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here's a book reading from the book
Eagles in the Flesh a wild hang gliding adventure
by Erik B Kaye chapter 1
riders on the storm
HELP
Here I am and I think I'm gonna die
this is what's going through my mind as my teammates CG and I are being yanked
backwards through the atmosphere all I can do is pray
pray that what I see happening to him is it gonna happen to me
both of us viewing the earth below both know it's sight
is now luxury a luxury that is not going to last
we've left ourselves no way out no way to escape
it's time to LIVE or DIE
three hundred feet above us is an enormous storm cloud
its dark spinning bottom looks like an upside-down whirl pool
it's center hole trying to suck us in thousands of feet below us
the precious earth looks like a wrinkled piece of soft green
felt diving or hang gliders noses pointed straight down
wings bucking violently racing futilely for the ground my mind
blaming my teammate for all the things gone wrong
my hands grip the control bar tightly
like a trapeze artist without a net while I will the glider goal faster
prayed for it not to break inside my helmeted head
rush panic sweat and terror
the wrong cloud the wrong place
the wrong time me in CG
flyer hang gliders beyond the manufactured stated speed limit not to
exceed
the gliders push 70 miles per hour as we travel backwards
and the verge getting sucked up uncontrollably up into
a huge black in white Lightening included
cumulonimbus storm cloud like Icarus
in the ancient Greek legends we have flown to close a danger
we have pushed each other too far our ego's they're outta control
dragging us under the bottom up the massive sucking whirlpool
there are plenty of reasons why we got here
because I I am the young upstart pilot was trying outperform the older more
experienced CG
that old man taught me well over the last few years
too well it may be cocky an overconfident
and now it's the student competing against the teacher
no scratch that its student plus a teacher
competing against Mother Nature her new rules of survival
constantly changing she shows us no mercy
she drags hired through the atmosphere today subject
how to fly hang glider fast enough to escape the overpowering currents that
are getting vacuumed up into the bottom
other all-clad we are trapped under the cloud
a two rats scrambling on a slippery tile floor
trying to escape from being sucked up into an industrial vacuum cleaner
the nozzle the vacuum the center of the world for dragging us into a huge cloud
with their gliders pointed towards Earth trying to go down
Flying forward as fast as their aerodynamic design will allow
we're still getting sucked up backwards our progress
incorrect we enter the bottom
of the angry cloud tail first
upon entering the storm all my eyesight
goes white many shades of white bright white
grey/white dirty white a big room filled with white terror
oh yeah and panic I can feel the sweat
leaking from my helmet rolling down my forehead and blowing into my eyes
but it's salty blindness doesn't matter
because on both sides of my eyelids I can see nothing
strong winds forced tears from my eyes
causing my sunglasses to ice over Thunder cracks inside the storm cloud
shaking my brains
frustration fear anger terror panic
powerful emotions churn like an electrical current between my
ears
if I wanna live I think I gotta relax
I gotta focus, focus on what
everything inside is cloud is a white soaking hell
relax how the violent turbulence inside the cloud
is thwarting my efforts keeping the glider from flipping over and breaking
my mind begins losing to PANIC
I begin feeling small scared
insignificant lost in this vast turbulent wet
cold white room. Feeling like a rat in a spinning clothes dryer
half-full of wet snow, my eyelid start icing up
all 10 fingers freezing, my mouth
gulping against their sickness
Oh God I pray get me outta here live
and I will never fly again. My arms start to tire
my instruments are covered in frost The wing
is handling lethargically acting like it is covered in ice
I am losing track Reality losing track of
time. How long have I been in here
I can see help me CG
I want my MOM
I think I'm gonna *** my pants and Die
and yet I'm strangely concern me to rescue crew finding me with poop in my
pants
and just as I'm contemplating my mortifying end
I see a patch a blue over there at the clouds border
I dive for the Blue but he keeps moving away
torturing me like a moving target a target found in an amusement park booth
where the gun is manipulated and one hundred dollars wasted
to get three-dollar teddy bear I finally hit the elusive target
my reward punching out the side of the Tall
white cloud into the bright
blue blinding sky. Oh what a feeling
I am free from that monster thank God
but just when I think I am saved I am NOT
Oh no disoriented and alone
the earth thousands of feet below me the features her surface
are not making sense where in the hell am I?
