The Unofficial I Love Karen Daniels Thread

July 16, 2019

She still looks pretty damn good in GTA V if you ask me.

July 16, 2019

41 minutes ago, CanadianMuscle said:

She still looks pretty damn good in GTA V if you ask me.

At the risk of sounding like the shallow sexist I am, GTAV Karen from the neck down, especially in that bikini , I agree completely. Even her face is cute enough, still, from some angles - love Karen's lips and her eyes. But the hairstyle - what the hell were they thinking??!!

July 16, 2019

2 hours ago, saintsrow said:

Besides, face it guys, we're hardwired so that the younger version of a woman is often more attractive than the older version, in reality.

Often, maybe.

I'm not convinced this is always the case:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/7LGnCaSwtVmFRHWP8

July 16, 2019

3 hours ago, saintsrow said:

This, I have to admit, is true.

Ignoring the graphics progress, Rockstar aged Karen in terms of facial shape and features, in a way which mostly didn't do her any favors. WTF were they thinking??!! They used their judgment in the way they created the older Karen model ( "Soccer mom" and "I want to speak to the manager."), and I don't agree with most of it, except the beautifully matured curves and the melons   .

The hairstyle is no gift, either . GTAV Karen looks like a younger Amy Klobuchar, and that's not a good thing, at all..  Besides, face it guys, we're hardwired so that the younger version of a woman is often more attractive than the older version, in reality. That's not a limitation in the virtual world, but unfortunately, Rockstar didn't see it that way  GRRRR!!!

My love for our dear Karen is not blind. I acknowledge that Rockstar did Karen a terrible graphical injustice in GTAV. However ... they made Karen BADASS, and that is what matters. The script, and the voice acting, and her potential as a character, is what  captured my heart  .

This man will love Karen even when she is wrinkly at 90 years old. He's still gonna go in balls deep.

July 16, 2019

On 7/15/2019 at 8:58 AM, Zello said:

V Karen is ugly.

IV Karen was hot back when she was younger.

4 hours ago, saintsrow said:

Ignoring the graphics progress, Rockstar aged Karen in terms of facial shape and features, in a way which mostly didn't do her any favors. WTF were they thinking??

Smoking and aging does that to people ...

July 16, 2019

13 hours ago, IceDree said:

Smoking and aging does that to people ...

For real world people, yes, smoking and aging does a job on their appearance, before their time. But Rockstar chose to make Karen's shape more mature than the equivalent of her younger shape. They aged her shape about 12 years or more, when the time gap between games was only 5 years. They didn't add wrinkles, though.

And actually, now that I have contemplated at length on our dear Karen's beautiful looks overnight [I said contemplated, not masturbated], I think her shape, including her face, is fine, if just a bit too matured for the short number of years between the Niko era of 2008 and the Karen IAA era of 2013, as I said Another problem is the overly mature hairstyle they gave her.

Bad moves, Rockstar. I don't care if GTAV / GTA Online is the biggest single media property in history, you guys done Karen wrong; you aged her too much. Why you do dat, Rockstar????

July 16, 2019

^^ Maybe she's just trying to duck the pervs.

Or something like:

"Don't hate me because I'm beautiful."

Very savvy on Karen's parts...er...part.

July 17, 2019

4 hours ago, Lance Mayhem said:

^^ Maybe she's just trying to duck the pervs.

Or something like:

"Don't hate me because I'm beautiful."

Very savvy on Karen's parts...er...part.

Pervs? There ain't no pervs around here ... you seen any pervs 'round here, Cletus? No? Din't think so. Me neither. Nothin' but fine upstandin' young men here, fer sure.

July 17, 2019

4 minutes ago, saintsrow said:

Nothin' but fine upstandin' young men here, fer sure.

This thread has certainly brought together a lot of upstanding members.

Forum members, I mean.

July 17, 2019

OK, dear Karen fans, here is one more chapter of mostly talk, but at the end of this chapter, the ACTION starts! Don't miss it!!

Continued from Chapter 30.

CHAPTER 31: Pain from the Past (Part 21): Brazilian Getaway Special / Thor’s Hammer

“Sitting on the rose gold bed, Max and I talked briefly about plans for the next couple of days, referring to the tour books. We both agreed that, after we role-played oblivious tourists, just for today, I would stay here an extra day or two, while he would take a bus out of Recife tomorrow morning, and head inland, going to Primavera, for his first stop. With a smirk, Max said, again, that he’d occasionally do something a little bit uncivil, to help people remember him, as he traveled, so any detective on the trail would likely follow him from one witness to the next.

“I could imagine Max making a scene. But he was probably already memorable enough, even without that extra effort, being the tall, cynical gringo that he was. He said he’d go random places inland, trying to act like a tourist just bumming around, with no particular place to go, saying, ‘And, in fact, that’s just what I’ll be. After this little wilderness adventure with you, I *need* the rest,’ he said. He looked pointedly at me, with a wink, and smiled.

“Then Max headed to his room. As he was closing the adjoining door, he said, ‘I’ve got to practice my yoga,’ smiling with that Max smirk, so I knew how sarcastic he was being, adding, ‘so I don’t want to be disturbed before lunchtime.’

“Max probably sensed that I needed some downtime. Well, actually, maybe he needed it, too – I remembered Max’s emotional breakdown this morning – he was probably still recovering. He continued, ‘And I need to take a shower.’ He was right about that.

“Click. The door closed.

“I was awake and free to think, alone, not distracted at the moment by active escape activity, for the first time in a couple of days. So much had changed, from my blind, desperate escape, when Max had saved my ass, to the furtive new lifestyle I was running now. I really had to get psychologically prepared to get along without Max. It was going to be a big adjustment for me, and not a comfortable one. But it had to be done; it was my only hope, and would have had to happen anyway, soon enough.

“I wished that Max would stay another day – I thought I might adapt better. But I could manage it, I knew now. Tomorrow morning would be OK. I could already feel my emotional momentum starting to shift – subconscious plans, and the hazy feeling of anticipation of my independence, starting to build.

“After a little rest, I took a shower, and then I tried on my new clothes, with the wigs, just to get a sense for how the outfits would fit and feel. I decided to pair the blonde wig with the sun dress. I’d use the black wig and my straw hat with the pedal pusher / clamdigger outfit. I could tape and pin up the black hair extensions inside the straw hat, so that the hat would be associated with a long-haired girl, and I could make an instant transition, back to the black-haired bob, with no hat, if I needed to make a quick change.

“The disguises felt right. As I put on the outfits, I naturally began to develop, to feel, an associated persona with each one. A different body language, and a different gait, for each. I’d practiced those skills, both in my original, coerced undercover work for the Agency, as well as in subsequent training. It felt good, and natural, to use the skills again.

“I still needed a pair of flip flops, another hat, maybe just a visor, to go with the sun dress, and a couple of different tote bags, and I felt the need to add a scarf to one of the outfits, at some point. I didn’t want over-analyze my fashion choices, just go with what felt intuitive, to fit the artificial persona I would adopt with each outfit. I felt that things were coming together. I put my jeans and shirt back on.

“It seemed, at first thought, that I shouldn’t start wearing the new outfits until got to the next city. I needed to make a clean break between my appearance here, associated with Max, versus my new personas, alone, in the next cities north.

“But then I started to wonder about the best way to do this. What good would it be if I were seen in my original jeans-and-shirt outfit on the next bus I took, going north, up the coast? That seemed like a bad idea. The jeans-and-shirt girl would have to disappear here in Recife, end of the line for her, and for her colorful fashion hat.

