Getting away from the madness of city life was exactly what
Ally Bennett needed when she went on this hiking trip. Not a single soul dared to
venture up these mountains and that was just the way Miss Bennett liked it. She
was dressed for the boiling hot weather with her hiking boots, tan shorts, and
tight camouflage T-shirt. Sweat poured off her brow, arms, and legs like a fire
hydrant, but she didn’t give two shits and a flying fuck in a rolling donut.
Her long brunette hair felt sticky, but that was yet another small price for
the sake of introverted physical fitness. She lived for the beauty of Mother
Nature no matter what the weather was like.
Just when she thought she was alone at the top of the
mountain, she saw something that made her drop her hiking staff to the rocky
ground. “What the hell?” she silently said to herself as she noticed a man
dressed in green and blue wizard robes chanting in tongues while holding out
his hands in a Jesus Christ pose. Ally’s first thought was to run back down the
mountain screaming like hell. But this mysterious being was just like a car
crash: she couldn’t look away no matter how much she wanted to.
The mystical chant ended when the blue haired being turned
his head and gave Ally a look of venomous scorn. “You have no business up here,
woman. Turn around and leave if you value your life!”
“First of all, dumb shit,” said Ally with her hands on her
hips. “This is a national fucking park. Everybody’s welcome here no matter how
weird they look in those god awful clothes of yours. Second of all, my name is
not woman. It’s Ally. Ally Bennett.”
“Bryan Valencia,” said the wizard. “Nice to meet you, Miss
Bennett. Now that the sappy introductions are over, I suggest you get going
before shit starts going down!”
“Okay, Mr. Wizard Guy, that sounded a little bit like a
threat, so I’m just going to pull out my cell phone and dial 9-1-1…what the
hell are you doing?!” Ally never got the chance to press the buttons on her
smart phone as she was stunned by Bryan ’s
geomantic powers. With wide-eyed horror, she watched him raise his palm in the
air and levitate a large rock off the ground. The floating rock was hurled into
Ally’s cell phone, shattering the gizmo into tiny fragments while giving Ally a
red mark on her hand and a reason to scream “Ow! Jesus!”
As the hiker shook out the pain in her palm, Bryan smiled at her and
said, “Do I have your attention now? Would you like another demonstration of
how badly I can crush you? That rock trick was just child’s play compared to
the damage I’m capable of.”
Clutching her hand to sooth the pain, Ally asked, “Who the
hell are you, anyways? I know you said your name was Bryan and all that, but what the fuck, man?
You’re lifting rocks off the ground, you’re dressed like you’re going to a nerd
convention, you’ve got blue fucking hair, I don’t know what to believe
anymore!”
“All of those things you so ignorantly described are the
traits of a geomancer,” said Bryan .
“Geo what?”
“Geomancer. I control the elements of the earth. If I want
an earthquake, I’ll give you one. If I want a mudslide, you’ve got it. But then
I figured, why stop there? Earthquakes and mudslides are tinker toys. To really
get in touch with Mother Nature, I have to be right here at the top of this
mountain. A mountain, which by the way, was at one point an active volcano. You
ever wonder why nobody comes up here? Well, let’s just say they’re not fast
enough to run away from the lava, like the idiot brain surgeon politician once
said. I swear to god, the ignorance of your people is mind-boggling,” ranted Bryan .
“So this is it, huh?” said Ally in a stern voice. “You’re
going to blow up this damn volcano just to show everyone who’s boss. You’re
such a noble guy.”
With his fists at his side, Bryan roared, “What do you know about nobility?!”
The sudden crescendo caused Ally to bounce backward in fear. “Why do you think
people go on hiking trips to begin with? To get away from it all. Well, I’m not
getting away from anything. I’m confronting the sins of this world dead on.
Don’t you ever get sick of the world sometimes? All the violence, all the rape,
all the bigotry, all the zeal. The poor are disenfranchised while those in
charge get a slap on the wrist. Women are treated as sex objects while men
laugh at their misery. Dropping bombs has become the new diplomacy. Well, if
it’s bombs you want, I’ll drop the biggest one mankind has ever seen! My
decades of geomantic studies have come down to this! And there’s nothing you
can do about it!”
“Actually, there is something I can do about it,” said Ally
with her arms folded and a death stare on her face.
“And what would that be?” asked Bryan mockingly. “I already shattered your
cell phone, so the cops aren’t even close to coming. As far as I know, you
don’t have geomantic powers of your own, so striking you down with a thousand
stones would be the easiest part of my day. So what other options do you have?
What could you possibly do that will stop me from exacting revenge on this
world?”
“Call you out on your bullshit, that’s what,” said Ally. Bryan ’s facial features
and fierce stance softened at the hiker’s stubbornness. “Being against all of
those violent things that you’ve listed is noble in its own right. You’d be
crazy not to be. It’s like being in favor of kittens and rainbows. Up with puppies!
But what good is being against the sins of the world if you’re committing one
right now? You’re not a hero to anybody. You’re a hypocrite! Your volcanic
blast will take out all of those rich assholes and male chauvinists you hate so
much, but it’ll also take out those sexualized women and innocent children that
you claim to have a soft spot for. By blowing this volcano, you’ll be no
different from the politicians who drop bombs on helpless civilians overseas.
Is that the mark you want to leave on this world? Do you want to be a
hypocrite?!”
Something inside Ally Bennett snapped. She grabbed her
walking cane and held it like a samurai warrior ready to strike. Her muscles
twitched. Her eyes were wild with fiery anger. Her teeth were clenched hard
enough to chew through steel. Every word she spoke was full of vitriol and
hatred. “If you’re not going to listen to reason, then I’m going to make you!
You’re not going to do shit to this world! If I’m going down, I’m going down
fighting! This world is worth saving and you’re not going to do shit about it!”
The wizard rained down a storm of rocks upon Ally, hoping to
crush her bones into the same fineness as the dirt below. Even with sharp
stones piercing her skin, the undeterred hiker swung her cane like a baseball
bat and knocked a few of them into Bryan ’s
throat. While Ally was buried and bloodied underneath a pile of rocks, Bryan
Valencia clutched his windpipe while gasping for air. He danced around in pain
trying to get his oxygen back, but made a critical mistake when he fell off the
ledge of the mountain and rolled down the hill.
The geomancer bumped into many large stones, trees, and
sharp grass blades during his barrel roll down the side of the mountain. His
spine crunched in two, his arms and legs were shattered beyond repair, and his
head exploded with his brains scattered across the landscape. By the time he
reached the bottom, he was already a necromantic supper for a family of bears,
who feasted on his carcass like the wild animals they were. Nothing was left of
Bryan Valencia except for bones and tiny chunks of meat and shit.
Back at the top of the mountain, Ally Bennett stayed buried
beneath the rocks like it was going to be her grave. She hadn’t moved for the
longest time and her bloody limbs squeezed fresh juice to trickle down the
mountain. After what seemed like ages, her fingers twitched and her
dirt-covered eyes barely opened.
At that moment she knew she couldn’t run away from the
world’s problems like she intended to do in this hike. She was a hero that day
for what she did to Bryan Valencia. Her work was far from over. If she was
going to join the resistance against oppressive values, she couldn’t do it
through volcanoes, earthquakes, or any other form of terrorism. It’s like a
famous first lady once said: “When they go low, you go high.” It didn’t get any
higher than the top of a volcanic mountain. It didn’t get any lower than being
a human buffet table for a family of brown bears.
