Choose your own adventure - excerpt 3

Because the last post failed, and I feel bad for not puttin up something of more value than what I did, I now provide the third installment of the Choose Your Own Adventure book. If you'd like to make a choice in which installment you'd like to see next, leave a comment, else I'll just keep following the A storyline.

A3: Walk along to the gas station

The overcast sky provided some shelter from the summer sun today, but the threat of rain weakened the feeling of relief that the cooler temperature was providing. As they walked along the gravel shoulder to the road, Andrea and Orrin were relatively silent. While Orrin had been snippy and short-tempered with Andrea earlier, he sensed that she might be feeling some shame for being so careless, and didn’t want to be too hard on her.

Looking at her, he noticed that she was walking with her eyes on the ground, and appeared to be sulking to herself. He reached over and took her hand. She seemed to like that. They walked a few more yards in silence, making use of the time they had before them to enjoy their company rather than to skulk over their current situation.

It was odd that they hadn’t seen any vehicles all this time they’d been walking. Andrea was the first to break the silence.

“It sure is a quiet afternoon, isn’t it.”

“Yeah,” answered Orrin. “I guess nobody was planning on reviewing the bridge plans at the open house this afternoon,” he laughed. “I knew nobody would show up to that thing. What a waste of time.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Andrea replied. After a brief moment, she turned to face him and said, “You were right, Orrin. I shouldn’t have kept going. I should have listened to you. I messed up and now we’re stuck out here and I mess everything up and ..”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Orrin interrupted, trying to soothe her. “It was just a mistake. These things happen to a lot of people. Don’t beat yourself up about it. And … to be honest, I was too hard on you. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have reacted like that.” In an effort to lighten the mood, he joked, “I’ll bet it never happens again, though,
eh?”

“No, you’re right. I’ll be ready next time,” she giggled.

“That’s what mistakes are all about,” he said cheerfully.

They both smiled at one another. This wasn’t turning out to be so bad after all. Perhaps they hadn’t found an adventure this afternoon, but at least they managed to get some quality time in together. Orrin stopped walking and pulled Andrea in close
to him, and he hugged her long and hard. She hugged him back, and when they finally parted, it was only enough so that they could share a moment, and then a
kiss.

As their lips met, a small sprinkle of rain landed across their shoulders, and dampened their foreheads. It didn’t distract them, until a few moments later, when the drizzle began dumping water and hail down on them.

Amid cusses, Orrin scanned the surrounding area for some shelter from the torrents of rain that were crashing down on them. The sound of the rain slapping against the asphalt beneath their feet was almost deafening. Grabbing Andrea’s hand, he pulled her towards a small farmhouse about 200 metres in. There was a long gravel driveway and a small gate, but they managed to cover the distance in under a minute. They were laughing a little, and their shirts were soaked, clinging to their skin.

They reached the small farmhouse and got in underneath the balcony, which provided shelter from the hail but not from the rain, which was splashing back up at them from the ground. The icy pellets were collecting all over the farmer’s green lawn.

“Jesus! Where did this come from,” panted Orrin.

The rain was so loud that Andrea could barely hear him. She responded by saying something, but Orrin couldn’t understand her for the sound of the rain. When he went to ask her to repeat herself, he was drowned out by the loudest bang of
thunder he’d ever heard.

The crash of the thunder shook their bodies, and it rolled like a mountainous entity across the fields and into the distance.

“Holy shit!” laughed Andrea. “That must have been close! I’ve never heard the thunder so loud in my life. It was, like, scary.”

Orrin put his soaking arms around her shoulders and pulled her tight. The breeze was cold and biting, but she was warm and soft, and so he cuddled for a moment longer.

“We’ll have to wait for this storm to pass,” he said. “This is way too much for us to walk through. Man, I didn’t think this was going to happen.”

"Ooohhhh,” whined Andrea. “I just thought of something. I don’t think I rolled the windows all the way up on the car.” She pouted a little longer, but wasn’t too distraught about it. No doubt, her interior would be drenched if the windows were indeed down.

“We’ll have to see if any of the hail collected on the floor of the car when we get back, eh?” teased Orrin. “Don’t worry, everything will be fine. This is just a little setback. We’ll be okay.”