“I thought, though, I’d wear my current jeans-and-shirt outfit, complete with the rainbow-colored hat, to accompany Max to the bus station, so, if we were eventually tracked here in this city via security cameras and witnesses, it would seem like maybe I went with him on his bus trip inland, away from my real route on up the coast. But I wouldn’t be with him on the cameras at his destination, or thereafter, so what did it matter? Maybe I could give my colorful hat to a woman getting on the bus, or just have Max leave it on the bus, for someone to find, and then it might at least create a bit of confusion at the destination. Hmmm …

“Would I need a one-time, throwaway outfit for the bus trip? It seemed logical. A bit of a complication …

“And then I had a sudden thought – on the bus to Aracaju, a woman in a work uniform had sat beside me. I could get a work uniform of some sort, maybe wear it just for the bus trip, with the short black-haired bob, so I looked kind of like a local, which might be a slight bit less suspicious. I’ll have to find a uniform store, but that seemed doable.

---

“Lunchtime. Now I was hungry, and eager to get to a cantina at the beach, and to start practicing my role as a carefree tourist, with Max. I’d take along only the water bottles, pain pills and tour books, leaving the outfits, wigs, shopping bags, and everything else I didn’t need, in this gaudy hotel room.

“I hid all the clothes, spreading out them out smoothly under the pillows and sheets on the bed, and then I re-smoothed the bedspread carefully, so it looked like the bed hadn’t been used yet today. I memorized the exact positions of the folds in the sun dress, folding the hem over into the pillowcase, so I would be able to tell if anyone had lifted the pillows or the covers, to go through my things. I didn’t really expect any problems.

“My straw hat and the two shopping bags, including the wigs, were the only things that wouldn’t fit under the pillows, so I hung the bags, with wigs and hat inside, on a hook in the closet. I would need to know if anyone were in the room while we were gone, if they opened the closet to see the wigs, which, like the clothes, would put at risk my disguises, if the police eventually tracked us to this motel and questioned the housekeeping staff.

“So I practiced the old James Bond trick, of licking a hair, and sticking it across the door and doorframe of the closet, about an inch from the floor, so I could check later to see if the closet had been opened while we were gone. Sometimes the old-school tricks are still the best.

“I automatically dropped a couple more pain pills; it was a reflex action now, along with carefully guarding my upper body movements, to avoid the painful range of motion, in my neck and shoulders.

“Finally ready, I knocked on Max’s door, between our rooms. I didn’t hear any response, but I opened the door anyway. The regular room lights were turned off, with only the red, pink and purple brothel lights partly turned on, but dimmed. It looked surreal. What the hell was he doing?

“I guess Max just wanted the room to be dark, for sleeping. He was laying in the big round bed, eyes closed, no shirt, with the rose gold bedspread pulled up to his waist, and his duffel bag beside him, on the unused pillow. I could tell that Max was hard asleep, in REM, judging both by his breathing, verging on snoring, and more obviously, by his morning wood tentpole, poking straight up, under the bedcovers. It’s a man thing.

“’Max?’ I ventured cautiously. I didn’t want to startle him. I assumed he might have his DE .50 under the covers, ready for action. After narrowly avoiding getting shot by Max on the beach, in the aftermath of that chaotic gunfight, I sure as hell didn’t want to snuff it here, in a tacky love motel.

“Then I laughed. I saw that Max had laid out his shirt and cargo shorts over the Kamasutra sex chair, in the position they would be in, if someone were sitting on it, and his underwear and wifebeater undershirt were hanging from the handles on the sides, and his ball cap on one of the handles. He had moved the thing over to the wall of the room, right in front of the air conditioner, using the airflow to dry out his clothes, well-soaked from the rain we had walked through. He must be sleeping completely naked.

“My laugh woke him up, and sure enough, as he quickly sat up, he pulled the DE .50 from under the covers, and swept it around the room, fast, stopping instantly, when he saw me standing in the open doorway between the rooms.

“As he swung his cannon around, I was thinking, god, what a scene – low-lit, pink and red love motel suite, nudes and mirrors on the walls, with a big, tough, bearded, bald guy, sitting up naked, in a rose gold sex bed, huge boner poking up under the faux satin sheets, sweeping his oversized automatic pistol around the room – it would be a hell of setup for a romance novel, but that’s not what this was.

“’Whoa, Max, don’t shoot; I’m still a friendly!’ I said with a smile, without the panic I had in my voice, the last time he’d centered that massive blaster toward me, at the beach where we met. Max recognized my voice, and lowered the gun. ‘Time for lunch,’ I added.

“’OK,’ Max replied, already alert. ‘I’m up for that. I suppose I should get dressed, first.’ He looked over at his clothes, on the sex chair. Reflexively, I started to turn to go to the chair, and get them for him.

“’No!’ he said, quickly. ‘Unlike the performance you put on at the last motel, I’m not going to stand up naked, getting dressed in front of you. For emphasis, Max glanced down at the protruding bedcovers, which, luckily, hadn’t slipped off his still-rigid manhood. ‘This is embarrassing enough already’ he added. ‘You go back to your room. I’ll knock.’

“I went back and closed the door. I went to the window, peeked out through the side of the curtain and, seeing the still-overcast weather outside, drizzling again, I decided to take the two rain ponchos. I stuffed them in the plastic bag that Max had gotten with the tour books.

“Before I put the Recife book back in the plastic bag, I looked again at the page with the beach restaurant listings and associated map, to guess at likely cantina candidates, and to verify the best route, taking smaller streets, unlikely to have traffic cameras.

“With no traffic cameras, and probably none at whatever little cantina we'd choose, I decided that I would leave my rainbow fashion hat in the closet, as well, and just put my hair in a pony tail. The hat’s only purpose was to shield my face from overhead cameras. I thought, I’ll use the hood of the rain poncho to keep my face hidden, if we did see any cameras.

“I opened the closet door again to hang the rainbow hat on another hook, and then I had to do the trick with the hair again, near the bottom of the door. As I got down close to seal the hair to the doorframe, I saw a small dust bunny that had blown out of the closet when I opened it. I carefully stuffed it into the gap between the door and the doorframe, as a second intrusion detector, in addition to the hair.

“Max knocked, and entered my room. He was dressed in the same clothes, same duffel bag on his shoulder. I doubted he had a change of clothes in that duffel bag – seems like men don’t even think about things like that, sometimes. All I knew for sure is that he had his gun, ammo, and some amount of cash in there, and it would go everywhere with him.

We were finally ready to go. We left through the rear entrance of the motel, and started walking on the route I had selected to the beach. We were lucky; the rain subsided, during the time we were walking.

“Neither of us had anything particular to say, on the way. We were both just hungry, lost in thought, and neither of us felt much like doing the roleplaying I had suggested. I assumed that we could get into that game at the beach, when we got to the cantinas, got lunch, and could relax.

“Because of the continual overcast and threat of sporadic rain all morning, the beach scene wasn’t near as lively as I had envisioned; far fewer tourists around, than are shown in the fun, happy vacation advertisement pictures. We started walking streetside, past the small bars and open air restaurants that face the beach. I was looking for a place with a larger outdoor area in back, so we could be left alone, and talk.

