed him all the way across campus, past the book store, past the dorms, past the faculty parking garage (which was a relief), past the courtyard and fountain that some prankster always filled with laundry soap. Finally, he stopped at the edge of campus, near the Agricultural Fields. A Civil War memorial stood there, a low stone wall and pillar built from the debris of a hospital that had been a precursor of our campus. I’d been there a few times, had read the plaque, had even researched it once for a freshman orientation paper. I hung back now and watched Professor Wilson. The rest of the class did the same.

He put his book bag down and took out a few notebooks. My first thought was he was going to do some writing or maybe catch up on some grading, but he surprised me again. He set the notebooks on the low wall and then climbed up onto it himself. Then, he lay down in the sun on top of the wall with his legs outstretched and his hands clasped behind his head. The notebooks were his pillow, I saw.

And I saw that he knew we were there. He craned his neck to the side and winked at us. The closer elbow beckoned, so I walked up to the wall with the class not far behind me.

He had a huge welcoming kind of smile on his face. His eyes squinted because of the bright April sun.

“I wondered if you all would ever show up. Now find a spot. I’d like to hear someone recite that Whitman poem. Anyone up for it?” he said cheerfully.

Someone was. Me, surprisingly. And we all managed to find a spot, some perched on the wall, some on the ground, one brave person even scaled the pillar while I spoke Whitman’s words and we finally picked up where we’d left off.

The Good, the Bad, and the Google

Initial Crime Scene Report
Detective Richford, lead investigator

Date: Saturday, 2/20/06

Weather: clear, cold, temp at 38 F

Arrived on scene at 9:21

Responding: Deputy R. Hatton, Deputy M. Trice, Deputy S. Williamson; Detective L. Rebecca, Ambulance from Deerpoint Med Center, arrival 9:04 to 10:15

Location: Grapevine Apartments, Apt D2, Duggan St, two story, red brick and steel building (four units), second floor apartment, interior courtyard entry, private stair, black steel door with red trim, 1 living room, 1 bedroom, 1 bath, 1 kitchen, 1 window on stair landing, 1 window in bedroom on north side facing street

Situated: north side of city, 1.1 mile south of I25, 5.6 miles west of Locke Overpass

Summons: cell phone call from neighbor, Lamont Ragdell, Apt D4, at 8:49 to 911 reporting screams from D2

On scene at first response (Hatton and Trice, 9:04): Lamont Ragdell in interior courtyard; Apt D2 door ajar, body of Steven Bradley discovered in kitchen area by deputies

Witnesses: No eyewitness known. Ragdell only resident present. Heard screams but saw no one enter or leave location.

Homicide Victim:
Steven Bradley, dob. 1/6/84 (22 yrs.), approx. 5’10”, 150 lbs., black hair, light build, found lying on right side in apt kitchen, head facing window. Stab wounds from unknown weapon inflicted to right cheek, lower left ribcage, back left shoulder, left side of neck. No exit wounds indicate weapon had short blade. Neatness of wounds indicate weapon was not serrated. Extensive pooling of blood around body on kitchen linoleum. Blood trail and spatter indicates victim was first stabbed in living room by cloth sofa, again in hallway, and finally in kitchen. Victim appears to have fallen and bled freely where discovered. No injuries apparent other than stab wounds. No bruising and no damage to furnishings to indicate physical struggle. White fragments and yellow fluid in victim’s hair discovered to be a smashed egg from victim’s refrigerator.

Body still warm to touch. Deputies report no movement of the body when discovered. No pulse found when checked at neck by Hatton and victim declared dead on scene at 9:07.
Victim is wearing light blue boxer shorts and white sleeveless t-shirt, no shoes, no socks. Faded brown and red stains on front of shirt and boxers. Similar stains on cloth sofa and prevalence of Hot Pocket wrappers on coffee table indicate stains on clothing to be irrelevant to victim’s death.
Manner of death appears to be homicide. Murder weapon is small caliber pistol. Await analysis of bullets. No murder weapon found on scene. No weapons registered to victim.

Coroner Philip Epson, MD arrived on scene 10:12, removed victim at 10:50 to Deerpoint Med Center morgue. Preliminary opinion, homicide due to severed cartoid artery, time of death estimated between 8:50 and 9:00.

Measurements:
See crime scene sketches.

Search of house:
Entry door ajar. Refrigerator door found ajar. Lights off in all apartment rooms. Apartment is disorderly but appears to be due to victim’s lifestyle rather than to vandalism or robbery. Door does not show forced entry. Computer on coffee table is on, connected to cable modem. Victim still logged into MMORPG (World of Warcraft) at deputies’ first arrival on scene. Deputies took photograph of scene before server connection was lost at approximately 9:11: gnome rogue, level 17, name Trickjunkie, located in Westfall, Saldean’s Farm. Character was marked AFK and was not grouped or chatting with any other player. Guild affiliation noted as Wee Ninjas.

Evidence Collected:
Blood samples collected from pool. Photographs of spatter on apartment walls and furnishings.

Fingerprints taken from entry door, computer, and refrigerator. Three sets apparent, one matching victim. Awaiting analysis.

Photographs of footprints other than victim in blood trail. Very small size boots, low heel, no brand apparent.

Six eggs, medium-sized, from egg tray in victim’s refrigerator. Numbers and letters written on each egg in black permanent marker. Meaning undetermined. Handwriting on eggs matches writing found in notebook on coffee table and writing found in victim’s wallet on dresser in bedroom. Awaiting analysis of shattered egg in victim’s hair to determine possible match. Notebook and wallet taken into evidence.

One medium-sized kiwi found in sixth space of egg tray, presumably in place of smashed egg found in victim’s hair. Single word written on kiwi in red marker: “NOOB” in all capital letters. Handwriting on fruit does not appear to match handwriting on eggs.

Photograph of initials discovered after victim’s body was removed. Initials “WTF” were written in victim’s blood on linoleum beneath victim’s right hand.

Victim’s computer taken into evidence.

No additional evidence removed from house.

Scene secured by Detective Richford at 11:24 AM.