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A quote: “Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.” ~~ William Jennings Bryan
I’ll start with a story …
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It was a great party. I think.
Steve rented a party house on the west shoreline, all of us kicking in for an after-winter finals celebration to end all celebrations.
I got there about 9. Food, drink, loud chatter, louder music.
Did I mention drink?
I woke up … under a bridge? … shivering in the dark, SO cold I couldn’t even feel fear as a homeless guy crept near.
He pulled off his threadbare coat, offering it to me, “Here, son. No need for you to catch cold, maybe end up like me. I died about an hour ago.”
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Now, it’s your turn.
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. featured image, cropped, Adobe Stock standard license
Andrew says: My little sister G. and I were sitting in the way-back of the station wagon, as always, looking out the back. Her eyes were wide, just like they were a week ago in the woods.
“I don’t think your trick with the bread crumbs is going to work this time,” she said.
Navig8r says: Good one, Andrew!
Navig8r says: A couple of quotes:
“No plan survives first contact with the enemy.” Paraphrase of von Moltke
“Fortunes are made on Wall Street by folks who got out too early.” Author unknown to me
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“Three hours til dawn. We need to push on for two and hole up.”
“I’m so hungry.”
“And in other news, water is wet. We need to find some.”
Seven nights living out of our three day bug-out bags and we still weren’t out of the city. Note to self: cities are a lot bigger than you think when you are on foot.
“Thank goodness it isn’t winter.”
“Thank goodness this is only a practice run.”
We had accepted a double dog dare by a non-prepper cousin, so we couldn’t give up. Formerly Plan B, this is now Plan ZZ.
Cameron says: That’s a damn big city. -:-)
And I liked “Plan ZZ.”
Lewis says: The kites string was so messed up the Untangler couldn’t even undo it. Decades later she found the ball of it on the shelf in Grampie’s workshop. She snapped a photo with her phone and sent to the Kite Flyer!
The grandparents were gone, the parentals were gone, the aunties were
gone, now only the siblings and cousins left. Here she was still trying to untangle things, cousins, siblings, children of cousins and siblings.
Was this her destiny then, struggling to get things straightened out? She took the ball of kite string to the framers, had it enclosed in glass!
Cameron says: Three AM and no noise but the distant sounds of traffic. A faint bit of mist covered our faces.
“You’re sure about this?” my friend asked me again.
“I am,” I replied. “What’s the problem?”
He shrugged. “You’re good at your job. You make a lot of money-”
“Remember the story of the tiger rug? The wise man asked if the tiger would rather be a rug or be in the forest?”
“I do.”
The bus pulled to a stop and I grabbed my bag and brought out my ticket. “I’m choosing the forest. Call you when I get there.”
Dupin says: “On a dark, desolate highway.” That’s not right, but that’s it here. Cool mist in my face. No desert…the smell’s diesel and salt air.
Just as well. Harder to find me if I stay off the highway. Got the cash and the goods, so maybe I need a boat now. Jag’s a hot-wire…the boat can be. Travel south. Fish on the way if need be. Merge and blend. Florida tourist. Yeah.
Florida’s a party place. I got the goods to party, just find a buyer, then switch coasts. Rent some place on the Gulf Coast, and I got it made.
Things had been so much simpler before that day on Mars. He’d had the usual beliefs about fate and destiny, and had been comfortable with them.
And then he’d been standing there on the Martian surface, staring at the Earth and Moon shining as a double Evening Star just above the horizon. Suddenly he had been filled with an overwhelming sense of being watched by another himself, one who hadn’t escaped in the nick of time from the inferno on the launchpad. Not a ghost, but an informorph, a post-biological human being whose machine body took the form of a spacecraft.
Contact had lasted only a moment, but in that moment everything had changed.
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