Cool water droplets run down my face the
ice melting away the numbers on the defrosted altimeter
displaying an astonishing 17,500 feet
my fingers start thawing my mind enjoys that pain
the pain of life but that tall evil cloud
the one with the white room the one that tried to kill me
the one I've just flown out the side of the one they climbs' straight up to
35,000 feet
the one now thousands of feet below me the one I was running away from as fast
as my wing could fly
the one that makes me feel like an insect running from a toppling
skyscraper
that one terrifying cloud It's rrite over there
holy *** a total rush of hope One of those flashes you remember for the rest of your life
about 200 feet below me and half a mile distant
racing for the light I spot my teacher my best friend
CG with my head clearing
sunglasses drying pants clean
I am starting to recognize the features of the earth again
we are deep over the West elk wilderness
a landscaped huge timber covered mountains without roads
and no places to land. Seeing CG flying off into the distance
headed for the highway in a better life I am on its tail.
We escape from the storm figure out where we are
and head south and the West Elk mountains our next danger
like we need more danger flying over the Black Canyon
a two thousand foot deep black gorge cut into the dark rock
by a white raging river and living along its rim
in unfriendly tall green forest
we have endured the violence the
ice the turbulence and the white room
all that is left in our path for survival
is crossing the Black Canyon
then I hear it a sound that makes me ill
a sound that no hang glider pilot ever mistake
like two metal baseball bats hitting each other head-on at full swing
the sharp sound of crack snapping Aluminum Modern-day hang gliders
made out of Carbon fiber Heavy-duty Dacron
space age Mylar sailcloth, steel cables
and aircraft grade aluminum. The olden days a bamboo and plastic are long gone
replaced by wings built sleek fast stable
and strong. Manufactures up this type aircraft
put their reputations and lives on the line to perfect the wings they build
and if I may be so bold as to say it
A hang gliding ring is a marvel of modern
aviation these wings we fly are created on drawing boards by designers
perfected on computers by engineers tested on the back seat trucks
in wind tunnels and taken to the air by Top Gun test pilots
an amateur adventures like me in CG
and are insane crew a fellow pilots affectionately known as
Gangreen. For ten years this team of green-clad
pilots tested every way possible to break hang gliders
automobiles hearts rules
and our minds. In this particular case
the structural glider test being performed by CG
is a full dive reaching 70 miles per hour
under a thunderhead attempting to escape the tractor being suction
created by a building storm cloud while being bounced around by ruthless
turbulence
like a golf ball in a cement mixer. This is definitely
not in the manual we cross the last the mountain range
and are closing in on the rim in the Black Canyon the lease perfect time for
his glider that break
when it breaks and goes boom it is ugly
ugly ugly his glider snapped in half
both slapping together pinning CG in the middle
pinning him in the center of the wreckage like a walnut in the center
of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich
his body encased inside the white Wonder Bread
CG in gravities control is tossed sideways
and begin spinning and if a plane in a world war two movie
with one wing lost and goes into is spinning
death spiral after three revolutions
the disasters to succumbs to gravity and rotates vertically
tumbling unevenly a flat tire gyrating
through the sky aluminum tubing
tears through the sail white and green cloth
flaps like a sheet in the wind the sail contours around his body
looking like lovers wrapped up in white sheets
I watch he and his lover and entwined as one
continues tumbling over and over falling toward the earth
it is the most helpless I have ever felt
watching as this once beautiful glider its wreckage imprisoning CG
falls through the sky taking my friend away I watch CG struggling for his
life
his limbs continue to fight the wreckage
the ruins dropping further away spiraling down towards the earth
a sumo wrestler wedged in a coffin tumbling out of an airplane
his fight for escape.
Unprepared prepared to give in and Die struggling against a heavy G-forces hindering his
survival
CG battles the falling flapping wreckage
and continues to reach for the handle of his emergency parachute
but gravity is winning and he is glider continue tumbling end over end.
CG is falling to is doom
the earth is coming up fast, too fast
his luck is running out goodbye
CG
from the center of the distraction out past the wreckage
into the blue sky a package of life flies
CG's emergency parachute comes alive like a jellyfish
floating in the sky its canopy opening beautifully slowing his dissent
and of course it is green because CG
get a hard-on all over anything green
thank God you say the poor man's troubles are now all over
but oh no CG's troubles are just about to begin
CG is dropping towards the ground strapped to a broken
tumbling hang glider under storm cloud that wants to kill him
riding an emergency parachute four thousand feet above the earth
centered over the 2000 foot deep Black Canyon
having no other choice but to negotiate my own troubles
I fly beyond the canyon and lose sight of CG
I've had enough fun for one day deciding at this point
then I can outdo CG's present performance
and I begin searching for a safe place to land
vowing to help out later by identifying his body
once they drag it out of the canyon.