Day: November 18, 2024

It was a shambling group of stragglers being led along, up that ridge.

Smoke and fog mixed, and the noise of explosions could be heard in the distance. As they were led out of town, the cries and screams died down, left behind in the distance. This was a dark day for the human race. Coyotes and raccoons and squirrels seemed to mock them, periodically, which made the whole thing weirder.

“Can I take a break?”, Carl asked the sasquatch in charge.

Carl was tired, in shock, still hungover and high as fuck. It was him and about a dozen other humans, all in bondage, being led up some random mountain game trail – going deep into the Olympic National Forest. They began this march around 2 AM, and now Carl could see the sun coming up, he guessed it was 6:30 now.

“Break for water”, the bigfoot in charge said quietly, he pointed towards a stream nearby.

Carl looked around at the group in chains, so miserable. Carl thought it was funny how easily his human brethren took orders from these ape-like giants, “It didn’t take much”. Carl was thinking about his old preacher and the times of Egypt. He had thought of his fellow beings as “slavish” most of his life, but it was at this tense moment that the clarity of human obedience came into full view.

“We stop a short bit, get rested, a few more hours till camp”, said HOOBOO the sasquatch leading the column of what were, apparently, prisoners of war.

Carl could hear gunfire in the distance, they could all smell smoke and not just forest fire smoke, they could smell the dark rancid creosote smoke of small towns, cities, villages, gas stations, military equipment, crashed planes, burning. Up and down the west coast, from the Pacific Ocean, to the Atlantic, and around the world: humans were being hunted, killed, their homes were being set on fire. The richest, the poorest, the sasquatch did not show compassion or deference, they didn’t care. All would feel the punishment and death, some more than others. When the attack began most governments and journalists believed it was a hoax, a joke. Within the first 15 minutes it became obvious that there was no joke.

“We have to get going”, said HOOBOO and the tired and dirty humans were pulled further up the trail, deeper into the woods.

To the south of them, near the naval base at Roort’s Point, things were awful. The base commander, Admiral Jansen, had been out late partying with his executive officer and command staff. They had just gotten back from a long mission and spent 6 weeks undersea, continuous silent operations; this kind of operation was hard on submariners. They had only been back one day when the attack commenced.

Roort’s Point is a ballistic missile submarine base, part of the nuclear triad, and on that day there were 2 of 5 nuclear submarines in port, all of them armed with nuclear missiles and only requiring codes and command authorization to launch. All the nuke subs that were AT SEA received orders to stay at sea and to maintain the highest readiness – these orders were sent through a more secret channel via ELF networks and did not get transmitted to the naval bases directly. Admiral Jansen felt as if he was the last to find out they were under attack, but it was clear to him too, when he saw that strange force before him, that no one could foresee this day.

Hundreds of sasquatch riding orca whales, armed with rifles and pistols, attacked from the sea down Hood Canal. Thousands of coyotes and raccoons storm attacked the gates of the complex, overrunning the security outpost before the SP guards at the gate could notify base HQ. The entire assault lasted no more than 30 minutes; for Admiral Jansen, a NAVY SEAL combat veteran, the attack seemed to last hours.

Admiral Jansen tried to reach WA DC, but cell towers, fiber cable, even COMM-sites for satellites were being set on fire, torn up, and literally shat on. Sasquatch, raccoons, squirrels and coyotes were having fun SHITTING on various forms of human tech, tearing it up, biting into cables and wires, and this made the situation even more aggravating. The orcas that were not being used as attack boats by the sasquatch tore up underwater cables and controls for the sub pens near Roort’s Point and blocked the harbor by dragging wreckage from the deep up to the opening. It would take a day, but by the end of that day no sub was coming or going any longer from that location.

Jansen was able to set up a shortwave radio set, an old AM outfit, from the cold war. After about 3 hours of messing around, a young NAVAL seaman was able to pick up the same useless message that was blasting over TV, RADIO, and what was left of the WWW.

“THIS IS AN EMERGENCY BROADCAST, THIS IS NOT A TEST. STAY INDOORS, GO TO THE LOWEST POINT IN YOUR DWELLING. SEEK SHELTER IN YOUR TOWN’S BUNKER OR THE SUBWAY SYSTEM. REMAIN HIDDEN. HAVE WATER AND FOOD FOR 3 WEEKS.”

That noise could be heard everywhere around the world, Jansen heard it as he ran up the hallway to his office – it was 3 AM. Sasquatch were running loose all over the base.

“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?”, an explosion near the docks and chaos. Sailors and civilians were running for their vehicles, gunfire and muzzle flashes were everywhere. One sailor had managed to get on an M2 .50 caliber machine gun before he was killed and several bigfoot were shot to pieces as a result. The standard sidearms (.9mm and 40 caliber) and rifles (5.56) were nearly useless against the sasquatch – in some cases the bullets simply bounced off. A few of the sailors mixed tracer rounds in, but found this only enraged the bigfoot and made the outcomes worse for them.

The sasquatch had disabled the remaining submarines in port, tearing large holes in their titanium armor. Luckily, the nuclear containment held up and the reactors went into SCRAM – but the subs were now useless, filling with water, sitting at the bottom of the sub pen.

By 6 AM Admiral Jansen, and what was left of his command, surrendered to the sasquatch war leader TOOGS and his cadre of furry invaders. The NAVAL personnel, civilians and military, were rounded up and taken to the trails, to the woods, and they too were being led up to the camps where Carl was heading.

In WA DC everything was falling apart …

At around 4 AM WA DC time, the first wave of bigfoot attackers hit and hit hard. 10 cohorts of sasquatch, each 1,000 strong, came from the northwest. The sasquatch rolled through Darnestown, Maryland, and only a small group of Capitol Police and local sheriffs put up a fight and it wasn’t enough. One cohort split off to attack the White House, but by this time President Jordan and his staff were evacuated via Andrews AFB and luckily they got off the ground and arrived safely at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex (NORAD) near Colorado Springs.

3 cohorts, 3,000 sasquatch, attacked the House of Representatives – given the time of day and the legislative calendar, there were almost no congress people there and very few support staff. Congresswoman Grenna Deare of N. Dakota had just finished giving a CSPAN speech to an empty hall, and she noticed that 50 bigfoot were at the doors, barely, before she feinted and fell to the ground unconscious. She was ignored by the beasts.

