Author Archives: esmarsha

Just Antenna Things

G̷̦̒̍o̶̯̻͚̍̒ͅǫ̶̋d̵̫͚̭̋͜͠ ̶̮͔̭̠̀m̷̨̩̗̌o̷̢͎̱̣͑r̴̰̞̲̘͂̚n̵͈͍̼̋͒͝ï̴̥̗̉n̶̯̄̓g̵̛̲͇̬̽̐͐ ̵̰̦̦̒̕͝c̴̬͎̳͍̔ȧ̸̯̩̺̀̈́m̷͍͉̿͋ͅp̵̮̳͎̉͒̋͘e̸͓̤͗r̶̗͒̐̕͠s̷͈̺̯̐̓

Let me tell you the tale of the Squawk Box.

Several years ago I made a wireless PA system for the camping event I help run. It’s been a boon. Makes it easy to ring the dinner bell, and keep people in the loop on when events are starting. But for some reason this year the loudspeakers started blasting static and annoying my campers.

I was pulling my hair out. Did the cheap radios I used go bad in the off-season? Did a new noise source get installed nearby and drown out my signal? Or is there a fundamental flaw in my system design? Let’s investigate.

Look at this clever, compact design. Everything in a nice water-resistant box. I mounted the antenna externally for better reception.

But wait, walkie-talkie antennas are designed to use the metal body of the radio itself as part of the antenna.

What do these graphs mean though? The device I’m holding is an antenna analyzer that measures the Standing Wave Ratio. SWR is a measure of how much energy is radiated vs how much is reflected back to the transmitter. There are some caveats, but for a simple antenna it is a good approximation of how well the antenna is doing its job.

SWR:

1: Perfect
2: Marginal
3+: Poor performance, and potential damage to a transmitter.

A bit like a guitar string, antennas can be tuned to a resonant frequency. For a given frequency, a perfect antenna would radiate 100% of the power at the desired frequency, while simultaneously blocking out the noise on all other frequencies when receiving. Of course the real world doesn’t like physics homework problems, so what you get is something like the above image. Close to 1:1 at the desired frequency, with the SWR getting higher the further away you get from it.

My design separates the antenna from the radio with a short pigtail jumper. Surely that can’t affect the performance all that much.

Oh…that’s not great.

This shows us two things

The best case SWR is pretty marginal.
The relative flatness of the curve allows in more noise from undesired frequencies.

Why does adding a short piece of coax make our antenna so much worse? Two words: Ground Plane

The most basic antenna is a dipole, two equal lengths of wire cut to the appropriate length, and strung in opposite directions. The RF current can go out one leg, and return through the other. Perfectly balanced, but dipoles take up a lot of space, so there’s a physics hack antenna designers use so they only have to supply one half of the dipole. The Ground Plane.

Due to some fancy math, you can use the earth itself as an imaginary half of the antenna. There’s a longer explanation of how this works here.

The neat thing is, you don’t even need the earth to be the earth, you can implement an artificial “ground plane” with any conductor.

But back to our setup. Every handheld radio I’ve encountered has a metal plate inside. It’s an imperfect ground plane, but “good enough” that the trade-off for compactness is worth the minimal performance hit at lower power.

The plastic box I mounted the external antenna to is decidedly not metal, and does nothing to provide a ground plane for the half-incomplete antenna. So how do we fix this?

One way would be to mount a piece of sheet metal at the base of the antenna. Easy enough, but now I have a nice finger-slicer when I’m setting the thing up. There’s an easier way though.

Why don’t we just make our half-dipole a full-dipole? Let’s add a short length of wire to the return path and see what happens. I eyeballed the length to be a bit longer than I thought I’d need, then using the antenna analyzer cut off an inch at a time until the SWR was lowest at my desired frequency.

External Antenna with Counterpoise Added

Wow! Everything is right with the world. Not bad for $0.20 of material.

It’s The Little Things

When asked by someone how much money flying takes:

Why, all of it!

— Gordon Baxter

People often get a concerned expression when I tell them I fly helicopters and planes. Even if they don’t outright ask it, you can see the question in the look on their face. “Isn’t that dangerous?” Inevitably, the second question is always “Isn’t that expensive?” I’d like to share a small story from my training that demonstrates why the answer to the first question is “no,” the second question is “yes,” and how they are tied together.