“We found a suitable beach restaurant soon enough, with a nice covered area outside, relatively large, open out to the sand, where I indicated that we wanted to sit. We plunked down at a table right at the edge, where the fine gravel floor transitioned to beach sand, barely inside the overhead palapa cover.

“As I already knew from the map, the beach was wide, so we were far from the water. Nonetheless, I liked the feel of the openness, the distant sea horizon, though it was an indistinct gray, now, blending with the stormy-looking, dark gray of the sky to the northeast.

“I started roleplaying, with empty, informal chatter. I told Max that I wished it were sunny.

“With a flat tone of voice, as he looked out at the same gray scene I was seeing, he replied, ‘A wish is only a wish.’ A little too Max cynical; I guess he wasn’t into the whole lighthearted roleplay thing, yet.

“The place was sparsely occupied, due to the weather – a couple of other tables with tourists talking, drinking and eating, but no one near us – so the waiters were glad for us to take our time, to just talk over a couple more beers before lunch. No hurrying, no hovering. I made some more attempts at mindless conversation. Max tried to play along, but he couldn’t really come up with anything inspired or creative to say. Not really into the spirit of it. I had to admit to myself, I was having to force it, too. To hell with it.

“So, I shut up and just looked out at the gray sea and sky, as did Max. Though the sound of the surf was quiet, just above ambient, from where we were, I could see the white waves break, half rhythmically and half randomly, as they came in. Zoning out, unconsciously contemplating, just emotionally relaxing; experiencing the natural world, doing its thing. It was hypnotizing.

“Another wave of rain came over us, with an increase in the wind. Loving the sound of the large raindrops, pattering urgently, on the palapa cover above us. I’d seen this weather cycle in tropical locales before, in Mexico, where each hightop cloud would drift by, drop about 15 minutes of dense rain, along with an extra bit of wind and a deep, dark overcast, and then the weather would return to lighter gray, or even some sunlight through the broken clouds, and you could go out again, repeating at intervals of 30 minutes or so.

“After a while, the same waiter came by, asking if we wanted another beer, or lunch. I remembered how hungry I was, so we got lunch, now, and took our time, enjoying it. At this point, I really was starting to feel like a tourist, even if I wasn’t doing a good job of roleplaying. It was truly relaxing. I could almost forget that I was on the run.

“After stretching out lunch and another couple of beers for more than an hour, during which another two cycles of rain and wind came through, heavier this time, I suggested to Max (well, really, I suggested to myself, and Max was just there to hear it), that I was going to take off my shoes and walk along to the water’s edge, where I could really get lost in the power and ambience of the stormy sea.

“Max agreed that it was a good enough idea – there was nothing much better to do. Going back to the hotel for the afternoon would be boring, ‘and even more boring after that,’ he said. And, I got the impression that he imagined, if we went walking back on the streets, I’d make him do some more shopping. He was right to think that. I still needed a few more things, including some kind of outerwear, maybe a cheap, light jacket, plus the work outfit, that I could add to my throwaway disguise for the bus trip.

“I took off my shoes and set them under the table. I didn’t expect them to be in the way of any other customers, since I supposed that this cantina wouldn’t fill up now, given that we almost had the place to ourselves, so far. I figured that this would still be our table, by the time we get back, in the next couple of hours. Max left cash on the table, in reals, pinned under his plate so they wouldn’t blow away, for our lunch and beer, since we expected to be gone for a while. I urged Max to leave his flipflops here, as well, and walk barefoot in the sand. ‘It’s better this way,’ I said.

“He looked out at the damp sand, then at his feet, and shrugged almost imperceptibly, as he slipped out of the flip flops and pushed them over beside my shoes. I smiled at him. He just raised his eyebrows a tiny bit, and rolled his eyes, a fleeting visual expression of ‘Whatever.’

“’It’ll rain again, and we’ll get soaked out there,’ Max observed, looking up from the sand to the brooding, dark sky, out over the ocean. But he stood up, hoisting his duffel bag to his shoulder, once again.

“’I’ve got the ponchos,’ I noted, holding up the plastic bag I’d been carrying.

“’I don’t like the smell of those things,’ Max replied.

“We headed out toward the gray sea, and I felt the wet sand squishing between my toes. This is what I meant by ‘better,’ without the shoes. It was sensual. I hoped Max was getting the same barefoot benefit, as I was, from this walk.

“The sound of the breaking surf quickly increased in intensity, as we got close to the wetter, hard-packed sand at the tideline, where it was easier to walk. We made it to the edge of the water. Wind-whipped waves were rolling in, making the surf more lively, more ‘aggressive,’ and both louder and then quieter, as it rolled further up the beach, and receded further out, compared to calm weather. I rolled up my pants. The water wrapped around my legs, below the knee, and then flowed out again. The water was warm. I liked it. It felt like a different world.

“We walked north along the water’s edge for a while, and there was no one around. We had the wide beach to ourselves. We hadn’t said anything, just listening to the sounds of nature. My mind was blank on the idea of empty roleplay chatter, and there wasn’t a good reason to screw up this mood. My rolled-up jeans were wet, now, due to the water rapidly rushing inland, toward us. I was loving the feel of the sand between my toes, with each receding wave undercutting little sand crescents around my feet.

“After a while, I got to thinking that if Max leaves tomorrow morning, this would be my only chance to start the conversation with him about his angst, his barely repressed emotional trauma. This unique, seaside, stormy atmosphere was the place. If I waited until we got back to the hotel room, the environment would seem too confining, too mundane. I realized, unconsciously, that’s why I wanted so much to get out and come down here to the beach, out in the open – to escape the claustrophobic feeling, like a mouse hiding from a cat. Plus, Max might just close and lock the door to his room, and that would be the end of it…

“I thought if I could just get Max to talk all the way through his pain, to get it all out, he might get past the barrier where he emotionally breaks down. Not easy going; I knew that.

“I broke the silence. I didn’t know where to start, so I just hit it head-on. ‘Max, what happened to your wife?’

“’Don’t start this,’ he warned, looking straight out ahead, up the shoreline. He didn’t break stride.

“’I’m starting it,’ I said, firmly. ‘Tomorrow, you’ll be gone forever. We’ll never cross paths again. I’ll be in hiding, if I can ever get back to the States. I need to know. I need to know why you hurt so much. I want to help…’

“I went on, ‘But especially, if you can just get it all out, just lay it all out for me, you’ll understand that it’s all in the past. You can let it go! It shouldn’t define the rest of your life. Time gets rid of a lot of things, but it intensifies guilt and regrets, until you make peace with the past, so it doesn’t become an everlasting curse. It was a quote from A. Alico. https://twitter.com/thefavelakid

“’It doesn’t work like that,’ Max replied. ‘I can’t just … ‘talk through it.’ That’s new age bullsh*t. The police psychologist tried that.’

“’You helped me, Max. You saved my ass; you gave me one more chance, when I had none. Now I want to help you!’ I tried to say it without pleading, with just the right amount of real concern and empathy. ‘You just need to try this, take it further than you’ve gone before.’

“’It won’t help anything,’ Max replied. ‘If the cop psych had pushed me further, I’d have punched him out.’

“We were speeding up, walking briskly. I kept up with him. Max was starting to unconsciously run from me, from the emotional wounds, the pain, that I had uncovered. I didn’t know how this was going to go. I was risking getting decked by a right hook, if I didn’t let up. But I’d started, and now I’d dive in, completely. I came up even with him, and snared his hand, to keep him from speeding away.