The sasquatch proceeded to dismantle the House of Representatives, the Senate, the White House, the Pentagon. Soldiers and sailors and other folks made a brave stand at the Pentagon, but it took less than an hour for the bigfoot to breakdown the barriers and take full control. Squirrels and raccoons ran roughshod over the Capitol Mall, urinating and defecating on the Lincoln Memorial, pissing into the reflecting pool. Coyotes, completely out of control, ravaged the cities on the “loop” just outside of WA DC, fully occupying the time and resources of local cops and sheriffs.

General Yates, Chief of Logistics Command for US Forces CONUS, was the senior officer on duty that day and the highest ranking officer left alive in the DC area; he surrendered the last forces of WA DC at 9:15 AM, local time, October 13th, 2026, a Tuesday.

The United States government was in disarray, every state capitol, every locality or county, every townhall and city office was on its own. Around the world, militaries caught off guard were going into hiding – in basements, under schools and hospitals, the places they had bemoaned in the past as a “refuge for cowards and terrorists”. They, the “good guys”, were in hiding, like the terrorists.

The United States used 3 nuclear weapons early on that Tuesday: one was used to block the movement of sasquatch in South Carolina, this was a 15 kiloton tactical nuclear weapon used on a gathering of sasquatch near Myrtle Beach. To the west, 2 nukes were used, 1 megaton each, to create a no man’s land along the principal avenues approach to the NORAD complex in Colorado. It was an effective deterrence, and the sasquatch stayed away. The combined use of nukes that morning killed almost a million Americans.

In Berlin, NATO forces were holding down their positions on the west bank of the Spree, but they were only able to mobilize a brigade of troops. They had a lot of ammo and rocket launchers that were intended for the war in the Ukraine, and this allowed them to make an effective stand. Nearly 50,000 sasquatch from Romania and Bulgaria attacked Berlin, almost 200,000 attacked Paris. If the numbers had been smaller, it would have been hard, but this seemed impossible. NATO A-10 close-support aircraft were authorized to use depleted uranium ammo on the European Theater sasquatch and this did make a dent.

Everywhere around the world militaries were confronting the impossible, the fog of war, the unknown unknown. It was “impossible” that these savage freaks were reeking havoc on the most powerful and technologically advanced nations in world history. It was “impossible” that they, the sasquatch, simply didn’t give up, running headstrong into heavy machine gun fire and anti-tank missiles and even artillery being fired at point blank and flat trajectory. SP-155mm artillery were firing continuously at the waves of bigfoot attacking in Oklahoma, and the sasquatch kept coming.

A significant portion of the world’s naval forces scrambled to sea during the first hours of the attack, along with air forces moving what was left of their aircraft to forward operating airfields and refueling sites, off the beaten path, as far from the mayhem as they could get and still provide air support. Forces were doing the only thing they could do, according to worst case OP-PLANS: evacuate, scatter, communications silence.

The various world militaries that were pinned down were fighting to the last man, the last woman, the last military contractor. Civilian workers were given pistols, rifles, and very brief instructions on how to use them. It would be remembered as the most frenzied day in the military history of the world. Some were saying “aliens”, but a few in intelligence circles knew better.

The CIA had been aware of the “Sasquatch Threat” since its inception in 1947. NAZI paperclip scientists, “rescued” after WW2, understood this issue better than most and provided a full briefing to the CIA in 1952. Colonel Rolf Kadner of the SS had been in charge of experimental programs and apprehensions under the Third Reich. At first the NAZIs had great luck capturing bigfoot, but no luck holding on to one of them. For whatever reason, they could escape and did so quite easily. As with much the CIA did, the CIA kept this secret for their own protection.

ALL OF THIS was happening, and Carl knew none of it; he knew he was tired, scared, confused, and “too fucking old for this bullshit”.

It was almost noon when the column of human prisoners made it all the way to the makeshift POW camp. The campsite was a small assemblage of cobbled together cabins and tents, some barbed wire and ramshackle fencing. It was at the site of an abandoned mine, not far from Boulder Creek Falls.

The site was strange: there were people already there when Carl and the other beleaguered prisoners arrived, but they were carrying guns. Carl recognized one of them, a man named Jon Shadow. Jon Shadow was a member of the Twaclom People, a Salish Tribe who’s lands used to be where Port Townsend, Washington, is today. Jon was a childhood friend of Carl’s, they went to the same elementary school.

“WHAT THE FUCK CARL?”, Jon yelled, and then he ran over to his friend to greet him.

Jon unlocked Carl from the makeshift chains and with a nod from HOOBOO took Carl to a small tent near the shelter of the trees, with the noise of the falls washing out most of the racket. No one was being tortured or killed, humans were being placed in holding areas, but the sick and wounded among the prisoners were being treated well and given food and medicine and medical attention.

Jon took Carl to his tent. There inside was a small propane stove boiling hot water. Jon grabbed some instant coffee from his backpack and made Carl a cup. Jon had a thing about adding a spoonful of chocolate milk mix to the coffee, and this did not bother Carl. Jon and Carl sat down, cups in hand, staring at each other.

“What the fuck Jon?”, Carl quipped.

Jon shook his head.

“Remember that time when we were in school and I told you about my cousin going to special ED classes at the Native School?”

“Yeah.”

Jon spoke slowly, deliberately, with a somber look on his face.

“She went to that school, run by the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT and the Catholic Church. She went to bed most nights hungry, she woke up most mornings to a beating. There were things done to her that she told me about later that I cannot speak of ever again … She had 4 abortions before she was 18, and this was an all-girls native school run by nuns and male Indian Affairs administrators. She killed herself 3 years ago after dealing with alcoholism and depression her entire life. Because I like you I am not going to punch you in the face.”

Carl looked down at the ground, it occurred to him, in that moment, that he never really understood the anger of many natives until that Tuesday, that October the 13th. Down in Port Angeles, women were being killed, men were having large chunks of rebar shoved up their butts, children were being taken away to the camps in the hills. The sasquatch were not bloodthirsty by nature, but this conflict had been a long time coming and they were never about half-ass action.

A historical digression, as crows are allowed.