With nearly thirty helicopters at the flight school, it was relatively common to be switched to a different ship for maintenance reasons. Sometimes there would be minor discrepancies that could wait until the next down-time to be repaired. In this case a restrictions would be placed on the helicopter to ensure it remained safe and legal. A common one was a “day only” restriction for burned out lights.

On one particular flight, the dispatch board simply said “Dual Only.” This could mean any number of things, but was no concern for me since I was flying with an instructor. I was surprised to find during the preflight that the reason it had been restricted was a missing foam hand grip on the pilot’s cyclic control. Why in the world would a $10 piece of foam ground an aircraft? (Let’s be realistic. It’s probably $65 from the factory because it is “aviation grade” foam.)

It wasn’t until we began the start-up procedure that it became apparent. During start-up and other ground operations, you sometimes clamp the cyclic stick between your thighs to keep it from moving. Without the foam grip, the bare metal was too slippery to securely hold in place. Worst case, a gust of wind could grab the disk and chop off the tail. The solution was to have your crew (the instructor) take the controls while you took care of other tasks.

If something as simple as this can affect the airworthiness of a $300K machine, how can it possibly be safe with all the complicated systems involved? The answer is simple. The level of detail and care shown by the maintenance department and dispatchers is systematic from the engine and transmission, all the way down to the yaw string (aviation grade yarn: $78). Inspections are carried out religiously. Parts are replaced as soon as they are out of tolerance, not just when they start causing problems. Some of them have a “use by” date and are replaced even if they have sat in the hangar with 0 hours on the tach.

This is the same reason that 70 year old airplanes are routinely still flown, while my 12 year old Honda Civic is starting to feel like a rattletrap. Much like Theseus’ Ship, so many parts have been replaced and upgraded over the years it can be left to the philosophers to debate whether it is even the same aircraft. If I took care of my car the same way I would an aircraft, it would drive like new too.

Of course this dedication to safety comes at a cost, and that cost is money. The parts are initially designed and tested to a high degree of reliable and to have a large margin of safety. The acquisition cost is correspondingly greater than an equivalent part in the automotive industry for instance. When you start adding on the regular inspections, replacements, time, and well-intentioned safety regulations the answer is “yes, it is very expensive.”

It takes a special sort of crazy to think it is a good idea to spend your hard earned money drilling holes in the sky, but that same obsession allows us to see the elegance of the machines we fly. Everything in a plane is there for a reason. When you strap in, the only thing on your mind is the flight. There is little room for baggage of the physical, or mental varieties. Flying is a consequence of mechanical refinement, crystalline mental clarity, and the call of the heavens. It’s the best “high” you can get.

ASEL – Lesson 2

2/28/15

Cessna 172 – N734KU

The worst thing about stalls is the anticipation. The actual stall, and recovery is tame in comparison to what you are expecting to happen. As stated in a previous entry it is actually quite difficult to get an entry-level aircraft to stall.

As I was driving to the airport my car was getting tossed around by the wind, so I was anticipating a rough flight, if not being grounded outright. By the time I got to Twin Oaks things had calmed down a bit though, and while there was a bit of rough air getting up to altitude, we managed to find smooth flying up at 4000 feet. After the last lesson in the 150, I wanted to give the 172 a try for comparison. From the outside it doesn’t look much bigger, but the little bit of extra elbow room makes all the difference for comfort. It feels like a real airplane. Pre-flight is almost identical, except the engine cowling does not open for visibility. There is only a small access panel for access to the oil dip stick and gascolator. 4KU has the 180HP engine. While I didn’t note the climb speed, it felt quite happy to take the two of us to altitude.

Trim is a whole new concept to me, coming from helicopters. While we had the trim adjust for cruise flight, it was an on-off device and didn’t really do much in the first place. Control pressures in the R22 were very light even during the most aggressive maneuvers. I can finally see what all the fuss is about properly trimming your airplane for each flight regime. This was dramatically apparent when recovering from stalls. The most important action in recovering from a stall is to decrease back-pressure on the yoke. The first couple attempts at stall recovery I had the trim too far forward, so when I released back-pressure the nose pointed way down. We lost quite a bit of altitude before leveling out. By trimming more proactively, and being conscious of how much control inputs were actually required my stalls smoothed out to non-events after a few tries.