“He looked at me, not with surprise, but more like an expression of slight annoyance, not too angry, but stern.

“’Max, start by telling me the story you were going to tell me about your wife, that you started to tell me the first time, back in Aracaju. When we were talking about the tampons. You actually smiled, then. It was a story you wanted to tell me, until you shut yourself down. Tell me!!’ I demanded, driving my fingertips into his palm.

“’I doesn’t work like that,’ he growled. It came up naturally, then. I can’t just turn it on… dammit, you’re driving me back into the place I didn’t want to go! I managed to sleep it off this morning, without getting stone drunk, for a change. Stop f*cking it up!!’

“’You were that close, Max!’ I pleaded, now. ‘To a happy memory! It’s not buried so deep. Don’t worry about that particular story – tell me anything, any fond memory. Your happiest memory with her!’

“’The only memories I have are when I’m blackout drunk, and there’s no memory, no happiness, just pure hell! Stop it! Godammit, woman! Stop it!!’

“Max tried harder to wrest his hand from my grip, to pull away. I brought my other hand in, and my fingers intertwined with his, both my hands pulling him back, now. It took all my strength to slow him down. I had to crouch, to get a better angle for my feet to dig into the sand. The opposing force between us was making my fingers hurt, and straining my already-sore shoulders. I didn’t care.

“The sun momentarily shown through the clouds, and then it was gone again. I hoped it portended a change to better weather, for the rest of the afternoon. Even though I liked the rain, this whole atmosphere, digging into Max’s dark past, plus the gray waves of rain, had become pretty glum.

“I felt Max subtly shift his center, changing the force with which he was pulling. I sensed that he really was about to turn and punch me. In a situation like this, I already knew, I can’t falter, can’t let up even the tiniest bit, can’t show any weakness or fear, and I didn’t. I’d be ready to try to duck or deflect, if he punched, but I wouldn’t let go. I’d take it, and I’d eventually make him yield. Strength is respected, at least up to the point where it turns into futile stupidity.

“’Max!!! Remember what your life was like! You were happy once!’ I yelled at him. “Think!!’

“’Ha!’ Max replied. ‘I‘ve never been happy. Life isn’t like that. My life isn’t.’ Still pulling away, but lightening up a bit. Thank goodness! Damn, my hands and shoulders were really aching, now.

“’You know you were happy once!’ I shouted back. ‘Tell me about your first date with your wife. The good times! It must have been wonderful.’

“Max had almost stopped pulling away. I’d gotten him to engage verbally, and for the moment, he’d lost a little of the will to run. Maybe all the lunchtime beers had taken a little of the edge off his resolve, too. I had been pulling back on him so hard, at such a low angle, that both us fell to our knees, in the wet sand, as he let up. I felt so much relief, in my aching shoulders!

“Max looked at me, with an expression of frustration, a tiny flash of anger in his eyes. I saw him take in a slight breath, in order to decisively say something. Then he paused, his eyes locked with mine, intense. I wondered, almost afraid, of what he might do or say, next. I’d gotten him to switch, to make up his mind, but I had no idea, in what direction. I could be nursing a broken nose, in another few seconds.

---

“’You’re a pain in the ass, woman,’ Max growled. ‘But yes, you made me remember … the one memory of Michelle, that doesn’t blow up in my face … the memory that sometimes comes to mind, from nowhere, and I let it play, because … because … somehow, it takes me back, to a place that … doesn’t hurt …’ A long pause.

“His gaze drifted upward and to the side, his mind going inward, into the mists, into his fraught, tortured past. Max continued, ‘First date, first time I saw her, outside of work. We went to a carnival. It was her idea. I can smell the caramel corn and vinegar fries, and those sugar-powdered waffles they always sell, and the diesel fumes from the rides. Sawdust on the ground. I can hear it … I can feel it … maybe the smell, the atmosphere, is what makes it seem so real … The rush of people moving, everyone around us laughing, and she was laughing, too… I wasn’t, of course. I don’t do laughing – I wallow in my own inward misery, that’s my thing…’

“’But it was infectious. The whole scene was just … innocent, unreal, some kind of rare, random nexus of convergence in the universe, where everything suddenly seemed right and good, people seemed benevolent, and it seemed like there could be hope, trust, in the future. It got to me. I even laughed! I felt, for a moment, … transformed. I knew that normal people could feel like this, and abandon themselves to it, but I was always too cynical, too closed, too tough, to let it happen to me. Maybe that was self-inflicted – I’d never normally find my sorry self in this kind of … situation,’ he mused. ‘But there I was …’

“I kept my full attention on Max, so he wouldn’t think his words were being unheard, but peripherally, I noticed that, after the brief flash of sun, the sky had gone dark gray again, and the sky over the ocean in front of us was especially dark, with high, angry clouds, moving fast. I could tell, a massive wall of rain over the water, in the distance, was coming our way. Max was still reminiscing; I was still hearing every word.

“’I got into the flow,’ he said. ‘We had fun … hell, … even *I* had fun. For her, it was natural. For me, it was … some kind of surrender, to a new reality, … to a pure, beautiful place, completely removed from all the sh*t I saw on the streets every day. Involuntary. It was all because of her, I felt. This must be … what love is. She had made it happen, changed me, or at least she had opened the door to change, and, in that moment, I saw that life could be different, and happy.’

“Max paused. I already knew him well enough, now, I thought. The next thing he was going to say, would be, ‘It didn’t last.’ I wasn’t going to give him the chance to go there.

“I brightly chimed in, ’So what’d you do then, Max? Did you propose to her, right there? Did you shoot out all the balloons and win her a teddy bear? Don’t stop! Tell me, what’d you do? What happened next?’

“I could tell I’d interrupted his potential descent back to his present-day cynicism. Max’s eyes broke away from his reverie momentarily, and he looked at me with a short glance of exasperation, breathing the slightest sigh. But I could also see, he was ready to resume, to go back to that wonderful past; it was clearly something that made him happy. Meanwhile, the rain had arrived, ramping up quickly in intensity.

“Max stayed in the groove, saying, ‘No, you know – I just … went with it. I didn’t know what to do – I hadn’t had much practice, being happy. And that seemed to be OK with Michelle. Seeing me looking happy, just that first time, was enough for her. The moment turned into the hour, the rest of the evening – the lights, the rides, the carnival music, the carnival smells, the warm night air. Eventually, the crowd thinned out, it was getting late, but for me, it seemed … timeless, I hadn’t even thought about tomorrow, having to get up, go back to my cases – I was living only for the experience of the moment.

“Max closed his eyes. He was really going deep, now, feeling it all, living that night all over again. ‘We just felt right. She felt it was right. I did, too. The world had changed, and a new reality had emerged, between us, greater than the sum of the parts. At that point, it became fate. There was no going back to the old way.’

“I was entranced, listening to this new Max, deep inside, pure and without cynicism. The rain was coming on hard, now, large drops, heavy, pelting us. We were already getting completely wet, but the rain was warm, and neither of us cared, didn’t even really notice.

“With the increasing din of the rain, I also hadn’t noticed that the constant sound of the surf, in and out, had gradually gone missing. The tide had gone out – way out. I should have noticed how odd it was, but all my attention was on the conversation. The blasting rain and dark sky made a featureless gray curtain all around us, closing in, as it rained ever harder.

“Visibility into the gray became only a few feet, the expanse of the sand obscured by the heavy downpour. The outside world had seemingly cut us off, left us in our own intimate sphere, rain so deafening it was like a wall of noise, immense acoustic pressure all around us, outside of our own tiny void, consisting only of Max’s memory.