He turned around and knocked on the door of the farmhouse. Perhaps someone was home and they could get some shelter, or perhaps even some gas while they were here. There was no answer at the door, so Orrin knocked again. When no one came to the door once more, he shrugged and put his arm back around Andrea.

“I guess we’re stuck out here till the storm passes.” Just as he finished his sentence the rain began to thin, and the clouds dispersed somewhat shining some light down on them. While there wasn’t any rainbow yet, they didn’t have to hide around the farmhouse anymore. “Well how do you like that?” Orrin said with satisfaction.

As the clouds cleared a beam of light illuminated a small congested area by the silos, and right in the centre of them was a large gas tank. “Would you look at that?” smiled Orrin.

“What is it?” asked Andrea.

“It’s just a gas tank. Farmers have them on their properties to gas up their tractors. I think it’s because the tractors would run out of gas if they had to drive back from the station. Or something like that. Anyhow, there should be enough in there to spare for us. We’d just have to get a small canister and pump it out.”

The two of them strolled over to the pumps and found a rusty old can laying nearby. Still dripping with water and kicking hail pellets around with their feet, Orrin gave it a shake to see what was in it. The can was empty, but he could just fill it up and there wouldn’t be any problems at all. They weren’t even all that far from their car. Then it was a simple jaunt back over to the gas station, and their adventure would be done.

“Are you just going to take their gas?” asked Andrea in a scolding manner.

“It’s not like that. We need this. We can come back and repay them later, once we’re okay. I promise, we won’t just steal it. This farmer is doing us a big favour.”

As Orrin pumped some gas into the can, he scanned around, making sure that there wasn’t a dog hunting them down. Oddly enough, the farm was quite quiet now. With the storm gone, all that could be heard were the energetic and busy noises of birds swooping down and around the puddles and mud looking for a bath and something to eat.

A faint noise sounding like a girl’s voice could be heard briefly. It startled Andrea who immediately clung to Orrin’s arm and she asked if he’d heard the call. Orrin hadn’t. He heard nothing other than the charming birds. But he perked his ears and concentrated on the ambient noises around him. He was concentrating so much that he didn’t realize that the canister was full, and began to overflow. The gasoline spilled into a puddle and a rainbow-like stain swirled through the puddle as the gas splashed down into it.

Orrin jumped a little, trying not to get the gasoline on himself, although his leg
became freshly damp with the warm spilt gas. The noise rang out again, and this time it caught his attention.

“Yeah, I heard it that time,” he told Andrea. The two of them stood silently, straining to hear the noise again. What could it be? It sounded like a girl, but any other details were hard to discriminate. He strained, listening carefully, squinting and gleaning towards the barn. “We should just get out of here, Andrea,” said Orrin. “We don’t need some lunatic farmer storming after us with a shotgun!” He picked up the gas can and looked Andrea matter-of-factly. “Come on!”

STICK AROUND AND FIND OUT WHO’S THERE – TURN TO PAGE: A4
JUST GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE – TURN TO PAGE: B4.1

Canada figures into mass extinction

People have always joked that Canada is harmless, and that we have barely got an army and that we're not mean enough to cause any trouble. Or we're not strong enough to cause any trouble.

Well, I've found evidence that events that have occurred over Canadian soil has in fact led to one of the greatest extinctions of life known to the planet Earth!

Geological evidence found in Ohio and Indiana in recent weeks is strengthening the case to attribute what happened 12,900 years ago in North America -- when the end of the last Ice Age unexpectedly turned into a phase of extinction for animals and humans to a cataclysmic comet or asteroid explosion over top of Canada.

A comet/asteroid theory advanced by Arizona-based geophysicist Allen West in the past two years says that an object from space exploded just above the earths surface at that time over modern-day Canada, sparking a massive shock wave and heat-generating event that set large parts of the northern hemisphere ablaze, setting the stage for the extinctions.

Now University of Cincinnati Assistant Professor of Anthropology Ken Tankersley, working in conjunction with Allen West and Indiana Geological Society Research Scientist Nelson R. Schaffer, has verified evidence from sites in Ohio and Indiana including, locally, Hamilton and Clermont counties in Ohio and Brown County in Indiana that offers the strongest support yet for the exploding comet/asteroid theory.

Samples of diamonds, gold and silver that have been found in the region have been conclusively sourced through X-ray diffractometry in the lab of UC Professor of Geology Warren Huff back to the diamond fields region of Canada.