We practiced three flavors of stalls on this flight: power-off, power-on, and turning stalls. Power-off, and power-on are similar, although in a real emergency, they tend to occur in different phases of flight. A Power-on stall might result from an overly steep climb-out in a clean configuration. Can anyone say high DA! A power-off stall might occur during landing. For practice purposes, power-on stalls are difficult because it can be really difficult to get the darn plane to actually go slow enough to stall, without dipping into the territory of aerobatics.

Turning stalls are perhaps the most interesting, because they exhibit some counter-intuitive behavior. Due to aerodynamic effects, the outside wing of a turn actually stalls first (because it sees a higher angle of attack). This means that if you are turning to the right, a stall is going to drop the left wing. The recovery in all cases is to release-back pressure and apply rudder, not aileron, to correct developing turns. Aileron inputs can increase the angle of attack on the wings and deepen an already developed stall.

I will be taking a break from flying for a short time as I shop for a plane of my own. With luck, my next entry will be from my new training aircraft.

ASEL – Lesson 1.5

2/24/14

1.3h – Piper Cherokee PA-28 140

I actually did it. I scheduled a flight in a Piper Cherokee. The Cherokee is one of the top contenders on my used aircraft shopping list along with the C-172, so I wanted to have an informed opinion of the PA-28 before committing to it as an option. I had a pleasant flight out of Aurora State Airport with Sylvia Manning of Willamette Aviation. Sylvia grew up flying her father’s Cherokee so had some insight to offer on the model. The purpose of the flight was primarily to evaluate the aircraft, but we did some steep turns and touch-and-goes to add to my repertoire.

Walking up to the aircraft, the first impression is that it is bigger than the 150 I flew for my first lesson. The second thing you notice is that the thing only has one door! Sylvia had done the pre-flight beforehand since we were short on time, but the low wings would obviously make it easy to check and add fuel compared to a 172. Large cowl covers also make pre-flight inspection of the engine compartment easy.

To enter the aircraft you step up on the passenger side (right) wing and in through the single door, pilot first. It’s quite a bit roomier than the 150, but comparable to the 172 which I’ll touch on later. The method of entry and low to the ground sight picture make it feel a bit like a mid-size coupe.

Every cockpit is a little bit different, but the big things were the fuel selector/fuel pump, and the method the flaps were deployed. Because it is a low wing design, the fuel cannot be gravity fed to the engine. There is an electric boost pump that is used for startup and critical phases of flight. Relatedly, the wing tanks were separately sourced. There was no “both” setting on the fuel selector. The flaps in this Cherokee were actuated with a manual Johnson bar control. Having tried both electric, and manual flaps now, I am actually fonder of the Johnson bar. You can completely raise flaps in one smooth motion during go-arounds, and it seems, in my opinion, simpler and less likely to fail.

Another minor difference was that the throttle, mixture, and carb heat were all levers rather than push-pull knobs. I liked the aesthetics of the lever controls, but having used both I think I prefer the push-pull style better because you can use a finger on the panel as a reference when making fine adjustments. As a general note about panel layout in small planes, I am disappointed by the number of widgets that are blocked from view by the yoke. I know the space is limited, but you really have to stretch to be able to see some of them.

Starting up the engine immediately felt more powerful than the 150, no surprise there. The nose-wheel had good authority during taxi and I had to do little differential braking. The improved visibility was already apparent during taxi. It’s nice being able to keep an eye on the sky for situational awareness. My only complaint during run-up is that there is no way to see the tail besides the very tips of the stabilator. You just have to trust that the rudder is working correctly.

Aurora is a bit of a crazy airport. After waiting for a gap in traffic we rolled out to runway 35 and put in full throttle. It tracked down the runway with little effort on my part. Rotation speed is 60-65. Pulling back for rotation on the other hand took a surprising bit of effort. Climb out speed is 85. At 85 we saw 900 feet per minute of climb. Not too shabby.

After climb-out we turned to the South and did some basic climbs, turns and descents. The visibility in flight is the best part about the low-wing design. You can’t see the landscape as much for sight-seeing, but as a pilot I’d rather see the NORDO headed right at me. Plus, the low wings give a sense of being held up by something substantial, which passengers might like. We moved on to slow flight, a stall demo and some steep turns. The Cherokee in trim is almost completely hands off. To prove this Sylvia had me trim it out in a 45 degree turn and let go of the yoke. It held the bank and altitude solidly on its own for a good few seconds. I gave in before the plane did. Awesome! Rudder inputs are almost non-existent after takeoff. I would have to be careful about this. It could make you a really lazy pilot. Slow flight is comfortable. Stalling it is incredibly difficult. Even at full up trim you have to basically use two hands on the yoke to get it to properly stall.