In 1915, General “Blackjack” Pershing led US Army forces into Northern Mexico, chasing after Poncho Villa, delivering what would later be called a “chastisement”. A “chastisement operation” has a singular purpose: to punish and humiliate. With a chastisement, the goal is NOT to occupy territory, the goal is to punch an enemy in the nose, knock them to the ground, and then when they are trembling, shaking? – walk away. Carl didn’t know a lot about military operations, but he did understand bullies. If the USA had become the biggest bully in world history, then it would take one hell of a bloody nose to teach IT a lesson.

“That’s not me Jon, that’s no my folks.”

Carl’s response made Jon a bit angry.

“No, it’s not YOU. It’s never any one of us, good or bad. But it’s enough people Carl. Enough people chose not to care, chose to look away. Enough people became giant assholes in the last few decades CARL … And the rest? – STOOD BY AND WATCHED IT. Sorry friend, there are no innocent people today.”

Secretly, prior to the attack, WAR LEADER DIRG of the Sasquatch sent emissaries to the shaman of the several North American tribes. By the end of September, nearly 300,000 Native Americans (and their allies) in all 50 states had joined forces with the sasquatch and were preparing for war. Some of these were already enlisted in the US military, and they were willing to violate their “oaths”, noting that this was the case with the great white father (various presidents of the USA) on many occasions. “Oaths and agreements don’t mean much to them, and our oaths to them don’t mean much to us”, remarked a Native American Chief at the Battle of Toledo.

“What’s gonna happen now?”, Carl asked meekly.

“Buddy, it’s going to be okay. This battle was never supposed to last more than a few days. Once the governments of the world surrender …”

“SURRENDER, WHAT THE FUCK?”

“Once they surrender, then this will be over.”

“What happens after?”

“After what?”

“After this fucking war is over?”

“Well, let’s think …”, Jon pondered Carl’s question. Jon was a fairly low level operative in this adventure. He knew HOOBOO and a few other local sasquatch, he didn’t really know anyone who KNEW anything, other than the basic plan.

“I think, Carl, the sasquatch will go home. They will count their dead. They will make their peace. They will leave every human government and community with a warning. It will be over.”

“Just like that.”

“Yes.”

“What if humans are stubborn and crazy?”

This caused Jon to pause once again. Jon contemplated Carl’s question, and began thinking about SITTING BULL and LITTLE BIG HORN. There were several potential lessons in this line of thought. What if General Custer possessed humility? What if the US military had respected the tribes, and their ability to make war? Lots of what ifs and hypotheticals. Jon knew that all life was CRAZY to live, and stayed alive in states of madness. “Sitting Bull” was CRAZY for his cause of justice, Custer was CRAZY for his weird beliefs in inherent white superiority over natives. This made Jon worried.

“I don’t know.”

HOOBOO came by the tent, “you have the prisoner?”.

“You can stop with the scary voice pal”, Jon smiled at HOOBOO. HOOBOO laughed.

“HEY, your friend want something? Some food?”, HOOBOO was checking on the prisoners and they weren’t really prisoners to the sasquatch. Until this “war” was over, the prisoners were merely guests, not hostages, not targets. Sadly, sasquatch that fell into human hands that day were mostly not treated so well.

HOOBOO brought by some smoked salmon and biscuits. Jon made another cup of coffee and gave Carl a water bottle. Jon had to leave and so Carl was alone, in the tent, eating, still in a state of shock but the mortal terror was wearing off. Jon laid out an extra sleeping bag so that Carl could sleep, and Carl did sleep for about 5 hours.

It was near 6 PM when Carl awoke. The tent was still empty, but there was noise outside, and “music”. “Fucking music?”, Carl muttered under his breath. He got up and opened the lip of the tent to peer outside. He went outside, and walked around camp. And then, as he was walking about, he heard a new voice …

“You like my biscuits sugar?”

“What?”, Carl was caught off guard. A sasquatch, about 11 feet tall named REETAH, was watching over a large caldron. She was making a northwest Salish stew of venison and potatoes and all Carl knew is he could eat the whole thing.

“The biscuits sweetheart.”

“They were the best I’ve had in a while.”

“Well, I don’t use seed oils.”

“How do you speak English?”

“Well, I manipulate my vocal cords and cusp my lips … what do you do honey?”

“I mean where did you learn?”

“OH … where and WHEN did I learn … I learned from a nasty old Jesuit, about 170 years ago. At the time I was living on Vancouver Island. Some Canadian troops with British Army regulars were patrolling the island, surveying for natural resources, when they encountered us and well … I mean … it was a bad day for them. We killed and ate them. Who doesn’t like British cooking?”, Carl didn’t get the joke.

“You eat people?”

“Not all people, but some people.”

“What about the English teacher, the Jesuit?”

“Oh, I lose track all the time sugar. After that skirmish a Jesuit priest was left alive, and our clan captured him. He taught classes, but he was kind of nasty. We caught him doing some not so nice things, so we ate him too, eventually.”

“Are you going to eat me?”

“Nope, I don’t eat people any longer.”

“That’s nice”, Carl said wryly and REETAH smiled.

Carl stepped closer to REETAH and the caldron she was stirring, he gulped and asked: “… are there people in the stew?”

“No … just love and venison and some other herbs and spices.”

Jon came up from behind and startled Carl.

“You too getting along?”

“I guess, I’ve never had a conversation with a bigfoot and my first encounter today wasn’t so good.”

REETAH laughed again, “Child, it’s been a hard day for all.”

“Okay, we’re not keeping anyone prisoner here, at least not yet. You are welcome to stay in my tent to sleep and to stay at the camp. I think you’ll find we’re not your enemy.”

“Jon, I don’t have Stockholm Syndrome … my friend Trevor is dead …”

“Trev?”

“Yeah … impaled last night or early this morning.”

“He was a good guy.”

“He was …”, Carl’s voice was quiet and trailed off as he said this. He hadn’t thought about Trevor much in the last 15 or 16 hours. He didn’t really know how long it had been. But in that time he hadn’t taken pause or a moment to think about Trev, in that open pasture, near the woods, with a large wooden spear the size of a small tree piercing his chest.

It was nearly dark, given their location and time of year the darkness starts falling around 4 PM, and the light is gone by six.