The one scientist, Takersley, the article goes on to explain, initially began researching the topic to disprove West's findings. Now he's part of the team advocating for this suggestion. That's how you know you're on to something big!

But not everyone at the Dinosaur Mailing List Database (DMLB) think that all this evidence is conclusive that Canada will destroy your ass.

So what? Ever heard of glacial drift? Samples of rocks found in Germany and Poland have been conclusively sourced back to central Sweden and Finland but nobody has ever suggested that this proves that Scandinavia was recently hit by an exploding comet.

Tommy Tyrberg

Another poster didn't quite think that scientists discovering sediments from Canada in Ohio was particularly convincing either:

Hi All

Best to remain a bit sceptical of this one until we have some more data. All the current evidence has other sources than a single object's fragmentation. A lot of small stuff rains out of the sky from interplanetary dust almost continually. Something a bit more definitive is needed to say this really was a major "impact" - it could well have been a diffuse mass of small Tunguska-scale air-bursts over a large region, so it might well be very difficult to differentiate such a scenario from the steady fall of nano-diamonds, small meteorites and so forth. Need some lake bed cores with very fine-scale temporal resolution.

Adam

Perhaps, to you, this is all boring or uninteresting - Canada being the site of the cause for the extinction of all mammoths is a BIG deal! - so I've included something that you might find more interesting.

Jurassic Fight Club

Man, I wish I had cable, cause I'd be ordering up the History Channel like it was a right bower.

Choose your own adventure - excerpt 2

When in doubt and I can't come up with something to blog about, here's the next best thing. Feel free to comment.

"Look, you're almost out of gas. There's a station a little ways up around the corner. You should just fill up before we get to much farther."

GO AND FILL UP - TURN TO PAGE: B2

KEEP ON DRIVING - TURN TO PAGE: A2

A2: Keep on driving

“Nah, who cares? I’ll just fill up on our way back. We’ve got enough to get there and back,” shrugged Andrea.

“Are you sure about that? Because I’d hate to be stuck out and ..”

“It’s fine! Don’t worry your little head about it, okay Orrin?” Andrea scoffed at the idea of running out gas. “I know my own car. This isn’t going to be a problem. Plus, the needle can go way past the E. One time, we were in my dad’s truck, and he let it go past the E and we were fine.”

“I don’t think the needle is, like, a recommended time to fill up. E means empty. You should really just turn back and put some gas in. We’re still a few kilometres from the weigh station. Wouldn’t you feel a whole lot better about it?”

“It’s no big deal, honey. Just sit still and think about all the frustration you’ll be able to get out once we get to the open house? You’ll be able to rant and rave and beat your chest. You’re going to look handsome, you know.” Orrin crossed his arms and released a big, throaty sigh of disgruntlement.

Andrea was playing the radio, which was set on a Top 40 station, and Orrin grew even more cantankerous. His huffing and sighing didn’t matter to Andrea, she knew he was just being a bitch about the whole thing, plus she thought it was funny.

Orrin eyed a traffic sign, indicating that the limit was 80 km/h. Frustrated, he bothered to glance over at the speedometer just to prove to himself that Andrea was driving like an old lady. Sure enough, she was doing just a little over 70. Not good enough.

“You can safely drive about ten to fifteen over the limit. Cops won’t care. Even if they pull you over you won’t lose any demerit points,” said Orrin.

“Yeah, but I’m just conserving gas – this way we won’t run out. You know, just in case.”

“Do you know what else might help you not run out?” Orrin barked at her. Then he calmed a little and huffed under his breath, “Filling the fucking tank up when you pass a god-damned gas station.”

No sooner had he said it when the dashboard lights flickered briefly, then dimmed. Then the radio went silent and the engine shut off. While it wasn’t visibly noticeable, the power steering on the Sunfire cut out as well, and Andrea began to panic.

“The steering’s gone! I can’t steer!” panicked Andrea.

“You’re just going straight, you don’t need to steer. Just apply the breaks and you’ll be fine. Good, now put the car in neutral and ease it over to the side of the road. Good job. You’re doing fine. There you go.”

After coaching Andrea to a stop, she had settled herself down a little bit. She took the keys out of the ignition, and then put them back in to start the car up again. The ignition wouldn’t turn over. Andrea was in disbelief.

“What happened?” she asked rhetorically.