Having covered all the basic maneuvers we headed back to KUAO for some touch-and-goes. It is going to take me awhile to get used to the approach angle in an airplane. The 3 degree normal approach in an airplane seems incredibly shallow compared to the 15 degree normal approach I’m used to in the R22. Touch-and-go procedure is straight-forward and logical: Raise flaps to reduce drag, carb heat off for max power, and advance throttle to full.

That was about it. We did a couple more touch-and-goes and taxied back to Willamette. Talking with Sylvia afterword, she is a big fan of tailwheel aircraft like the Citabria and Decathlon. Her second favorite are the 172s, with the Cherokee taking third. I talked her into letting me sit in one of the 172s just to get a feel of the ergo and sight picture before meeting with the aircraft broker on Friday.

My impression of the 172 is that it feels like an extended cab Ford Ranger or similar. You step up into the cockpit. Things are tight, but not necessarily cramped. There is a sense of carrying capacity. The panel and sight picture are pretty much identical to the 150.

I learned a couple additional things from talking with her and independent research since then. The high-wing aircraft are much cooler in sunny weather because they have built in shade. The 172 also has fully opening side windows, not just a vent. Fuel related accidents occur almost twice as often in low-wing aircraft which require a pump, and source management. The nose wheel of the Cherokee is of a much different design than the Cessnas. It is tied directly to the rudder pedals which gives it greater authority while taxiing, but can cause problems while landing if you don’t center it before lowering the nose. Cessna on the other hand always points straight until weight is applied to the Oleo strut, so landings issues are mitigated at the expense of limited steering range during taxi (requiring more differential braking).

What a day.

ASEL – Lesson 1

2/22/15

1.5h

Met up with Ron Larson at Stark’s Twin Oaks (7S3) and took Cessna 150 N19333 up. Weather was clear skies. The wind was gusty at the surface, but not bad above 2000 feet. We went over basic maneuvers: straight and level flight, turns, climbs, descents, and combinations of the preceding. Ron was impressed with my procedural approach to flying, and that I talked through what I was doing. Shout out to my helicopter CFI Tyler Fees who beat those habits into me. I got a half hour “under the hood,” a first since we don’t have attitude instruments in the helicopter.

One of the interesting things I noticed is that the magnetic compass lead-lag is much more pronounced in an airplane. I had never noticed more than a few degrees of discrepancy rolling out of a turn in the R22, but in the C150 I counted an almost 100 degree lag that took more than 5 seconds to correct itself. Perhaps a result of the much steeper bank angles the fuselage experiences during a normal turn? I can see why UNOS is important now. The gyro heading indicator was much more on course.

The carburetor heat seemed much easier to manage in a fixed-pitch plane because the reduction in RPM is an obvious reminder that you are at a lower power setting, whereas in the helicopter your engine RPMs remain constant even as the throttle is closed automatically when lowering pitch.

After the basic maneuvers we ended with a bit of slow flight, and demonstrated some stalls. Getting into slow flight is an incremental business. Deploying the flaps really puts the brakes on so you want to do them ten degrees at a time and stabilize the pitch and speed before continuing. The stalls were interesting because it is actually quite difficult to get into a stall in straight and level flight. The stall buffet is pretty obvious, and recovery is an automatic lowering of the nose, and not so automatic addition of power.

Return to the airport was relaxing after all of the maneuver practice. Visibility in the plane is quite a bit less than the heli. I actually lost the airport turning upwind to crosswind and inadvertently flew right over the numbers.

Next lesson is going to be flown in a 172 for comparison. The 152 is quite capable, but it is “cozy” if I am being polite.

QW – A Music Of Light And Heat

January 21, 2008

Arthur Mengel awoke to water dripping repeatedly on his forehead, no, a moist hand, he realized as he quickly came to his senses, or at least those that worked. The planet he was stationed on lacked the normal stimuli that most are accustomed to. He stretched in the pitch black of what he knew as home. A muffled skittering told him that his companion was satisfied he was awake and leaving him to ready himself. The middle-aged anthropologist’s cubby in the network of caves again returned to absolute silence.

