Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre(14)

When Yvette instructed me to lie down, drew the shades, lit the fireplace, and hit the soft, soothing music app on her phone, I knew my unconscious choice had been right.

Her words, her guided imagery. She took me through these woods, just like I’d done on a physical hike. “Allow the forest to heal you,” she said. “Release your pain. This land gives you permission to unburden yourself with each step.”

She guided me up that familiar hiking trail, “dropping my anguish like stones.”

Unwinding my back, my jaw. I could feel my breathing slow as I mentally climbed the trail.

“And there she is,” said Yvette, “waiting with open arms.”

And then she said a word I’d never heard before. The name of who, what, was waiting for me.

Oma.

Guardian of the wilderness.

Yvette explained that Oma was a spirit of the First Peoples, a gentle giant that arrogant Eurocentric white men have perverted into the name “Bigfoot.”

I’ve obviously heard that word before, along with “UFO” and “Loch Ness Monster.” I don’t know much about it though, just what I’ve seen in those stupid beef jerky commercials. Screwing with Sasquatch? Is that the phrase? Is Sasquatch the same as Bigfoot? The creature in the commercials was a dumb brute. A grouchy neighbor just begging to be punked. I tried to get past those ridiculous images. Those “mutilations of truth,” as Yvette described it, “like everything else our society has done to what came before it.”

Oma wasn’t anything like that. She was tenderness. She was strength. “Feel her energy, her protection. Feel her soft, warm arms around you. Her sweet, cleansing breath surround you.”

And I could, imagining those giant arms embracing me, holding me. “Safe. Serene. Home.”

Again, the tears nearly came. I felt a sob make it halfway up my throat. Maybe the next guided imagery session, the next time Yvette takes me to meet Oma. And there will be a next time.

I’ve actually never done meditation. I think we talked about this. I can’t let go. That one class I took, I spent the whole time trying not to laugh. And all those times at home. When Dan was out, alone on the floor with the ear buds and the scented candle. My mind couldn’t stop checking boxes. Laundry, errands, work calls. I just couldn’t seem to focus.

But I didn’t have Yvette back then. Or Oma. Yes, my practical side still thinks it’s silly. Like that first thought I had about Mount Rainier watching over us. But is it so wrong to want to be watched over? When you’re feeling small and scared—which, let’s be honest, is pretty much how I feel all the time—isn’t it okay, just for a moment, to want someone, something bigger than you to have all the answers, to have everything under control?





*1 MoPOP: Museum of Popular Culture.

*2 Intelligentsia: A popular coffee establishment on Abbot Kinney Blvd.

*3 “Y-Q” stands for Yi qi, a late Jurassic, bat-winged dinosaur found in China.





    Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!

—Final radio report by USGS volcanologist DAVID ALEXANDER JOHNSTON before being killed by Mount St. Helens’s eruption on May 18, 1980





JOURNAL ENTRY #4


October 2

I thought it was an earthquake. I woke up to this loud bang. It felt like a giant foot had kicked the house. I thought it was the kind of quick, bomb-type earthquakes we’ve gotten back in Venice that are over before you’re fully awake. I switched on the light and saw that the front bedroom windows were cracked. I could see lights going on in the other houses.

“Look at this!” That was Dan, behind me, standing at the back window.

“Look!” Again, motioning urgently for me. I could see a red glow on the horizon. I guess I was still groggy, still waking up. I wondered why he was so excited about distant city lights. But then I realized that wasn’t a city. It was Rainier.

I squinted through the cracks but couldn’t really believe what I was seeing. Dan must’ve mistrusted his vision too because he darted out onto the back balcony. No mistaking the artificial dawn.

Another rumble hit, and this time we grabbed each other. It wasn’t as bad, this one. I heard a few things clatter downstairs and the windows rattled a little bit. At the same time, the glow behind Rainier brightened.

“Is that an eruption?” I know Dan wasn’t asking me specifically, but I went inside and turned on the TV. The cable was out, so I grabbed my phone and saw we still had full Wi-Fi. But when I tried to go online, I couldn’t seem to connect.

I tried dialing 911. The call failed. I tried calling Dan’s phone. Same. I switched off my phone and tried it again. Dan did the same with his devices—iPads, TVs, laptops. They all showed a perfect signal, but weren’t working.

That was when Dan noticed the blinking app that monitors all house functions. It showed we were now on backup battery. Power from the grid was cut.





From my interview with Frank McCray, Jr.


Why would they have a satellite phone, or a two-way radio? Those are technologies that imply you’re cut off from civilization, which they certainly were not. The whole point of Greenloop was to ensure that its residents were as wired in as anyone on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Better even. As a telecommuter community, they had to have the fastest, most reliable connection possible. That means cable, not air. Satellite dishes aren’t as reliable, especially in the kind of weather we get up in the Pacific Northwest. Everyone’s data stream flowed through solid fiber-optic cable. And why would, how could, that cable ever fail?