Orrin rolled his eyes as if to say ‘I told you so.’ Then when Andrea didn’t notice that he’d rolled his eyes, he hastily took off his seatbelt and said pointedly, “I told you so,” just to make sure that she knew he was right.

Orrin got out of the car and asked Andrea to pop the trunk. She did, and asked what he was looking for. He didn’t say anything. And, he didn’t find anything in the trunk either.

“Why don’t you have a gas can back here?”

“What do you mean?”

“What do you think I mean when I ask about having a gas can? Seriously, you don’t have a back up? I mean this is exactly why you should have one in your trunk.” Orrin slammed the trunk closed and strode off down the street to calm himself down. Yelling and slamming things wasn’t going to get anymore gas in the tank, and he knew it. After taking a few deep breaths he came back to the car, where Andrea remained in the driver’s seat, unmoved. She hadn’t even taken off her seatbelt.

Orrin placed his hands on the window ledge and tried to be polite and soothing – while any preparations could have been made to resolve this set back, what was done was done, and they were both going to have to resolve the problem together.

“Okay sweetie. We’re out of gas. There’s no point in us arguing about that anymore, but we should come to a consensus on what you want to do next,” he began. “Basically, you could wait here while I go get some gas, you could come with me to the station, or we could both just wait here for someone else to drive by and help us out, hopefully. What would you like to do?”

Andrea was the one to sigh now, knowing that this was her fault. “Well, how far would we, like, have to walk to get gas?”

“Well, we’ve got to be about 25 clicks away from the gas station back up the road. It’d be about an hour there and back if we were to walk it. We’d have to carry back enough to get the car up and going, too. That might be a bit heavy, but whatever. We’d just have to do it, and then forget about it, right? Plus, ha, you’d have a spare to fill up next time we’re at the station, right?”

“We’d have to walk two hours?”

“Well, or … we could wait here. I mean, it might be a while, but I’d imagine that someone would drive by in the next two hours, right? Perhaps they’d be good enough to drive us back to the station, pick up some gas, and drive us back. They might even have a back-up of their own, and they could just sell us the fuel.”

“How quick do you think someone might do that?”

Orrin was getting frustrated with her questions again. These were things that she could as easily reason for herself without asking him. What was he, the traffic fortune-teller? “Look,” he said hastily, “I don’t know when someone is going to come. And I certainly don’t know, even if someone were to come, if they’d even bother to stop and help us out. Who knows what kind of creep might roll up. I mean, there’s nothing out here but a truck stop.”

“But besides all of that,” continued Orrin, “what do you want to do? We’re either walking or waiting. What’s it going to be Andrea?”

WALKING – TURN TO PAGE: A3
WAITING – TURN TO PAGE: B3.1

Choose your own adventure - excerpt

Zzzzzt click. The transistors in the television shut down and hummed to a silence as the screen turned black. The subject of attention around the room faded blankly into the rest of the furniture about the room.
Orrin returned the television remote to the chesterfield’s arm rest, face down, and he sighed. “Man, there’s nothing left on t.v. anymore, eh?”
Andrea smirked and disagreed.
“Don’t be an asshole, just turn it back on. Just ‘cause the cable’s out doesn’t mean we can’t watch my shows.”
“Yeah, but your shows are drivel. Seriously, I can’t stand any more of that reality shit,” returned Orrin. Facetiously he mocked a deep announcer’s voice. “Stay tuned for another bullshit reality series featuring Greg Kinnear, Craig Killborne, a fat Alicia Silverstone and a rubber duck in a series so lame it makes Stephen Hawking look like an Olympic gymnast.”
“Shut up!” laughed Andrea. “You’re awful.”
Orrin turned and started leafing through the daily paper. “Seriously, we should do something with our day instead of wasting it in front of the t.v. like this. At least the dip in the ratings might encourage the networks to develop some better programming. I can’t handle what’s on these days.”
Andrea wasn’t so quick to reject t.v. “Okay. So, what do you want to do then? What sort of adventure do you think you’re going to get into? At least the shows aren’t as boring as our every day lives, right? I mean, we just go to school, come home, drink a few beers and then wrestle with our homework. Like, we need some drama in our lives to make it interesting. If we don’t have that, then we’re going to go insane.”
“Alright,” interrupted Orrin. “We can go to this open house for the new bridge today,” he said matter-of- factly as he indicated an article in the paper. “Says right here that we can go and voice our opinions on the new road they’re going to be putting in. At least we can make an impact of some tangible kind instead of just sitting around.”
“Ooooh, very exciting. What do you care about the new road? Sounds stupid.”
“Ha, who cares? At least we’re doing something. We should go and just cause shit for everyone there. Protest up and down the place and make a scene.”
Andrea laughed, playing along. “Yeah, we could make the news. They’d quote us about fifty times as the only voice of dissent that showed up, and then they could call the police on us for being such a ruckus.”
“Yeah, and I could kick over a garbage can, or something,” laughed Orrin. “Ahhh, who cares? Those things are all bullshit anyhow. They set those things up to make the public feel like they’re involved in the consultation process, but they’re just going to follow the money. Who’s going to commit political suicide by listening to the public and building something that’s going to fail miserably? Forget I even brought it up.”
Andrea was liking the idea now. “No way! We should go. It’d be neat. I want to see the people who actually do show up and, like, try to make a difference. They make me laugh. The old farmers and the crotchety church ladies and their ugly dresses. Come on! Let’s go.” She got up from her seat and grabbed her car keys. She was really serious.
“I was just being a wind-fucker. I didn’t mean we should really go,” relented Orrin. Andrea snagged his arm and pulled him reluctantly to his feet. Orrin just moaned, “oaaaahhh.”