At first the darkness and utter quiet had unnerved him, as it would anybody. Society had conditioned him to chaos. It was only his sheer will to complete his job that kept him from going insane in those first few years. Now the darkness was an old friend. He stood and oriented himself towards where he knew the door was, an ingrained map, just as with most of the rest of the corridors that housed his community. Slowly, he began walking.

He had been awakened for the morning ritual, or at least what he considered the morning ritual. There was no indication of time. He marched towards the single exit from the underground city. For some thousandth time he traveled to the amphitheatre. (2668 quipped a voice. He had stopped taking notes after first his datapad died, and later his flashlight, instead committing all his information to memory.)

The stars in the clear sky above cast more than enough light for him to navigate by with his sensitized eyes. He crested the hill to the sloped dish which seemed the center-point of his alien culture, the last of the stragglers. Glancing about for a recognizable face Arthur quickly sat down next to a younger Salamander that he’d nicknamed Kenapocomoco (snakefish), or Ken for short. The Salamander slowly blinked at him in recognition with exaggerated eyes then turned its gaze back to the center of the crowd.

The ceremony that had perplexed Arthur Mengel for the last seven years was about to begin again. The race of salamander like aliens he’d been sent to study had no language that he had discovered, and yet somehow formed a coherent society with a complex social structure. His eyes wandered back to the grotto that was the center of their community, his community. Slowly, the five who he had decided were the leaders ambled towards the opaque orb that was the cause of it all. The first one rose up and placed its front hands on the orb. Each of the others followed suit. Their glistening bodies went rigid, just before a light of growing intensity began to emanate from their shared heart. A short while later, a mellow wave of warmth washes over Arthur.

He knew there had to be some importance to this ritual. He felt understanding it was the one thing holding him back from truly knowing their society. Another wave of warmth, the light oscillating in mute greys and greens and blues, there had to be something, something obvious, something missing.

Another wave of warmth washed over him, but this one not emanating from the orb, but from within himself. The understanding washed over him. He began crying at the realization. Music. It was music. Ancient tales and strange emotions engulfed him. Music truly was the universal language. He lifted his head to the stars, and wondered if any other would ever experience their symphony.

QW – One Last Shadow

I’ve been told there is a concept in the Navy called “belt buddies.” Aircraft carriers are dangerous, very busy places. When new sailors are learning the ropes on an aircraft carrier they are assigned to physically hold on to the belt of a senior sailor so they cross the deck at the right time and in the right direction. Last Shadow draws some inspiration from this.

August 20, 2009

Prompted by: Dami

They say the expected lifespan of an atmo-jumper is just thirteen minutes from jettison. Five of that is spent in-flight, and the next fifteen minutes before extraction are the slowest hell of your life. The truth is, most casualties are the result of novice pilots having zigged when they should have zagged. They rarely make it past their first jump on their own.

A sane person might ask why anyone would voluntarily dive headfirst into almost certain suicide. Most rookies ask themselves the same question in the moments leading up to launch. Once you have made it through your first battle though, and the nerves have worn off, and you’ve had a chance to sleep, and eat, and generally distance yourself from the chaos, you start to notice it. The box has been opened. By subtle degrees it pushes its way from your subconscious. One moment you will be bull-shitting with other personnel in the mess, and then just for an instant you will have a glimpse of clarity, or more a memory of clarity. You barely catch it out of the corner of your eye, like looking through a filthy, cracked window. You have no doubt that it is there, but you can’t quite bring things into focus.

Then it is forgotten. You continue about your daily routine as if nothing ever happened. It is still there of course, biding its time, chipping away at the cracks in your mind, but for the time being it is easy not to think about it.

Slowly. Slowly it worms its way back to the surface. Maybe only once now, but then again. Soon it is growing in strength. It invades your thoughts more often. Over time it becomes a constant, nagging desire, driving you mad from the inside. If only. If only. Just when you think you can’t possibly bear this cross any longer, that’s when you get the call.

“Approaching orbit. All personnel conduct final preparations, drop scheduled at 0800 tomorrow morning universal standard time, 2570 local. Evening prayer service will be held for those wishing…” The monotone voice of a female officer broadcasts throughout the ship. Finally an end to the mental agony!

Readying your suit, and gear the nerves start up again. All the want of the previous weeks makes way for basic survival instinct. After all, what sane person would willingly put themselves in mortal danger. Lining up for the drop tubes, the adrenaline is racing. Your muscles are shaking. It’s not unheard of for the best of pilots to fall flat over, passed out in fear. It takes every ounce of willpower to step into the tube when it is your turn, but all you have left to do is pray to whatever gods you believe in. And then, nothing.

