Hat Shrapnel

The Great (and Last) Kokoweef Adventure

Every now and then, late at night as I ponder my place in the universe, I find that my life lacks a certain quality, an essence, a property that can only be described as: merciless pain. Fortunately, the world is not short on opportunities. That’s why when my friend John called me up and asked if I wanted to help him with a geological field study in southern California, I answered with an enthusiastic “Are you paying for the food?”

So, gang, that’s how I found myself here:

A lovely little piece of the Mojave Desert called Kokoweef.

Each day starts with my cruel taskmaster, John, packing me up with pounds and pounds of geological equipment and marching me out into a random patch of desert until his sadistic need to watch me suffer has been momentarily sated. He then points to a random object and states scientifically, “That’s exactly the type of rock we came out here for,” even though he’s clearly pointing at a lizard or a Joshua tree. Then we whack away at the nearest stone with a hammer and chisel until a tiny chunk goes flying off in a random direction whereupon John reaches down and picks up a rock of a clearly different color and texture and exclaims that we have our sample. Then we log it, store it, pack up our gear (onto me), and we’re off to the next randomly chosen patch of God-forsaken desert.

He marches me up mountains, down ravines, through cacti and rocky outcrops of razor sharp rock all under a blazing desert sun that has already reduced my skin to less of an epidermal layer than a loose collection of boiled cells that vaguely hope my insides don’t fall out, but can’t really do much to prevent it. However, it’s all worth it when I lug my tortured body and soul over the next ridge of searing hot rock and look where John is pointing for me to grab the next sample and see:

I kill him tonight in his sleep…