“Max subtly changed his tone, ‘I could have screwed it up, in the following days and weeks, but somehow, I didn’t. Michelle – or more accurately, both of us, just being together – took the edge off my bad attitudes, my cynicism, my pessimism – maybe she even liked that part of me, I realized, but with her comforting aura making it something less dark. Whatever the dynamic was, we both felt better together. Every night was respite from the day, the streets, the hard cases. It was like I had two lives, and the night was pure bliss. Pretty soon, I got her pregnant, and everything else followed from that.’

“Max had opened his eyes as he was speaking. He was looking at me, now, and I was looking at him. I’d still been clutching his hand all this time, until now, he let it completely relax, and I finally let go, getting both of my hands back. I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to run away, now, but I didn’t know where the conversation was going next.

“Either the unrelenting onslaught of rain had kicked him out of the mindspace he was in, or else he’d just come back to reality on his own. He’d begun to change his tone, a shift from that happy initial memory he had just played out, back to continuity of his historical narrative. I didn’t want the cynical Max to return, yet. I wondered what I could say, or do, that would keep him in that happy state.

“I didn’t have to do anything. Still ignoring the fierce, battering rainfall all around us, Max smiled at me, genuine emotion expressed on his face, and said, ‘Now I remember – the tampon story… Hah, yeah, that was something, I’ll tell you …’

“But then, out of the pounding, battering gray nothingness around us, a sudden change, a silence, a vacuum, a feeling of undefined, overwhelming force. It seemed to come from both the unseen gray sky above, and the hard-packed, wet sand below our feet.

“And in another fraction of a second, as we simultaneously broke our gaze from each other, we saw it, the wall of water, covering the entire hemisphere of our imaginary shared space, rushing in and down on us, at unimaginable speed. It was the feeling of coming out of a daydream, only to find oneself scant feet in front of a speeding train.

“A rogue wave. I had no idea. Hurricane F*cking Leslie, off the coast. Out in the ocean, the monster storm had sucked up, around its eye, a massive spout of water from tens of miles around, creating a deep, concentric trough of water, until it could hold no more. The release now turned into a massive wave, blasting across the ocean’ surface, spiraling out from the eye, at a hundred miles per hour. And now, on this gray beach, it was breaking, right on top of us.

Tragedy struck, hard, mercilessly!!

“Adrenaline didn’t even have time to kick in. Brainstem reflex took over. I had the impulse to try to back away from that force of pure nature, which would have been futile. But it may have helped, as I just barely had time to slap my hands down on the sand behind me, which probably stabilized me.

“But Max … Max had a different reflex. In that brief partial second, before the tons of water crashed down on us, his reflex was to leap up, from his knees, to try to get between me and the massive, looming, unstoppable threat, to somehow shield me.

“In those moments of pure reflex, when there’s no time for rational mental calculus, no time for posturing – that’s when the true character of a person is revealed. Max’s character was pure, noble, good to the core. It’s what he was. His true nature transcended all the cynicism, the broken emotions, the sarcastic humor he uses to cope and compensate.

At that instant, there was only one thing, Max’s one, unselfish impulse. He threw himself into an impossible maelstrom, against pure, primal force – an unstoppable, merciless, breaking wave, of oceanic scale. To save me … again. My god … Max … no … no … NOOOO---- !!!

And … instant oblivion.

---

Thor's Hammer has come down, hard! What will happen to our dear Karen, and her new friend Max??? Stay tuned for CHAPTER 32, folks!

Edited July 17, 2019 by saintsrow

July 20, 2019

OK, kids, this chapter is ALL ACTION !!! Do yourself a favor, and check it out!

Continued from CHAPTER 31.

CHAPTER 32: Pain from the Past (Part 22): Brazilian Getaway Special / Oblivion

“Gray. Everything was gray. Even the deafening roar was gray; my ears were plugged with sudden, great pressure. There was no up, no down, no near, no far. I didn’t know where I was. I must have been stunned by the impact of the water, slamming me to the bottom, to the hard sand.

“I didn’t feel panicked, surprisingly. I had some air in my lungs. I came to my senses pretty fast, and realized that I was tumbling underwater, in turbulence that was surely a hundred times stronger than any force I could muster to swim out of it. Rationally, I realized that, if this huge wave had an undertow, it could pull me out and down, so fast and so far and so deep, that I’d never get to the surface, and I’d drown for sure.

“I had to do something. I didn’t know which way was up. I just started kicking and swimming, in whatever direction I was pointed, at that instant. I might have been swimming into the deeper water; I had no idea. I didn’t realistically expect reach the surface, to get air, to be able to float; that would be almost too lucky. The wave must have been 20 feet high, so I must be under 20 feet of water, if I even had a clue which direction was up. But I had to do *something*.

“Ten seconds passed, then twenty, as I was flailing, thrashing, wildly swimming, somewhere in that crushing, chaotic wall of water. I could only hope that as the wave flattened out over the beach, it would dissipate, and I would soon find myself washed up on the sand, 100 feet inland, but, as Max had said earlier, a wish is only a wish. The undertow, and drowning death, was a more likely scenario. Now the fear was kicking in, and with it, the adrenaline.

“Then I felt my right hand brush the roiling sand. The bottom! There it was! At least now, I knew where I was, in some kind of reference frame. I kicked harder, harder, and I felt both hands touch the shifting, sandy bottom. I thought, if I can just get my feet planted, even on this wildly churning sand, I can keep oriented to up and down, and I could maybe dig in and use my leg muscles to hold myself against the current, hoping to hell that the wave would roll back out, so that I could get my head above water. Not knowing, at the time, what this wave was, it stood to reason it was just a storm-driven, wind driven wave, not a tsunami, which could continue inward for a mile or more.

“I was out of air – the urge to breathe was starting to come on strong, now, even as I was frantically scrambling to get myself anchored. This was bad, but it was a hell of a lot better than being pulled under, into certain death, tumbling completely out of control.

“I kept digging both feet into the sand, as I felt the current getting faster, stronger, against me. With that anchoring, I was able to turn myself fully toward the current and lean in, vectoring my whole body straight against the raging flow, so my feet could stay planted, sinking down, just as fast as the sand rapidly washed away, around them. At such a steep angle, my fingertips were touching the sandy floor as well, giving me a critically important reference for balance.

“Leaning into the current, I had to hope this staggering flow of water was already going back out, not still going in. Everything was still gray, and the water was filled with biting, dense clouds of sand, so I still didn’t know how much water was above me, and how much longer I could do this…

“Now, I wanted to take a breath, so bad. I knew this is what people and animals feel, at the first stage of drowning, when absolute mortal fear – the innate, instinctual realization of imminent death – completely grabs them in the gut. My eyes felt like they were bulging out of my head, as I tried to hold onto enough willpower to avoid the taking the futile, deep breath, that would fill my lungs with the first gulp of seawater. No, no, noooooo ……. hold on! Hold on! Hold on!!!!!

“There’s a funny thing that happens, right after that first rush of mortal fear. Your life priorities completely change. You accept, instinctively, emotionlessly, instantly, that this could really be the end, that no normal action will help you, that death is inevitable, without some physical or mental wildcard, some utter, crazy action that is so nonlinear, so out of normal profile, that it flips the whole situation into a different place. It’s a different level of desperation, that you can only feel when you truly face death.