The horizon of some alien planet curves out in front of you for thousands of miles just before your suit’s thrusters kick in, hurtling you towards the planet’s surface. The stark beauty, and the knowledge that there is no turning back even if you wanted to, and the pure contrast making you realize just how small and insignificant you really are.

Time bends around you. Your super-sonic drop to terra firma could take hours or days. The HUD of your suit flashes irrelevant data, your only tie to reality. When you finally reach the ground everything around you is frozen in the glare of the drop flares that are supposed to confuse enemy tracking systems.

What comes next is perfection more elegant than any civilian can dream of. For fifteen minutes, you are more than human. You are become death. You are life. You are an ancient Greek god of war, abroad a thunderous chariot. You are love, and you do love. You love all the souls being released at your hand. It is beautiful and vulnerable and pure, a perfect climax in your lovers embrace.

Then it is over. The drop ships come in easy through the devastated defenses. You climb aboard, spent. Sometimes you cry. Sometimes you bask in the afterglow. The female pilots joke that the men fall asleep after a battle. No matter what, it has been sated for now. You can return to a normal routine for another few days.

“Final approach. We will be over the drop sight in t-minus 3 minutes. Prepare for launch.”

I can never tell whether a new pilot will survive a jump. But stick close to me, I mean in my shadow, and you might stay alive long enough to receive your own blessing, or your own curse.

QW – Sunshine

The bleak ice world of New Tibet is fun to visit as an author, but hard on its animal people inhabitants. I don’t usually write fan fiction, but the nature of this shared universe inspired me to torture some characters.

June 24, 2009

Prompted by: Saelio

Just a little farther.

The hare took another agonizing step. His feet were past numb. The tattered pads left streaks of red in his wake, sharply contrasting the perpetual white of the New Tibet landscape. He shivered again. Or perhaps he had never stopped. The frigid, bleak atmosphere was friendly to no one. Inch by inch, it ate away at you soul, assuming the Vishons or Shivers didn’t get to you first. The thick cloud cover casting a gray mantle over the entire planet. Night was nearly indistinguishable from day. New Tibet’s dual moons lit up the clouds the same as the sun, although perhaps with an even more depressing shade. It was enough to drive anyone born off-planet to madness. Even for the natives, it was only a matter of time before their spirit left, their body slow to catch up. It was enough to get logical people to do stupid things in the impossible hope of escape.

This is where our hare comes in. Just like so many others, he was lured by thoughts of fortune and adventure. He landed with the notion of catching his slice of the pie, and flying out in his own private space-liner financed by rare minerals. With all the others, he was disappointed to find there was no fortune to be found for honest work. No way home, no special skills, he went where the work was. The mines were hiring. If the surface was dreary, than the mining tunnels were the outer reaches of hell. The average temperature in the tunnels was much warmer than surface. This, may have seemed a blessing, but the air hovered just above freezing. This was enough to keep liquid the never ending “drip, drip, drip” of water. The glacial melt eventually seeped through even the thickest fur. It combined with the dust in the air to form a muddy pelt, and a deep cough that never seemed to go away. Long hours of bitter labor left little time to rest, and no time for play. Such was the life of a miner.

It started small. A Shiver pusher confronted him on an abandoned street corner. “Hey, you look like you could use something to warm you up.” Our hare warily noted the wild look in the foxes eyes. A gust of cold wind pushed him forward half a step, cutting through his jacket, into his fur and brushed bare skin. The fox eagerly reached into the pocket of his large overcoat and pulled out a foil wrapped pill, proudly displaying his wares. Not wanting a confrontation he quickly slipped the fox several creds and hurried towards his home. The pill remained clutched in the hare’s paw. It’s foil wrapping seemed almost electric with danger, deep inside his coat pocket.

The fox was an oddity. The Shivers consisted almost entirely of wolves. There was little chance he would advance past his current position, selling synthetic super-drugs. Still, the crazed fox likely made twice as much as a miner’s wage. Any sense of honor had dissolved along with uncounted miles of stone at the drill-tip. The hare’s reasons for avoiding the Shiver’s was far more primal than that. The Shivers were a dangerous bunch. They perhaps weren’t as bad as the Vishons, barbaric polar bear brutes by comparison, but a thousand generations of evolution gave our hare an innate caution among creatures with such pointy teeth.