The day had been long. Towns and cities around the world were given a pause, a moment to breathe, because DIRG had given his stand-down order, and his hums and clicks and messages were heard and acknowledged around the globe. The sasquatch went back to secure bases in the woods, mostly. In some locations, as the sasquatch retreated, they were harassed by human troops, strafed, fire bombed. Some of the humans were more circumspect that day, too many, enough, were simply angrier and crazier than they’d ever been and filled with hate for the bigfoot and desires for revenge. DIRG did not fully realize that human war and sasquatch war were not the same.

It was nearly 8 PM in the woods, on the Olympic Peninsula. The sasquatch were around a fire telling stories with the local Salish men and women present. They were laughing and singing. They were happy. Jon motioned to Carl to join them, and Carl did. Carl didn’t talk much. They ate and drank, Carl had several helpings of REETAH’S stew.

Nearing midnight, one of the sasquatch patrols came back to camp and JIBLIS, the sasquatch that killed Trevor, was with them. JIBLIS was carrying a knife, a skinner, that Trevor had custom made from old chainsaw blades and part of an elk’s antler, it had Trevor’s initials on it and it was covered in blood. Carl, tired and enraged, screamed at JIBLIS.

“BLOODY MURDER, BLOODY MURDER … YOU FUCK … you killed my friend … you killed him. He didn’t have anything! He didn’t know anything! He never wanted much and he would help when he could. TREVOR WAS A SIMPLE FUCKING MAN AND YOU KILLED HIM! MOTHER FUCKER!”

The whole camp grew silent, only the wind and the torrent of the nearby falls could be heard.

JIBLIS, who was young, only 45 human years old, walked up to Carl and handed the knife to him. JIBLIS didn’t know Trevor, he was simply doing the work of war. War is dirty work, for filthy people or for humans who let the demons into their hearts. Crows don’t go to WAR because CROWS aren’t that fucking stupid, but humans are so clever they invent new levels of ignorance.

Carl was shaking, he had zero chance killing a bigfoot – not without a heavy weapon, the very least a .454 CASULL with armor piercing bullets or a full size STIHL chainsaw.

Carl was exhausted and breaking, mentally. He reached out with his shaking hand to grasp the knife, knowing what he wanted to do next.

REETAH came up to Carl, and grabbed his hand.

“Hon, I’m going to take you back to your tent.”

Carl grabbed Trev’s knife from out of JIBLIS’ grasp and let REETAH take him back to Jon’s tent. REETAH smiled and left him there, It took about 30 minutes of shaking and sobbing for Carl to finally go to sleep and BOY did he sleep. As he drifted off, he imagined that the whole day had been fake, that he was having a “bad trip”, that the University of Washington “chemist” who sold him the LSD might have been a jerk. Carl played pretend, in his head, and went back to sleep again. This story was repeating itself around the world, in a myriad of different forms. Some call this denial.

World governments were organizing again – talking to each other. Messages were being relayed using shortwave radio and the few satellite comm-links that functioned. Fiber cable was being patched and mobile emergency cell towers were deployed. Many, even in rural communities, had several hours of working internet and so families connected, to let each other know “I am alive, I am safe”.

The “military professionals” were planning their counter-attack. They’d learned a few things, and began rounding up suspected indigenous military personnel to close one of the most gaping security holes. Sure, many were rounded up and had nothing to do with that day, but this never mattered before in military history so it didn’t really matter that day.

Militaries had learned that small arms were mostly ineffective against the sasquatch, but .50 caliber M2 machine guns worked quite well, and 20 mm BUSHMASTERS with sabot rounds made great work of the furry commandos. The various armed forces were rapidly deploying next-gen explosive rounds for their standard rifles, and engineering new designs for standard sidearms and rifles capable to taking out a sasquatch. The M-14, a 7.62mm rifle from the 1950’s was BROUGHT BACK TO LIFE, and with some modification redesigned to fire a modified .50 caliber round. Most of this work would take days, weeks, but it was good to know the bigfoot were not immortal or impervious.

At NORAD, Cheyenne Mountain, the remaining political and military leaders were licking their wounds and issuing orders to forces still capable of action.

President Jordan organized US FORCES CONUS (continental United States) from NORAD and a working and secure communications network was finally established the next day. Jordan met with the few cabinet officials he could save from the “Massacre of Washington”, or what they would later call it. Jordan took office during a time of division, and now it seemed the division had split open and the depths of Hades and its demons were escaping through. He had a son in the US Airforce, stationed in Japan, he had no idea if his son was live or dead.

Vice President Linda Wahl was not at NORAD. She had been visiting US forces in Hawaii when the attack started. She was native Hawaiian, and like many from her home state she had issues with the “USA” and its attitude towards places like Hawaii, or Guam, or Puerto Rico. She once called these places the “margins”, because no one cared unless margins mattered and they rarely did, till that day. Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico, became virtual safe zones for the US military and high command. Their indigenous people did not join with the sasquatch, and they were happy to keep that “axe to grind” in the closet, for now.

The 101st, 82nd, and 10th Mountain divisions redeployed to Puerto Rico.

The 25th division stayed at Hawaii, luckily they were just back from a deployment.

Various US Marine Corps units were attached to the carrier groups in the pacific after being loaded on transports. For now they would assemble at secret locations in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans.

A safe-zone was established at an unknown and top secret complex in Antarctica. Families of senators, corporate leaders, and other American splendids were sent to this base, “Camp Coolidge”, to wait out this conflict in relative safety.

President Jordan had already begun conversations with the Chinese and Russian militaries, and the world powers were forming working groups to put together a plan: a major counter attack to take out the sasquatch threat “once and for all”. They had poor intelligence, too much confidence, and not enough respect. A British scientist during one of the ZOOM CALLS said “maybe we need to pause, and listen, and try to talk to these … beings”. Everyone was silent, and then the facilitator, NATO General Doog-Stolz, smiled and continued the meeting. They simply ignored it, they could not hear it, this was not a time for reason or logic or commonsense. This was a time for revenge.

By the end of 10/13/2026, over 2 billion humans were wounded. Between 400 and 500 million, worldwide, were assumed missing or dead. The sasquatch were not some homogenous mass following standard order, every clan and gang had their own culture and ethics as it applied to WAR or conflict. Some of the clans, like the clan that captured Carl, merely wanted to “teach a lesson”, and only a few humans were killed. Other clans, more feverish and bloodthirsty, killed as many humans as they could. Sasquatch, generally, were not into torture per se, though they could conceive of clever punishments as ghastly as any Torquemada might imagine. Humans were great at torture, and by Wednesday, the next day, there were already hundreds of bigfoot, around the world, at black sites being tortured. The sasquatch felt this the way the crow knows the winter will be cold.