“It’s what fish do when they’ve been reeled in, and they’re lying on the pier, suffocating – they writhe, thrash, spasm, leap, they do anything, with their last bit of will, their last iota of strength, to try to change their situation, without any specific hope that it’s the right thing. There’s no other choice. That’s where I was, at that moment.

“With my feet anchored, and my will to hold my breath run out, my brainstem just screamed, ‘TO HELL WITH IT!!!’ and I just started running, with all my strength, sprinting forward almost horizontally into the strengthening current, underwater, feet sinking in the receding sand, just running, because what the hell else was there to do? I probably wasn’t even actually moving forward. But that didn’t matter to the brainstem.

“And I took that deep breath, all seawater, burning through my sinuses, down my throat, into my lungs, and I ran, ran to escape this hell, somehow, with no rational hope that it could do any good. As I said, all your life priorities are upside down, at this point. I was about to take another involuntary, fatal deep breath, another slug of pure seawater, because I had no willful choice left … my body and brain screaming for oxygen, none to be had! This was it …

“And then, WHAM! The water was suddenly gone, sucked back into the ocean, receding behind me at a speed much faster than a human can run. If I hadn’t gotten myself anchored, feet jammed into the sandy bottom, I would have gone out with it, deep and fast, tumbling to certain, horrific, drowning doom.

But now, without buoyancy, without the force of the current I was leaning into, my mindless underwater sprint drove me into a faceplant, into the soft, water-saturated sand in front me.

“In an instant, I’d gone from one nightmare to another – I wanted to breathe more than anything in the world, but my face was almost buried, now, in a mix of sand and water – I felt the normal panic of a suffocating, clinging surface, over one’s face. I almost took that breath then, but the suffocation instinct made me violently shake my head, plant my hands, and instantly leap away on all fours, a reflex like a startled cat, and the breath I took as I landed, flailing and rolling, was air, merciful air!

“Thrashing, stumbling, coming to a stop on my stomach, face raised to the sky, bug-eyed, I gulped in many lungfuls of air, desperately, one second after the next, like I had just run an uphill sprint, in rarefied mountain air, to the point of collapsing. I felt like absolute hell, but as the crescendo of desperation began to fade, I knew I was going to survive this. I turned my head back down to face the sand, so the rain would stop filling my throat, beating on my open eyes – to something more like the posture of merely normal, utter exhaustion.

“I was going to need a minute, and I coughed up seawater a couple of times, and swallowed more, as it drained from my sinuses, and my ears were completely clogged, but overall, I was getting better with each passing moment. The adrenaline and panic were still front and center, but normalizing to my new, renewed chance to keep on living. I tried to clear my sinuses and Eustachian tubes, so I could start to hear, to clear my head. It wasn’t working.

“After another 30 seconds or so, I could start to register the real world again. The rain, now worse than ever, was a wind-whipped, stinging hail of blasting water, gray, disorienting, and I couldn’t see Max, or the tideline, or anything. I struggled to my feet, wobbly, and yelled, ‘Max! Maaax!! Maaaaax!!!’ There was no response. But then, I didn’t even know if I could hear him, at this point, had he answered me, given the state of my ears. I was only hearing my own voice, via sound conduction through my skull.

“Without any clue as to which direction to go, I just started lurching ahead, gradually turning, unconsciously, back toward the ocean, assuming that I still had a sense of which way the outgoing current had been flowing, when I was leaning into it. I yelled, again, ‘Max! Maaax!! Maaaaax!!!’ Still no response. Walking-lurching-almost stumbling, I looked upward to try to yell louder, though I felt like I barely had the breath in my lungs for another shout.

“Still bumbling forward as I painfully screamed, ‘Maaaaaaaaaaxxxxxxx!!!!!’ my foot hit something, tripping me. I fell hard, right on Max’s back!!! Oh, god, I’d tripped over his feet. He was face down in the sand, not moving! His face was completely in the water and sand. A sudden flashback, to my reaction when I found David, lying face down amid the flames, but now, it was water, and now, it was Max!

“’Oh, holy sh*t, sh*t SH*T!’ I screamed, as I realized he was not responsive! He’d surely been underwater as long as I had, and – still face down, now – he’d have been without air for probably three minutes! Sh*t! He must have hit the sand so hard, the wave slamming him down from the off-balance, half-standing position he was caught in, trying to protect me, that he’d been knocked out.

“I frantically grabbed the sleeve at the shoulder of his shirt and pulled hard, to flip him over. He was completely out, body limp, no activity at all. Mouth slack, head lolling, inert mass. I couldn’t tell, in this gray light, but his lips were probably turning blue. I pushed hard on the side of his neck, feeling for a pulse in the carotid, but as I suspected, there was nothing, no heartbeat.

“Max was going to die, right here, in the next few minutes! Basically, he was already as good as dead! Oh, f*cking hellllll!!! F*ck, f*ck F*CK!!!! I’d have to try CPR, try anything, to get his heart started again! I tried to remember the CPR sequence, from early Agency training. F*ck it, I didn’t remember!

“I dropped to my knees beside him and started the chest compressions – I remembered that much – both palms overlapped on the sternum, then an impulsive, sharp push, on every beat of “Stayin’ Alive,’ about 120 beats per minute.

“With all my strength, all my weight, I pushed! But soon I could tell, I probably wasn’t able to apply enough force to Max’s strong chest, to make it work. What the f*ck was I going to do??? Godammit!!!

Besides that futile attempt at compressions, I remembered that in CPR, in the old days, at least, you alternate compressions with air assist, pushing air into the victim’s lungs. It was coming back to me, now. I pinched Max’s nose shut, and tried to fit my mouth over his, to push some breath into his lungs.

“All I could taste was seawater, from both my own sinuses and from Max’s lips. After a couple of hard breaths, as hard as I could muster, a wave of dizziness hit me, and I momentarily thought I was going to pass out. My own oxygenation situation still wasn’t all that great, either. Enough of that. What else could I do? I’d lost another 30 seconds already.

“Then it occurred to me, even if I were doing any good with this, Max’s lungs were probably full of seawater. If there were water pooling, clinging and condensing in there, he’d not be able to breathe, no matter what. That’s probably what stopped his heart. I had to get the water out of his lungs. But how? I couldn’t lift him, but I had to try!

“I moved to try to lift up his legs and get under them, then under his butt, and try to stand and pull him up by the legs, with his head down, so the water could drain from his lungs. I had to do this; I had to find the strength! I got my arms around his knees, as best I could, and I tried to stand, but I was staggering backward, just dragging him down over me, as I fell on my back. It wasn’t working. Godammit!

“I flipped Max back over on his stomach, as I scrambled out from under him. I needed a better grip, and I needed to push, not pull, using my legs. This time, I went under him, grabbing his legs again, one arm around each calf, and shimmied forward on my knees, pushing him up, until I could get my arms around each of his thighs, my chin between them, basically right against his balls, under his cargo shorts. I squeezed my arms tight, to grip his thighs, so I could lift.

“I arched my head back and hunkered down even little lower, to where my aching shoulders could get purchase on his pelvic bones, to apply more force. Instead of pulling back, I had to use his body, his back, as the third leg of the tripod, with my two legs, so I could reach a standing position. A lot of weight on his neck, but that wouldn’t matter to him, right now. I might have been pushing his face right into the sand – I couldn’t tell. I pushed forward, using all the strength I had, to try to flex my knees straight. It was like trying to stand up, while carrying a 90 pound sandbag. Or more. More like 190 pounds.