Inside his cookie-cutter studio apartment the hare sat at his table, the only other furnishing a worn out cushioned chair in the adjacent corner. He stared at the pill, now unwrapped. It seemed to glow back at him, a pale green hinting at its hidden power. In a flash he had dropped the pill in his mouth and swallowed. He waited a moment. A letdown embraced the hare as the drugs failed to have the expected effect. He stood, and began his nightly routine when a warm tingle began creeping under his fur. He scratched at it cursing the mines and the dust and the mud, but when he realized the feeling was spreading he knew it must be the pill. The feeling grew to envelope his whole body. It was a warmth he hadn’t felt since arriving on this horrid planet. Waves of euphoria hit him one after another, each bigger than the last. It was all he could do to stumble to his cot. It…feels like sunshine.

The next morning, our hare woke up with a dry mouth, but still the drug lingered. He glanced at the clock on his stove and stood up with a start. Late for work! In a panicked rush he readied and sprinted to the mine site. An angry foreman awaited him when he grabbed his time card and turned to punch in. He acted sorry and agreed with the over-weight badger when he was called a cadre of despicable things. None of it mattered, all the hare could think about was the amazing feelings from the previous night, and the fox on the street corner. He was warned not to be late again, and rushed off to the tunnel entrance.

After work he went straight to the fox dealer. “Ah, back again. I trust you enjoyed my services?” The hare just handed him more creds and groped for the foil wrapped ambrosia. He didn’t even bother to get into his house before popping his next high. It was every bit as good as the first one, if not better. Traces of his first experience still circulated through his body. In an instant he had gone from out of luck bunny to king of his own world. The work in the mines no longer mattered. He knew he would have happiness to look forward too upon his return. It became a matter of course to stop by and patronize the pusher after work each day. At first he was cautious, he never bought beyond his means. He would go two, three, four days without eating just to save up enough for one high, but he always payed cash.

Then it happened. The New Tibet Mining Corporation technically held a no drug policy. It was rarely enforced. Half of the companies security personal were on the payroll of one or other of the cities major gangs. The only time it was really held to was when some corporate bigwig came in from off planet. It was his lucky day. Mandatory drug screenings. Our hare blanched in fear, knowing there was no way to escape the inevitable result. He got the paper in a surprisingly short amount of time. A grey slip (of course) that read “20 day suspension of labor activities, and immediate dispatch from The New Tibet Mining Corp. property.” Twenty days…how am I supposed to live without uppers for twenty days? How am I supposed to live without food for twenty days. Dazed from the stress of the mornings events he found himself mindlessly walking the same route he always took to and form work. Seeing him coming, the pusher stepped out to intercept him. “You’re off work early. Did you make a big discovery and they sent you home? A bonus perhaps? I’m sure I have just what you’re looking for.”

The hare tried hard to glare at the fox, but couldn’t find the hate in his emotionally empty mind. “No, it’s not quite like that. I’m under temporary suspension because of your pills. I don’t exactly have the money right now…”

The fox grinned a sly grin and consoled the hair. “That’s okay my friend, you’ve been such a good customer, I’d be happy to let some go to you on credit. You can pay me back in better times. With interest of course.”

Again, the hare tried to feel something. What could it hurt. It’s not as if I have any more to loose.

Some days later, growing desperate for basic necessities, he decided to do something he promised he would never do. He tracked down a Shiver controller and begged a loan. He quickly spent it on dry food, heat creds, and water before he had a chance to grow weak and go back for more Warmth.

He made it to day nineteen. The withdrawal, and his returning inhibitions fought each other in a never-ending battle. He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t keep down the meager nutrients he had left. His body was killing itself. It was in the dead of night that he left. He took only his coat with him. At first he thought he was walking to see the fox again, but his feet kept plodding right on by his usual haunt. He kept walking to the outskirts of the city, then beyond. The wide ice plains seemed endless under the moon’s glow. Only a faint silhouette gave him any target. Mt. Arkon loomed in the distance. He kept on through the night. At times he sprinted running from his demons in the city. Never did he stop. To the base of Mt. Arkon he ran, and still he didn’t stop. Upwards! Upwards! The morning was fast approaching. He had to get to the peak hidden above the clouds. No, he had to get above the clouds. Onwards! His mind knew his body was dying. There was no returning to the city. He poured every last ounce of energy into one last step. Then somehow found the energy for one more, and one more. “Upwards…I must…get above the clouds.” His senses faded as life drained from his body, and still he kept climbing, blind and deaf. Finally he could give no more. His torn body collapsed on the icy rocks, never to move again. The last thing he felt before his soul was released from the ice prison was sunshine on his face, guiding him home.