“Mr. President …”

“Yes.”

“Your son took part in the defense of Tokyo, he was wounded and died 4 hours ago.”

“Get out of here please …”

“Mr. President I have …”

“GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!”

President Jordan cried, sobbed, as Carl had, as so many others had that terrible day. But he took the job understanding the obligation and he knew the deal: he didn’t get to lose it, he didn’t get to fall apart.

President Jordan needed his rest, the next day they would begin planning the human counter attack.

I am NARD the “Story Teller”, a crow, and I am going to tell you a story.

At the beginning of time the great golden gyre spun, and the fires burned, and the light of the eternal realms glowed brightest. There was a silent harmony to all things, as the rock, the stone, created a chorus of emptiness. GREAT was the desolation, POSSIBLE was the coming dawn – when time was new.

When the first song was heard, it was the voice of a crow, crying out in the night, telling the world: “wake up”.

And so, life sprung from every corner, green and red and blue. Water flowed upon the wastelands, and the world became a garden and alive with possibility. This is what the crows believe, WE were here long before the funny apes, the humans.

The forest people or sasquatch were around long before the humans as well.

The BIGFOOT were intelligent, but in ways humans didn’t understand. They were kind and loving, they were passionate and sometimes possessed by a boiling rage. The forest people were dimensional travelers, not limited to the simple forms of experience humans enjoyed. They, the sasquatch, conceived of all things as much as was possible, they told stories and kept track of the stars. They were the explorers of portals, vortexes, and passageways between worlds, and the guardians of these “doorways”.

This might not be well known to many humans, but the bigfoot or sasquatch are capable of limited invisibility. The BIGFOOT are carbon based, but their carbon is old, crystalline, strong and yet flexible. Their molecules refract and redirect light, like an octopus or squid. They could be standing in front of you, in the woods, and you wouldn’t notice; they might be quietly observing you, “funny apes”, as you trounce and talk and prattle and pick and prod.

You funny apes “pack it out” from the woods, and then move back to your toilet cities to pack it in to the sewers, the rivers, the sea. THE SASQUATCH PEOPLE watch you. They sometimes visits your cities, they have been curious about humans, and observing them, for tens of thousands of years. There is probably one watching you right now, and you couldn’t tell – lucky for you they hate your smelly cities, and your cocaine nightmares.

For a long time, human and sasquatch lived side by side, and knew each other. The crow didn’t care about any of this.

The crows are above the ground level thinking, beyond scant concerns.

Our time is different, steeper, closer to infinity and yet too brief.

You don’t understand the crow, because you’re “funny” and not to be taken seriously. Your life appears long, but it is quite boring and dumb to crow folk; we do love your garbage.

The crow lives for about 7 or 8 of your human years, that’s those of us that live in sector-34-hotel or what you “funny apes” call the United States. We would probably live longer, but did I tell you we LOVE your fast food garbage? – we do.

In simple terms, one crow year is like 50 human years. We live in one day the bounty of a season of life, we breathe fast the air of freedom and coarseness. We were the whisperers for great authors and artists, thinkers and other human wanderers and rebels. Humans pretended to know our wisdom, Nietzsche got the closest, but he was too soon.

But, as I said, I am Nard, and I tell stories.

This story is the tale of how one day, after a long term set of grievances and insults, the sasquatch people had enough. They were curious as much as tolerant, and the “funny apes” were often hilarious, their antics, their inventions, their means of achieving a kind of sublime laziness only a crow could appreciate. But the “funny apes” weren’t always so funny.

Humans loved war, and then learned to build even BIGGER BOMBS for war. They, the humans, built bombs big enough that the earth shook when they exploded. One day, the day before Halloween 1961, the humans went too far.

Some of these clever and funny monkeys figured out a way to capture the sun in a bottle, and others decided to make the biggest BANG ever. The blast from that explosion shook the world, the forest people, everywhere on Earth came alive, awake, from late autumn sleep. They could smell the metal of the Earth dissolving, they felt the cry of the frozen lands, the Yeti, cohort of the ICE, cried a scream that was heard from Nepal to Newark, NJ (where I live). This triggered a calling of the FIRST WAR COUNCIL.

At the meeting of the FIRST WAR COUNCIL the forest people argued, discussed, drank mead and tried to find balance – balance is everything to the sasquatch. They do not expect perfection, “perfection is for funny apes who go nowhere” as so many would say. The BIGFOOT believed “balance” or the acceptance of equilibrium and normal give and take of life was possible, if a being had the wisdom for it. They knew the world was terrible and amazing, it could be quite beautiful, but that doesn’t mean it is beautiful.

FUN FACT: another name for “human” in the language of the sasquatch is stoogis (pronounced: stew-giz), roughly translated “messy folk”. The messy folk were, to the sasquatch, a curiosity. For most of the Age of Stoogis, the messy folk mainly built cities, piling themselves upon each other, building mountains of stone and brick and filling some local river with their stoogis waste – it wasn’t pretty, but it was limited in scope, restricted, and often doomed in the end.

It was roughly 300 years ago that the sasquatch people noticed something new. The stoogis began building machines – machines of black and smoke, machines of noise and clatter, machines that moved faster and faster. Sasquatch understood machines, they just didn’t need them. If a bigfoot needed some amazing gadget or thing-a-ma-bob, they had allies in nearby dimensions, a portal jump away; those other peoples were wiser, more advanced than stoogis.

It was during the “Great Smoke” as the sasquatch called it, or World War two, that the bigfoot began noticing a greater and far more dangerous eventuality – the creation of technology for undoing all of creation. There were forest people at Hiroshima and Nagasaki when those cities were destroyed with the first atom bombs in 1945. All the sasquatch remember the clamor and screams, not just of the other bigfoot, not just of the stoogis being burnt alive, but of nature crying; they, sasquatch, from all over the world, could feel the tears, the sadness, of nature. Nature cried for several months.

At the FIRST WAR COUNCIL there was heated debate about “what to do” generally, the bigfoot eschewed WAR. They were okay with limited engagements for limited goals, but they did not understand the blood thirsty side of stoogis or what the funny apes called “total war”.

