It's Valentine’s Day and I’m getting impatient. My friends are fifteen minutes late now and I’m starting to think about going by myself. People I don't recognize pass by dressed for parties, dates.

Finally I'm joined and a small crowd starts to grow. We're conspicuously out of place for the night and outsiders glance and awkwardly look away. Cheap ponchos, lifejackets rubber boots, camouflage; no one here is looking for a romantic night.

I pull out of an illegal parking space and soon we're on the highway. Our destination is a nursing home but the moon says visiting hours are well over. We wander towards the edge of the empty lot and hop over a barrier. Hidden just out of sight an icy river slowly flows like a muddy vein in the city.

Just ahead loom the massive concrete gates. Here the river whips into a frenzy, ice and water spill down a slope into the underground tunnels. The churning waves and crashing ice quicken my pulse. Our goals lie beyond the churning whirlpool.

We work quietly in the moonlight. Rubber rafts get inflated and hand lines are slung in preparation for our descent. While working on a knot a chunk of ice hits my near frozen leg, knocking me off balance. I plunge into the flow, gasping for air as the cold bites into me.

The current pulls me over the edge and I go over the incline, flailing. The world around me spins, streetlights glow far overhead and the yawning darkness before threatens to engulf everything.

In my thrashing I suddenly feel a strong grip around my wrist. I pull back and reach out with the other hand. Another hand grasps mine. Together my friends pull me out of the darkness. Once I make it to shore I gasp for air, the cold water soaking me is unrelenting.

After another attempt we succeed in our efforts and reach the tunnel's interior. For the night we wandered halls beneath the city. Hours later we resurfaced; the night was over and the party had long since finished.

-2012-
sleepwalking
new chapter

-2011-
like sedona?
torn in two
blink
bridge to nowhere
door
hitting the wall
elusive 2
elusive 1
ascenders
voyage
hole
icarus

-2010-
revisited 2
revisited 1
which way?
the pit
treasure
narrow
snowfall
chute
false floor
monolith
crack
freeze
slice
bunker
beckon
treasure
resolution

-2009-
goodbyes
undercurrents
casting the bones
mountain thief
the deer hunter
strange temple
sanctuary
burial pt. 3
burial pt. 2
burial pt. 1
scarlet fever
rebirth from hell
forsaken
the lower depths
underground lake
stretch sewer
crypt
still waters
shadow movements
meager rations
sw pt.8: geothermal + ending
sw pt.7: lost gold mines
sw pt.6: big tube caves
sw pt.5: gold!
sw pt.4: el calderon caves
sw pt.3: redondo
sw pt.2: ghosts
southwest adventure pt.1
the river
dark salvation
reflections
dreams
the underdark
night odyssey
beginnings