QW – Luminous Clouds

November 25, 2007

“Are we there yet?”

“Almost, it’s just a bit farther.”

The two teens had just broken out of the tree line. They’d left their beat up old car at the trailhead just over an hour before. At first the trail had been easy. It followed one of countless creeks up into the mountains. But it quickly turned steep as they followed its path.

“Water break,” he panted, un-shouldering his cheap nylon backpack and handing a bottle to his companion.

“Where are you taking me?” She asked for the twentieth time.

He smiled at her persistence. “I already told you, it’s a surprise. It’ll be worth it, I promise.”

He’d promised her something special for her birthday. He couldn’t afford anything big even if she’d wanted it, but he hoped above hope that she would like this. “Money and things aren’t important. People always expect that their next big screen TV or new car will make them happy. Maybe diamonds will buy them a happy relationship. But in the end it’s not things that matter. It’s the love and respect of your family and friends. That’s what makes you rich.” She could be exasperatingly wise sometimes, knowledgeable beyond her years.

They’d got a late start up the trail, and it was already beginning to get dark. A chill breeze whispered through the trees below them. They both shivered a bit. “We have to hurry.” He glanced at his watch, picking up his own pace a little as he spoke. “It’s almost time. It’s just past the next switchback, not much farther.” The looming rock face quickly came upon them.

“Follow me, I know the way up.” He assured her, already scrambling up the inclined surface. She was not long to follow. He already stood waiting for her when she got to the top. “Oh wow…it’s beautiful.” She said in genuine awe. Before them seemed to lay the whole world. An ocean of green rolled out before them. Dozens of high-mountain lakes sparkled in the sun’s dieing light. An incomparable lightshow played out before them as the day gave its final agonized throes. He opened his jacket and held her close as she shivered. Together they sat, legs dangling, sitting on the edge of the universe. “I love you big brother.” “I love you too Sis.”

Dedicated to my sister, Erin.

Dog Mountain, June 2013

QW – He Gave Everything He Had Just To Save What He Thought Was Left Of All He Knew

June 6, 2008

“He gave everything he had just to save what he thought was left of all he knew… Yet, in the end only ash was in his hands.”

Christian, that was what they’d named him when they’d taken him from his home at twelve summers age, Christian White. A perverted attempt at making him into a reject copy of their own imbalanced society. Invaders from a far off land, what did they know about life in this place? They tried at taming this wilderness to make it like their own, taming its people, and ended up destroying both.

He had fought what they were doing to him, tried to run away, but he was caught every time. Finally, he gave in, the animal spirit biding it’s time for a chance at escape, the bars gnawing at self. There was nothing to be done.

Seeing that they had been successful, they released him, civilized. Yet, none would take him. He tried their way, doing as they had conditioned him to. Every step he was cut down by prejudice and fear. His own would not accept him. He was no longer one of them, tainted. Not one, and not the other, a lost generation, a stolen generation.

So it was that he ended up where it all began. An abandoned patch of barren earth he had once called home. He crouched at the edge of the fire pit, the only sign the place had once been a human habitation. Ashes stained his hands, and his old life blew away over the red dirt wasteland.

A lone dingo skirted the edge of the camp, drawn by the lingering scent of meat, and urine and sweat, of life. I knowing glance passed between two beasts: The hardship of life, the pain of hunger, the unfairness of it all. It was a different hunger that Christian felt. He yearned for belonging, for the balance that had once been, for right. The dingo had something he would give anything for.

Broken, he lay down next to the last remnants of his origins. The afternoon winds pelted his bare chest as the sun scorched the land from above. He wished the dingo would come finish him off and eat him, at least then some part of him would be right. As he lapsed into midday darkness, a metallic clang wakened his inner animal. Raising her head she stared at the source of the strange noise. One of the bars was gone. The elements of the wilderness had rusted through the cage. Cautiously, she stuck her head out of the new door, jaded by years of mistreatment. Then, free. Two dingoes trotted over the rich blood of the Australian outback.