“Everything I was doing now was the last thing my sore shoulders needed – but they were so overused and overstretched at this point, I didn’t even notice, and I didn’t care. They’d let me know, later, the price I would pay, for all this. I used all the adrenaline strength I had, all the leverage, and I managed to straighten my legs, pushing up and forward, to get Max’s body relatively vertical, resting on his head.

My face was still right in his crotch. I clamped his thighs even tighter into the crooks of my elbows, with all the meager upper-body force I had, and tried like hell to raise him up a few more inches, to get his head off the wet sand, so his neck would straighten out, so his throat could open, and the water could drain. For the moment, I was actually supporting his full weight.

“With all the force and pressure I was applying, and all my falling down, my ears finally began to unclog, and I could sense that I was starting to hear again, but it hardly mattered. In the deafening rain, all the splashing water noise in all directions, I couldn’t tell, by sound, if any water were draining from Max’s mouth and nose, and I couldn’t see, either. F*ck!! All I could do was try to hold him there, using my aching leg muscles to repeatedly stand up and down on tiptoe, such as it was, in the water-saturated sand, to try to churn and shake and dislodge the water in his lungs.

“F*ck!! I couldn‘t hold him any longer, and I had pulled Max up against me so far, his legs now falling over my shoulders, behind me, my face buried in his cargo shorts. It would be a hell of a sex position, in any other context, than trying to save a drowned man.

“I was off balance. I fell backward, Max’s weight coming down hard, again, on top of me, with us landing in a perfect ‘69’ position. I had to hope I had done some good, gotten rid of a good fraction of the water. I had to get him breathing again, get his heart going! It was surely getting near five minutes now, with no oxygen! My god, my god, oh god!!!

“Not knowing, at the time, how in the hell this killer wave had come out of nowhere to obliterate us, I could almost believe that Max really was cursed; that this wave was meant to take me, not him – to kill yet another woman, who had crossed into his orbit. But this time, Max acted too soon, fate f*cked up, and he was the one who came up on the wrong end of it. And here I was, laying here like an idiot, as he dies, on top of me … if he died here, and I survived this, Max’s curse would become mine …

“I felt so fatigued, as soon I had fallen. I lay there, the seconds ticking away. It had taken all my strength to lift Max. I just wanted to give up. But his weight, now, on top of me, was making it even harder for me to breathe. Move! Move, godammit!!! Move!!!! With a grunt and a burst of effort, I dug in my arms and elbows, and I flipped him over, onto his back, as I wriggled out from under.

“I’d lost at least half a minute more. It had to be pushing six minutes now, since Max’s last breath. I was beyond any hope, now. His death was certain at this point; Max was history. I started crying now, out of futility and frustration! He’d only been here, at this doomed tideline, because I insisted – ‘Let’s go down by the water,’ I had said, “Let’s feel the sand between our toes …,‘ and now, I’d killed him!

“I’d lost Max, I’d failed him! Godammittt!!! I reverted to that same desperate, irrational place I had been, a few minutes before, in my own imminent-death moment – it was time to go crazy, irrational, nonlinear. There was nothing else left. It’s like your last ‘F*ck You!!’ to the universe.

“I thought, I can’t put enough force on his sternum, but maybe I can get some fresh air into his lungs by pushing repeatedly on his belly, the soft tissue in the torso, his diaphragm, to inflate and deflate his lungs. I put my palms there and pushed a few times, as hard as I could, wracking my shoulders with pain, but I knew this linear effort was futile – I had to go wild. I needed more force. I needed to take it to 11. To f*cking 11!!!!

“I straddled Max, cowgirl style, sitting on his stomach, and I just started jumping / pumping up and down, hard on his diaphragm; the rhythm didn’t matter, just get his lungs to do something, anything, to churn the air. It didn’t matter how hard – Max was dead – he wouldn’t care; he couldn’t feel anything at this point. After maybe 30 seconds or so of cowgirling, I realized, hey, I *can* put more weight on Max’s sternum, to try to get his heart pumping, to move at least a tiny bit of this new lungful of air into his brain.

“Still crying, I jumped to my feet. Oh, Max, oh Max, oh Max, I’m so sorry! But my tears didn’t matter. Tears in the driving rain. I slapped my face, to stop it, to focus. I went full nonlinear. I had to give it everything!! I leapt up and pounced on Max’s chest with all my weight, both bare feet, full force, as I started the ‘Stayin’ Alive’ rhythm again, in my head. I should have done this before! Two goddamn minutes lost! Sh*t!!!!

“I started thrusting my full body weight downward, on his chest, with each beat, each THUMP of the imagined bass beat.

Well, you can tell <THUMP> by the way I use <THUMP> my walk

I'm a wo- <THUMP> -man's man, no time <THUMP> to talk

“With each thrust, each downward crunch, with all my weight, on the beat, I compressed his chest. This was all the force I could bring. It probably meant nothing, but there was nothing else to do. Nothing times nothing is still nothing. F*ck it!!!

Mu- <THUMP> -sic loud and wo- <THUMP> -men warm,

I've been kicked <THUMP> around, since I <THUMP> was born

“It became automatic – the guitar/synth and the bass and the lyrics – the imagined beat of ‘Stayin’ Alive’ playing in my head. In the deafening roar of the rain, I found that I was even mouthing the words, singing it, now, out loud. Damn, the absolute absurdity of death!

And now it's <THUMP> alright, it's <THUMP> okay

And you <THUMP> may look the ot- <THUMP> -her way

“I was slipping into a trance. This was futile; now I was just doing it out of mindless, pure frustration, some kind of displacement mechanism, to take me away from the horror of this reality.

We can try <THUMP> to understand <THUMP>

The New York Times' <THUMP> effect on man <THUMP>

“Gray, featureless, deafening, wind-whipped downpour… in that overwhelming sensory assault of undifferentiated nothingness and everythingness, I imagined the disco all around me, the flashing lights, hearing the vocals, feeling the bass thump, slamming the floor with my glam boots. The trance consumed me.

Whether <THUMP> you're a brother or whether <THUMP> you're a mother

You're <THUMP> Stayin' Alive, <THUMP> Stayin' Alive

“At this point, I was just disco dancing on Max’s chest, coming down hard on his sternum with both feet; no what, no why, no how, no where, no hope! An insane trance dance, on a dead man’s chest …

Feel <THUMP> the city breakin' and every- <THUMP> -body shakin'

And we're <THUMP> Stayin' Alive, <THUMP> Stayin' Alive

“What year was it? Where was I? I remembered, I regressed, to when I was in college, at the retro disco, dancing for so long, so automatically, that I lost track of where I was, why I was there. Like I had always been dancing, and would never stop dancing. There was no outside world, only the beat. The same trance now. Total cognitive displacement …

Ah, <THUMP> ha, ha, <THUMP> ha,

<THUMP> Stayin' Alive, <THUMP> Stayin' Alive

Ah, <THUMP> ha, ha, <THUMP> ha,

Stayin' ----- - - - - - -

“I was flying through the air. Free-falling, I had no idea where I was, or where I had been. The trance was complete, even as it blew up, and left me utterly confused, arms and legs madly clawing at thin air! What the f*ck had happened??!!

“Max’s body had bolted, with incredible force, throwing me ass over elbows into the maelstrom. It seemed like I was flying, forever … until I landed, that is, landed hard, on my face and chest, in the water-saturated sand. I lifted myself up, with my shoulders aching anew.