Side note: “funny” doesn’t really translate for the bigfoot people. In their language it usually means two things – a) pathetic and b) tricky. And to be “tricky” among the sasquatch is to be not trustworthy.

The forest people remember what happened to the Neanderthal – how “funny apes” were really good at lying. Bigfoot understood lies, and I can tell you crows have always told the best lies – for fun. But the human lies ran deeper, uglier, and they were so believable.

The Neanderthal people were kind, connected, much like the bigfoot and the other sentient creatures that lived on Earth tens of thousands of years ago. But stoogis would trick them, they would tell tales of the moon and the sky, they would claim power over the tides and the volcanoes, they were gifted “counters” as the bigfoot would say and it was the stoogis who created mathematics. And so it was, long ago, piece by piece, village by village, the stoogis or homo sapiens killed and raped the Neanderthal out of existence. Gentleness or kindness was a mental obstacle for stoogis, many saw it as weakness; the few stoogis who knew kindness to be strength were forced to hide, to cower, to watch as this atrocity was carried out. These events transpired over a few centuries of time, 65K years ago, as the crow folk recall.

But I am getting off topic …

The FIRST WAR COUNCIL lasted 12 days – because the bigfoot had never called a war council, they were unsure as to the agenda.

The CLEEVUS or jungle bigfoot of Africa and South America demanded justice.

The Tagan-Clan of Canada were not clear on what the outcomes would be, and they tended to worry a lot.

The few forest people left alive from Europe were battered and worn, filled with distress. The war had been over for almost 20 years, but they were still recovering and then there had been Stalin, and his secret wars to destroy the sasquatch. The European bigfoot chose to remain silent at the meeting, they wanted no more pain.

The most respected bigfoot there was Bordo – Bordo was a sasquatch from California, near Eureka. He had fought skirmishes with loggers and hunters, so he knew something of human violence and their weapons. Towards the end of the council, when nothing would be or could be agreed upon – these councils required unanimous consent – Bordo stood up to speak, it was June 14, 1962:

The world is built upon life and the kiss of the Moon and stars. The world is made of movement and dance, and we know this, we’ve always known this.

When we first met the stoogis, they were what they still are: small and cold and frightened and tricky. Our compassion led us to help, and to nurture. We even stood by as the yoog-folk (Neanderthal) were wiped out, all of them, their men killed, their treasures stolen, their women defiled, their children eaten. We thought, didn’t we, as a people ‘they will learn’, because WE SEE THE LINE OF TIME and we know the depth of eternity.

But our sense of importance and beauty never really worked with them, the tricky apes, the hairless monkeys, the stoogis. 

Our tribes and clans taught, and some humans found balance – but so many were impatient, wanting to know things that they were not prepared to know.

The CREATOR says ‘make your home a garden’, the stoogis say ‘MAKE YOUR HOME BIG’ … we took pity and laughed, and then not so long ago, as our own people were destroyed in THEIR WAR, we stopped laughing and took notice.

They are clever, they are counters, they have means of recording all and yet no means of understanding or remembering beyond the ‘it is mine’ perspective. And when their leaders attempt justice? - it ends in murder, rounding up other stoogis and killing them without honor, without respect, we saw this in the last war too and our people among the CLOB-TRIBES (USSR/communist Russia) are still being put in places of murder TODAY!

So I understand the heat of CLEEVUS clans, and their voices are heard, but I am going to offer a compromise and a pause. I say we give them more time – perhaps a humpton-age (about 40 years). They have young and the young can often learn where the old are too scared to learn. THEREFORE, we must give their brood time to think, to meditate, to consider.

If in the next humpton-age these tricky apes do not change, then we have no choice – I WILL NOT HEAR THE EARTH CRY AGAIN AND BE SILENT AND REFLECTIVE, I WILL NOT FEEL THE TEARS OF THIS GARDEN AGAIN!

There is no balance in needless murder.

The other members of the council heard this, they stood up and cheered.

Bordo preached caution against war with the stoogis, but he also set conditions.

Bordo’s words touched most, and the CLEEVUS were assuaged, knowing that “their time will come”, for they didn’t expect the tricky little people to change. The CLEEVUS had long memories, and as bigfoot they lived a long time, so they would wait, see, and prepare for WAR.

You may not know this, but crows know this: there are many thousands of sasquatch tribes, covens, claggit-gangs and strob-armies on Earth at any given time.

The total number of sasquatch living on Earth, or traversing dimensions near Earth, can be measured in BILLIONS. Billions of 12-15 foot tall hairy creatures, capable of sprinting up to 50 MPH, and jogging, for hours, at 25 MPH. They can hurl a three hundred pound rock a third of a mile, and toss a tree spear up to a full mile. They can see as well at night, in pitch black, as during the day – and their hearing is considered better than bats. They use echo location to find their way sometimes, and can carry on low-frequency “hum chats” with other sasquatch around the world. All without technology, all given to them by the CREATOR.

BTW: a “claggit-gang” is a group of 400-500 sasquatch that roam the remote parts of this world and other desolate planets. They are foragers and hunters, often hunting ceremonially, and sometimes they hunt people. When someone disappears in a forest, and another clever monkey says “holy crap, where’s Uncle Harold?” – this could have been another victim of a claggit-gang. These gangs were formed after the FIRST GREAT INSULT, when the humans tricked and stole and murdered the Neanderthal peoples, and were on the first rung of shunning. Many rungs on that ladder would follow.

Strob-armies are YETI ARMIES, primarily in Siberia and Asia.

Strob-armies are motivated by honor and adventure, and seek after gold and silver and spice and rubies and tasty meals.

There are thought to be, according to crow reports, millions of yeti in these armies, hiding in seclusion, nestled in the Himalayas. It is possible that some of these forces fought along side Chiang Kai-shek during the Chinese Civil War. It is thought that Mao Zedong had special arrangements with these strob-armies and they protected him during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). Hard to say – but these are the pirate sasquatch, the adventurers, soldiers for hire in more than one dimension.

The FIRST WAR COUNCIL ended with a decision to WAIT. And so, time passed.

It was after Fukushima in 2011 that the high council of the sasquatch people was called to meeting AGAIN, at the SECOND WAR COUNCIL. The meeting was held at Tyg’s Bluff in South Dakota, not far from an abandoned gold mine. Tyg’s Bluff was a old boom/bust town from the Old West, and now it was just several dilapidated buildings along a dirt road, surrounded by forest and stone.

