a bit regarding the outcast

     Heather Coleby had left the central valley of California for months of travel, incognito. No one but anonymous wildlife would know her whereabouts. She was highly familiar with the footpaths of Yosemite and Kings Canyon National Parks. These had been her teenage favorite hangouts during holidays and weekends. She lived for back country backpacking.

     She was accustomed to rejection and developed a fierce independence. Her outcast life, evolved due to having been locked up in a tool shed by her mother's boyfriend. With mother's approval or nonchalance; she had spent much of her young life's weekends banished in the backyard shed. Mother's boyfriend, Rob was fond of Heather and enjoyed abusing her with lewd acts of molestation. She learned early in life to hide her emotions and became hardened and centered her perceptions of reality based on cynical philosophy.

     Within the shed's confines, her principal friends became daddy long legged spiders, ants, mice, and roaches, along with rollie pollie potato bugs. She'd capture these marvelous creatures with her thin, nimble fingers and study their features while conversing with them. She was intrigued with the insect world and thirsted for deeper knowledge of entomological phenomenon. One of her insect heroes was the preying mantis. 

     One memorable afternoon, she witnessed a battle between a three inch mantis and a blue jay. It had just rained. The sun brightly lit the backyard and roof of their home. As she peeked through a knothole in the shed, she noticed a preying mantis walking it's characteristic jerk like motions of hop and stride. It suddenly stopped movement. A blue jay had sprung from bushes with quick successions of wing flaps and landed a mere two feet in front of the mantis.

     The mantis flared it's wings upwardly displaying its owl eye pattern underneath each wing. It appeared like a caped villain. The blue jay cocked its head askew questioningly as if to say, "are you kidding me?!" But Heather sensed that it was in fact hesitant to strike at the ballsy bug. The jay was intimidated. Heather was fascinated with the display of events. This display of mantis bravery affected her psyche. She was the mantis and her molester was the jaybird. She retained this breakthrough resolving subconsciously to plan a means of finding her own freedom.

     The drama between predator and prey continued for approximately five minutes. The jay would hop one or two bursts of distance's closure between itself and the mantis. The mantis would close and re-open its wings and the bird would recoil slightly, until . . .

the jay struck with lightening speed. Probably it reasoned that its beak and size was a greater match against the smaller creature. 

     The bluejay swept in and clasped the mantis in its beak, held it momentarily as if in a victory gesture staring at its captive just before swallowing it whole. Heather remained amazed, pondering the effect of how markings could dissuade an attack. She considered how she could use this knowledge to her benefit against another of her molester's attacks.

     Heather's lust for solitary freedom emerged when her mother threw her out of the house at the tender age of fifteen. She learned to hitch rides with strangers she contacted off the internet. Sometimes she would leave the outskirts of town hitchhiking solo, destination: someplace, anyplace in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Anyplace away from so-called home.

     The bottom fell out. The moment had arrived. She had tired of human contact and human idiosyncrasies and determined to go off and survive off the grid, as they call it.

     Here she was in the mountains, a recluse of society heading for parts within the heart of the vast Sierra Nevada with her self devised, "follow your nose," roadmap. 

     The insects were fond memories she was now thinking on while she trudged along the John Muir Trail on this beautiful October morning.

     She fell into a trance, mesmerized with the quiet of the forest and solitude. She resumed her reflections. There were many fine details to her condition of having lived a nomad life within the city. She detested people, society in general. She had her favorites: people that wouldn't mind their own business and always in her hair. Small minds she regarded as incapable of thinking outside the modicum of effort at task. Minds who judged and prejudiced her behavior and micro managed her by their persistent pettiness toward her efforts at sharing thoughts on her personal beliefs. It proved too much for her and she hit the road, so to speak, and forever, never intending to go back, Jack!

     Heather spotted a black depression in the distance, "Must be a cave, cool, I'll have to explore it." She liked adventure. Exploring the entrance of a cave wasn't her favorite thing to do, but there might be hieroglyphics in it of interest. If there were one cave in the area, there might be others. She was claustrophobic due to her mother's boyfriend's abuse, being locked in the shed, but as long as she didn't go in too deep, she'd be all right.

     She had wandered off many times along the trails. Although this was illegal on account of damage to flora and risky in terms of potentially breaking a limb and such; she disregarded prudence in favor of irresponsibility's liberties. She cut across the landscape to save time. "Whheeeee! Screw Rob, and his perverted prick. Screw him and Mom for deserting me. Actually, they did me a favor, 'cause I'm free. And screw society while I'm on the subject!" She took long legged strides on the loose scree, cutting across switch backs on her downward's descent.

     Bluejays, startled from out of bushes, flew off in various air routes escaping her approach of flying debris and raucousness. They circled and double backed nonetheless interested in this weirdly behaving hominid, as if they, black crested feathered master's of provocation should have any room to talk, or should we say, squawk!

     She was struck with an impulsive chilling thought. The jays forced memories of the preying mantis' defense against being devoured. She realized that the mantis' slender frame resembled Slender Man. Her fears of this personage haunted her. She felt a tinge of fear's crawl on her neck's back side as it tingled downward her spine. She began to reconsider her stay at the cave. She forced the images of The Slender and Moth out of her mind.

     The cave was about two miles southeast of her. She figured she could reach it within an hour or thereabouts. She wore vibram soled heavy leathered boots. Each boot weighed about two pounds, no problem for her sinewed, muscular legs. The boots were worth their weight in that they not only protected her ankles from being twisted, but too, kept bits of rocks and scree out of her feet.

     "Hey Mr. Lizard!" She shouted skyward. "It's great to be alive!" The blue belly was two miles behind her. She was simply ecstatic with excitement. "I think I'm gonna spend the night at the mouth of that cave, not too deep, mind you, just at the entrance. I'm tired and just gonna chill."