As Andrea skipped towards her car, rejuvenated with the aspirations of at least a mild adventure in her day, she was bright and playful, unlike the overcast clouds in the sky. She jingled the keys and tried to perk Orrin up a bit. He was dragging his feet, being a miserable asshole as usual. He never liked doing things that weren’t his idea to begin with. The damned thing was, this was his idea, and he was just being a dick about it.
“Come on!” pleaded Andrea.
“Let’s just get this over with,” he groaned. They hopped into Andreas dark Sunfire and started ‘er up. Orrin’s blood pressure climbed up a god-damned tree when she just pulled out of the driveway without looking behind her. She nearly hit the car parked across the road behind her, and would have required the Jaws of Life if there was a truck coming. She didn’t bother to check.
“Jesus Christ! You’ve got to check for traffic,” said Orrin. His heart started pounding up against his ribs and he just glared at Andrea, as she daftly shrugged. “Don’t be such a baby about it. We’re fine!” Then she trew the transmission into park and tried to pull away. Briefly embarrassed, she readjusted the car into drive and pulled away.
“Seriously, I can’t handle your driving,” said an exacerbated Orrin. “He looked out the window, trying not to worry about her checking her mirrors or blind spots. While she drove him nuts with her shortsighted lane changes and absent-minded maneuvering, Andrea hadn’t been in an accident before, and so he just tried to remain calm and let her do her thing. Orrin figured that he’d just distract her with any more lectures while he’s in the passenger seat.
If he could only afford his own car, he wouldn’t have to worry about this. Until then he was the reluctant passenger to her maniacal driving. He swore under his breath as she skimmed by cars parked along the side of the road. He was sure that she was going to knock a rearview mirror off a car one of these days.

Andrea and Orrin had to drive out to the next town over at a small weigh station on the highway. For some reason the municipality thought it was the most central place for everyone in the region to reach, plus there was plenty of parking. Orrin figured that it was simply because it was the most out of the way, regardless of how central.
“Ya know, if they just put this on a common route or something, perhaps more people would show up on their way home or something. Almost anywhere is better than way the hell out here. I mean, there’s nothing for miles. Just dumb farms and that smell of shit.”
“You’re so crass,” said Andrea. “Quit your complaining. This was your idea. At least it’s more interesting than television, right?” she quipped, obviously teasing him. Orrin just sighed loud enough to express dissent. He didn’t even know what he was dissenting against anymore. ‘He’s such a dick sometimes,’ thought Andrea.
“You’re such a baby. Like, why do you have to be so stubborn about everything? All the girls say they don’t have any of these problems with their boyfriends. Why can’t you just want to have some fun sometime…”
“Hey! You’d better turn here,” interrupted Orrin.
“What for?”
“Look, you’re almost out of gas. There’s a station a little ways up around the corner. You should just fill up before we get too much further.”

GO AND FILL UP – TURN TO PAGE: B2
KEEP ON DRIVING – TURN TO PAGE: A2