“All to order”, cried the high-lord of forest wardens.

“ALL TO ORDER! Take your spot …”, screamed his assistant.

The high-lord was named Kordos, he was a sasquatch from the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state.

Kordos was 13 feet tall, weighed 800 pounds, and had seen a great deal. A sasquatch can live up to 500 human years, and this can be a lot for any being to handle, if what they do is watch, listen, observe. He’d seen human wars, revolutions, and greed, he’d seen their beauty and their love too. He knew them to be mercurial creatures, dangerous, but also willing to sacrifice on occasion. He did not want war, but he knew that many bigfoot did and the stoogis had been given a chance.

Kordos had a stoogis or human friend named Debra.

Debra was an anthropologist from the University of Washington in Seattle, and had spent her time in graduate school studying the Salish people of the Pacific Northwest. Debra understood much of the sasquatch language, and their use of gestures to “fill in the gaps” of syntax. She also knew they had a spooky, if not explicable, way of knowing what some other sasquatch was thinking – mind reading? – not exactly. The sasquatch used gestures but also a kind of low frequency bone clicking – like a weird dance, they could send a pulse around the world, transmitting simple ideas of exceptional importance.

Debra and Kordos met while she was exploring the forests of the Olympic Peninsula, and they had what could only be described as a love affair, not impossible between sasquatch and stoogis, but exceedingly rare and thought to be disgusting by most crows. Crows can’t mate with humans and we are glad, we have songs about this joy.

“Are you real?”, was the first thing Debra said to Kordos.

“Are you kind?”, was his response – he did speak a little of the stoogis language.

They had no children, even though it was not impossible, and very disgusting to crows when it did happen.

The SECOND WAR COUNCIL was held in April 2012.

Debra was at this meeting, as an observer ONLY. Rarely were humans (stoogis) invited into the inner circle of the sasquatch. Debra was respectful and kind and generally ignored or tolerated by the bigfoot.

Debra listened as best she could; still not fully understanding the intricacy of sasquatch communication, but she got the gist. She knew they were talking about humans, and she could tell they were angry, angrier than she’d ever seen any person, human or bigfoot, ever become. Something about that primordial rage scared her, because she understood it was REAL and JUSTIFIED.

“… our children are dying, our waters are unclean … the salmon are covered in scars and illness, the seashores are becoming gray …” said Tuul of Oregon.

“… they know only filth and death and tricks … we’ve had 200,000 years of their tricks … I’m tired of their tricks.” – said Cur of England.

“… there is an intolerable smell to what they did, dark and sticky and overwhelming in its demons … our people who live near the GREAT SCAR (Fukushima) cry each night, for themselves and the wretched stoogis … the time for patience is over …” – said Xono of Japan.

A representative of the CLEEVUS was about to speak, when Debra broke into the conversation: “I know I have no privileges here, no right to be heard. It is not my place to defend the stoogis, though I am one of them. But I ask for more time. I think the recent events will awaken a spirit, a renewal, in my people and I only ask that you think on this a little longer before attacking the stoogis.”

“YOU SPEAK LIES TRICKY WOMAN!”, yelled Dirg of the CLEEVUS. Dirg was from South Africa, and had seen so clearly what humans do, to the land, to each other.

“I am not lying, I am touching the Earth.” Debra kneeled down and placed her left hand on her left knee, and her right hand palm down onto the ground – this is a sign of honesty and submission among sasquatch.

“TRICK, LIES, TRICK, LIES – she lay with Kordos in his forest wallow and now she pretends to be like you and I, BUT LOOK! She is dirty and tricky and filled with lies.”

“I speak my truth.”

“You speak as you can, you cannot help but to deceive …”, Dirg paused in his speech, knowing that the tricky apes were themselves susceptible to deception. “But I am an honorable and fair being, and I propose a trade Kordos! We give the dirty deceivers 14 more years, human years, for a price!”

Kordos knew Dirg was angry and himself a gifted speaker and conjurer of schemes, so he asked a question fearing the answer: “What do you propose?”

“I propose a FLESH-OFFERING!”

And the crowd gathered at that abandoned town in South Dakota screamed with joy, through Dirg’s clicks and hums and low frequency dance, they all knew what he was proposing, all except Debra.

“This is the stain of stoogis on you!”, responded Kordos.

“You are the stained one!”, replied Dirg.

Kordos looked at Debra, with sadness.

Dirg looked at Debra with blood lust.

Debra stayed in her position of submission, sensing that things were about to get dire.

“14 more years of human arrogance is a small sacrifice to be sure of our cause”, Kordos said. “And Dirg is right, the time of half measures is over – I have lived over 400 years and my time will be over soon enough. I agree with Dirg of the CLEEVUS – we cannot simply let this insult pass, so I accept the need for a flesh offering on one condition: that my final wish be law, and by law none shall question.”

“What trick is this Kordos?”, Dirg spoke with a noticeable hesitation.

“No trick, no joke, no smile, no more words, if a flesh sacrifice can be acceptable, then I, as high-lord, must be the sacrifice! It was under my watch that the GREAT SCAR formed, and it was my counsel that led us to this point.”

“What do you want?”

“That after I am dead you elect a WAR LEADER to prepare our people, and also watching, with sincerity, for any change among the stoogis and that Debra be allowed to return to her world, if only as a messenger, if only to give the stoogis a chance to change.”

Debra knew what the words meant, she leapt up and ran to Kordos, and held him, holding onto his right leg, crying tears of love and sadness.

“You can’t do this”, but she knew he must so her words were subdued. “I am responsible”, Kordos said, but he knew he had never loved anyone as much as her.

The sasquatch people allowed Debra and Kordos one final night, and in the morning, near the Stone of Wrath (a burial ground from older times), Kordos was sacrificed and his spirit returned to the sky. The SECOND WAR COUNCIL was over.

The elders spent their time, over the coming months, deciding, determining, and discussing who should be their war leader; eventually they decided upon Dirg of the CLEEVUS.

