Osprey
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3694
Registered: 5-23-2004
Location: Baja Ca. Sur
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Fear and Loathing in La Ribera
It happened right here, on the beach at East Cape, Baja California. It came without warning, lasted less than a second and changed everything about my
life. I think about it more times every day and night than I wish to recount.
It was overcast and a little windy – an odd combination at the shore because usually the cloud cover holds the wind down and the sea grows flat and
gray and welcomes fishermen like me. I was on my regular morning walk-swim. My sometimes exercise companions didn’t show so after waiting for a few
minutes I walked east, alone.
On Google Earth I learned that it’s about a mile from the access road on the beach to the first house in a small but fancy beachside development
called Playa Colorado. Usually when I reach the first big beach mansion I sit down for a few minutes to let my heart rate go back down a notch, then
begin to swim and or walk back to the car.
This particular morning I plopped down on the soft dry sand and simply enjoyed the quiet, the scenery for a minute before my workout on the way back.
To my left just about a meter, stuck somehow in the sand were two or three empty milk cartons which were tied in a cluster and partially covered with
wind-blown sand. Just as my gaze fell on them I heard, from below, a cry.
To this day I cannot tell you if the noise was made by a human, a child, an animal but it pushed its way up and out of the sandy grave to deliver an
unmistakable message – help, please help. It was not words, it was a howl, a scream, a final plea from someone, something fighting for life and
losing.
I jumped to my feet and ran all the way back to the car. I don’t remember running, the beach, anything, just the sound, the terrible urgency of the
scream, perhaps the last sound. I didn’t know it right then but my awful need to get away, to put distance between me and the horror of what could lie
beneath the small foredune would not diminish – it would grow to all-consuming importance.
From the very moment I heard the sound I was filled with self doubt and shame at my fear. I was overwhelmed with the conflict of wanting to help but
unable to quash my fear of dealing with what I might find if my frantic digging could find the thing that made the sound. An almost silent film now
loops through my mind examining all the gory possibilities and outcomes had I stayed, had I the courage to try to save what screamed from such a
horrible end.
Ashamed, still fearful, I know I can’t tell the police, can’t tell anyone, ever. And I can’t ever go back to that place. I’ll walk here in the village
– no more trips down that way, safer in the village. How long will this thing stay with me, how long will I have to carry the awful memory around, be
haunted by my own shame?
My questions were answered, my torment ended by something quick and simple. A voice, a single soft voice from the kitchen.
“Hon, coffee’s ready. You might as well get up – you’re sweating up your bed and making some awful sounds. Must be another nightmare.”
I got dressed, got my coffee and grudgingly looked at the clock. No reason to get up this early. I’m not going to the beach, not today. Maybe I’ll
walk down by the mercantile, then up my usual way, back down Calle Del Mar. No, no, wait a minute. That takes me right by the pantheon.
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DanO
Super Nomad
Posts: 1923
Registered: 8-26-2003
Location: Not far from the Pacific
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Nice, George. Sort of an Edgar Allen Poe/Hunter S. Thompson mash-up.
\"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.\" -- Frank Zappa
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Meany
Nomad
Posts: 453
Registered: 2-14-2009
Location: santa paula,calif
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????? an Wow!!! Do you IOU the IRS????
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o3dave
Junior Nomad
Posts: 90
Registered: 10-20-2013
Location: Oregon
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I too have seen the talking turtles. Obviously, you upset one.
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MMc
Super Nomad
Posts: 1679
Registered: 6-29-2011
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Mood: Current
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Osprey, I love your fiction, It just sucks me in.
"Never teach a pig to sing it frustrates you and annoys the pig" - W.C.Fields
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Udo
Elite Nomad
Posts: 6343
Registered: 4-26-2008
Location: Black Hills, SD/Ensenada/San Felipe
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Mood: TEQUILA!
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An I thought that the whole story was real and you went back to the car to get a shovel!
WOW!
Udo
Youth is wasted on the young!
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pauldavidmena
Super Nomad
Posts: 1712
Registered: 5-23-2013
Location: Centerville, MA, USA
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I've read about those sand crabs on the East Cape. Your encounter with one of them confirms my darkest nightmares. 
Well done!
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ehall
Super Nomad
Posts: 1906
Registered: 3-29-2014
Location: Buckeye, Az
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Mood: It's 5 o'clock somewhere
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Nice
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bajabuddha
Banned
Posts: 4024
Registered: 4-12-2013
Location: Baja New Mexico
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Mood: Always cranky unless medicated
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Sounds like bad-laced skunk-mota.... either Osprey's bad dream, or o3d's waking one (wow, incredible documentary!). *cough* 
I don't have a BUCKET LIST, but I do have a F***- IT LIST a mile long!
86 - 45*
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Osprey
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3694
Registered: 5-23-2004
Location: Baja Ca. Sur
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Boo Dah, sometimes I feel the love between us is just slipping away.
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AKgringo
Elite Nomad
Posts: 6004
Registered: 9-20-2014
Location: Anchorage, AK (no mas!)
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Mood: Retireded
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I knew I should have dug that hole down low while the tide was out!
Good tale!
If you are not living on the edge, you are taking up too much space!
"Could do better if he tried!" Report card comments from most of my grade school teachers. Sadly, still true!
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fixtrauma
Nomad
Posts: 389
Registered: 11-17-2008
Location: El Centenario & Lebanon,Oregon
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Mood: Monomaniac
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WHOA!!
Well done! I was all in! I was going to suggest some Ambien to help sleep but Ambien usually causes dreams like this!
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Whale-ista
Super Nomad
Posts: 2009
Registered: 2-18-2013
Location: San Diego
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Mood: Sunny with chance of whales
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thanks Osprey- a clever telling of a classic anxiety dream: fear/terror, helplessness, flight...
Dream research suggests these images are the mind's way of solving some problem/threat we confronted in our waking lives and were not able to resolve.
We may believe we have "moved on," while in fact, our subconscious is working diligently on a solution as the body sleeps.
The actual event is transformed- the results are often vivid and memorable dreams of buried, faceless, unknown terrors rising unexpectedly to confront
us- just when we believed we could rest.
Well done...
[Edited on 8-4-2015 by Whale-ista]
\"Probably the airplanes will bring week-enders from Los Angeles before long, and the beautiful poor bedraggled old town will bloom with a
Floridian ugliness.\" (John Steinbeck, 1940, discussing the future of La Paz, BCS, Mexico)
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bajabuddha
Banned
Posts: 4024
Registered: 4-12-2013
Location: Baja New Mexico
Member Is Offline
Mood: Always cranky unless medicated
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Entiendo todo broma, Señor. Wonderful story.
http://www.dreammoods.com/dreamdictionary/
I don't have a BUCKET LIST, but I do have a F***- IT LIST a mile long!
86 - 45*
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Osprey
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3694
Registered: 5-23-2004
Location: Baja Ca. Sur
Member Is Offline
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Thanks BB
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4Cata
Nomad
Posts: 115
Registered: 10-28-2008
Location: Yosemite area
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Mood: Siempre alegre!
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Another pearl for my collection, but a dark one. Thanks
Agaveros, silk in a bottle, a beautiful bottle!
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Skipjack Joe
Elite Nomad
Posts: 8084
Registered: 7-12-2004
Location: Bahia Asuncion
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One of your more introspective pieces. I had a dream once similar in intensity and fear, a dream I still recall today. It was a time when I was
gravely ill.
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