Debra returned to lecture at the University of Washington, she knew there were a dozen years that separated humanity from the worst disaster no human could imagine – something so ugly, that the mere sight of it would cause many to drop dead. She spoke at conferences, she wrote articles on the need to address Fukushima, but the humans played games and watched movies and raped and stole and invaded their neighbor’s lands. They committed greater crimes in order to steal the black blood of the Earth (oil), and they squandered the little time they had left, no knowing or understanding the Sword of Damocles that hung over them. Ignorance is bliss, and for humans ignorance is a deeply addictive drug.

One night Debra heard a song, an old song, that Kordos had loved “Just one of those things” sung by Frank Sinatra. She cried, as she remembered their time together. Debra did not give up trying to raise alarm about Fukushima, the state of the natural world, and the madness that led the human race to this point. Her colleagues mocked her, she barely made tenure, and was left with one freshman class “INTRO TO HUMANS” anthropology 101 and a basement office near the boiler.

And the sasquatch? – they prepared, Dirg prepared. They formed alliances with the orca whales and the raccoon and squirrels and coyotes. The wolves, like the crow, were neutral – they would be happy eating any of the dead. Other forest creatures also decided to stay out of it, and promised to not interfere with what must be done. Humans had no allies.

The years passed, and the humans grew dumber.

Human children were abused and sold, human old people were tossed into the streets.

Dirg, and others, saw no evidence that it was “getting better” instead, the stoogis piled one insult upon another. They were even teaching their machines now, brilliant machines, to be as tricky and evil as them.

Dirg sent out the WAR CRY on October the 1^st, 2026, a hum, a vibration, heard around the world.

It was eerily quiet those days following the WAR CRY, even human newscasters reported a strange “calmness” among the intemperate masses of hairless monkeys.

And then there was Carl and Trevor.

Unbeknownst to Carl and Trevor – two men who lived in a camper near Port Angeles WA – there was a company or roughly 200 sasquatch organizing near the tree line, not far from their campfire.

Carl and Trevor were old friends – they worked on boats and crabbed and fished and drank and smoked. They would argue till midnight about the most obscure topics, to include aliens, monsters, ghosts, weird stuff, and BIGFOOT.

“Something weird is going on Trev.”

“Huh.”

“I get this feeling that the clouds are angry and the trees have eyes.”

Carl had just consumed 4 tabs of premium LSD he’d bought in Vancouver BC. Carl wasn’t a heavy drug user, and he hadn’t done LSD since he dropped out of college several decades earlier.

“I got this sensation, on my spine, of harbingers … bringers of destruction and pain.”

“What the fuck does that even mean Carl?”

“It’s like the world is our stage, and our work is a cage, and the monsters live in the cracks at work and they stare at me, and I stare back.”

“Did you just start your in-between job at Joe’s?”

“In-between jobs” were gigs these fisherman did between fishing. They chopped wood, logged, and sometimes did some grow work for a local cannabis farmer named Joe Slagan. Joe paid well, and Carl was a gifted handyman and hard worker; this was a Friday night, after work, and both men were satisfied with their oasis in the woods.

“Joe’s great … great … but the cracks in the world are widening, and the various realms are at odds.”

“Carl, you took too much acid.”

“I didn’t, I took the government recommended amount.”

The men laughed, and then Trevor heard a sound, like branches breaking, ground being crushed.

“Are the bears back?”, Trevor muttered.

Trevor and Carl’s place was near Hurricane Ridge, and periodically a hungry bear would wander into their camp and look for food. So it seemed the “bear was back”.

“Trev … that’s not a bear, that’s our chastisement”, Carl said these words, looking up to a clear night and a full moon.

“Sure Carl.”

“I mean it, the forest people are angry and we’ve given THEM reasons because we’re assholes, but we don’t think we’re assholes so that makes it way worse.”

“Forest people? What the fuck Carl.”

“The Wookie, the bigfoot, the forest people … you can feel it.”

“I don’t feel nothing, I’ve been drinking Jack all night and I don’t care if the forest people come by.”

“Don’t mock them Trev.”

“I will.”

“Don’t mock’em … they see you.”

“THERE IS NO FUCKING BIGFOOT! I GET SO FUCKING SICK OF THIS SASQUATCH NONSENSE. NO WAY SOMETHING LIKE THAT LIVES IN THE WOODS. WHAT’S YOUR FUCKING PROBLEM!”, Trevor was belligerent and tired. Trevor paused his ranting for a moment, and then peered with squinted eyes, past the fire, past the fog, into the woods. At that moment a tree spear, tossed by a lower level and younger sasquatch named Jiblis, hit Trevor square in the chest. Trevor’s last words were: “fuck”.

Carl, high on LSD and whiskey and weed, instinctively got on the ground and held his hands up. Carl didn’t have a driver’s license because he’d been pulled over a few times for intoxicated driving. He was lucky, what he did as a reflex saved his life.

THE WORLD WAS WAKING UP …

The sasquatch were storming out of the hills and woods and fields and swamps that night: from Seattle to Chicago, from Maine to Florida, from Tibet to Toledo to Chile and Siberia; everywhere on the Earth, the forest people were waging war.

Humans were shocked, caught off guard, paralyzed and stunned.

Many software engineers at Microsoft, in Redmond, who’d been working late, saw the armies, carrying torches and spears and hammers made from stone and steel, storming angrily out of the Cascade foothills. They, in their high tech world, saw as their cars were smashed, and everything was turned upside down.

On Wall Street, bankers and other kinds of grifters, were shocked and amazed at the sudden appearance of bigfoot from Central Park: “how could they be there? Where were they coming from”, questions too big for the tiny tricky lying mind of a human financial analyst.

The world was spinning the other direction now.

Trevor was dead, a giant spear sticking out of him.

Carl was captured, a prisoner, being led to a makeshift camp in the deep woods of the Olympic Mountains.

Governments were in panic, some were preparing to launch nuclear weapons; none too sure where to target the nukes.

Carl was right: “the forest people are pissed off, today is chastisement day”.

*****

NOTES:

Chapter 1 – Casus Belli

Chapter 2 – Chastisement Day

Chapter 3 – The Battle of Denver

Chapter 4 – The Song of Debra

Chapter 5 – Winter’s Touch

Chapter 6 – Queen of Seattle

Chapter 7 – Texas is Burning

Chapter 8 – Pine Barrens

Chapter 9 – Sacrifice

Chapter 10 – Crow Funeral

Chapter 11 – Armistice