“Was it a seizure? Some final death throe, a full-body nerve network reflex, shooting through all of Max’s muscles at once, as they were finally starved of their last atoms of oxygen? Max had been lifeless. What the hell??!!

“Then I heard it – the most tortured inhalation of breath imaginable – Max!!!! It had to be Max!! Again, through the pounding roar of the rain, so loud, somewhere behind me, another gasping, rasping, desperate inhalation, the pure torture of a man who had absolutely no oxygen left in his body! Oh, god, it was terrible to hear!

“Suddenly, an unimaginable panic rose in me. I had no idea why. It hit me like I had been body-slammed! My chest tightened instantly, and my whole body was one screaming vessel of fear! What the hell??!! What the hell?!! And I heard Max’s tortured intake again, this time, followed by a long, pathetic, painful howl, as he exhaled.

“I couldn’t stand it – I couldn’t stand the sound coming from Max, the sound of anguished, morbid, desperate intake of air – it was the source of my paralyzing fear! Why??! I dove away, fell to my knees, my forehead hitting the sand, Max some feet behind me, in his agony, and still, that terrible, unbearable sound of his next breath, in, and then out, so tortured, like somebody with the worst possible emphysema, at the last minute of their life.

“I slapped my hands to my ears, tight as I could, to stop the awful sound, but I imagined that I still heard it! Now I was screaming in fear! My body locked up, in a vertical fetal position, my face tight against my knees, head on the wet sand! Shaking with fear! This made my near-death panic, from a few minutes ago, seem like a hazy memory. What??! Why!!? What the hell is this??!!

“Then I remembered – remembered the source of my visceral panic …

“When I was in middle school, my parents took me to the hospital, to visit my grandfather, who was not long for the world. They thought it would bring him a bit of happiness, to see his granddaughter, his proud legacy in this world, one last time.

“Being a typical oblivious post-tween, I didn’t sense the gravity of the situation. The words, ‘Your Grandpa’s very sick,’ didn’t register with me, other than just another sentence floating by. I liked Grandpa, and I had happy memories of many family get-togethers, playing and running through his old house, when I was a little girl, but I didn’t feel the emotion or the serious concern I should have felt, as they told me.

“We came into his hospital room, and he was probably asleep. He had all the IV tubes and the heart monitor and pulse-ox wires hooked up, draped over the bed, to a stack of medical equipment and IV drippers. A quiet, periodic beep sounded from the stack; must have been his heartbeat.

“My parents mumbled between themselves a bit, trying to decide whether to wake him, I guess. I was standing close beside and behind them, just staring at Grandpa’s face, in the sterile hospital light, his skin seemingly as thin as tissue, pale, so deeply sunken and wrinkled, already seeming dead, so much older and more wasted, than when he was at home and active, and I felt sorrow, then.

“Grandpa must have heard them whispering, or sensed our presence, and his eyes opened very slightly, and he began to laboriously turn his head in our direction, any slight movement seemingly a herculean effort.

“I immediately noticed my parents subtly reacting with a bit of happiness, that Grandpa had awakened. He continued to try to turn his head, and his eyelids opened a bit more, as his sidelong gaze slowly swept over them, toward me. Grandpa’s eyes eventually focused on me, and then the rest of his face started to barely come to life, trying to smile, but I could tell, he was so tired, so exhausted, that his facial muscles could hardly act upon the natural spark of joy that had appeared inside.

“My parents had been right – Grandpa *was* glad to see me. It’s funny how grandparents often feel a greater sense of hope, of vicarious immortality, by observing and empathizing with the youth and potential of their grandchildren, than they can muster for their own offspring. I guess it makes sense.

“Anyway, I think Grandpa wanted to say hi to me, or say my name, and he painfully started to make the effort to speak. He was unbelievably weak. He was trying to draw a few tiny wisps of air into his lungs, and then, suddenly, he stopped, with a very small but perceptible jerk, his eyes still focused directly on me. I got a little scared. This wasn’t right.

“The heart monitor started droning, a loud alarm sound! The previously slow and regular pulse beep sound from the heart monitor paused, then made a couple of quick beeps, a long pause, another trio of quick beeps, and then another pause, followed by a resumption of the periodic beeps, but at a much, much higher rate. It wasn’t cardiac arrest, but something must have happened. A seizure?

“The loud drone alarm didn’t stop. My parents were flustered and confused, of course. My mom quietly choked a bit, and started crying, looking suddenly weak in the knees. My dad headed for the door, to alert the nurses, who were surely already on their way, due to the alarm. I felt paralyzed, watching this scene unfold, like a movie.

“I heard my dad running down the hall, toward the nurses’ station, as the drone continued. The rapid tempo of the heart rate monitor beep was ramping up the tension, second by second. After another half minute, the nurses came running in, from the floor desk. Professional, clipped phrases of medical nouns and adjectives, passing between them, as the head nurse checked the monitor stack, while the day rounds nurse put a stethoscope at points on Grandpa’s chest.

“By now, it had been about a minute or more since the onset of the incident. Grandpa’s eyes had gradually closed, and he wasn’t moving. At the same moment, the nurses looked at each other, and the head nurse said something, I don’t remember the exact words, but she meant that Grandpa’s heart was running too fast to pump blood, and the other nurse nodded, already knowing the same thing. They were about to spring into some kind of code blue emergency.

“The head nurse reached over to pull the IV, as the other nurse turned for the door of the room, to alert the code blue crew. The drone and the beep sounds stopped, as the head nurse shut down the equipment and pulled the heart wire bundle away from the monitor, leaving the heart electrodes and wire harness still attached to Grandpa. The sudden silence felt like a physical impact.

“Then Grandpa’s eyes snapped open wide, his back arched, with way more strength than I thought he had left, he tilted his head back, continuing the arch of his back, raising his shoulders off the pillow, and his mouth went full open. As all this – this horror – unfolded, my Grandpa in mortal distress, my eyes cruelly, involuntarily riveted on his agonized face, I heard … *the sound*.

“Grandpa inhaled, through his wide open mouth, loudly, a rasping buzzsaw tone, over a wretched, haunted moan of pure agony and mortal desperation, his survival reflexes trying to pull in oxygen, that his heart and blood were no longer supplying to his body. The horrible sound cut me right through my chest, and I suddenly felt like I couldn’t breathe, either, out of pure empathy!

“Again, the sound, another agonized and futile intake of breath, and my vision started to close in, a fainting response, to Grandpa’s suffering. I felt like I suddenly weighed 10 thousand pounds. The bad adrenaline was here. The worst – weakness and fear and sickness, all at once!

“Pure panic hit me, in that last second, and I bolted out of the room, bashing my shoulder on the doorframe, on the way out. I almost stumbled, as I turned, headlong, down toward the far end of the corridor, away from the central nurses’ desk. I heard my poor Grandpa take yet another tortured breath, as I was halfway down the hall, and still running! AAAAAAGGHHH!!!

“At the end of the hall was a bench and padded armchairs and a lamp table, where hospital visitors can rest and talk, away from the patients’ rooms. I collapsed as I reached the bench, falling to my knees, with my elbows and chin slamming down on the bench seat, and I just started hitting myself in the head, with both hands, trying to knock the terrible sound out of my brain! I felt too sick to cry. I finally stopped slamming my hands on my head, and just put them tight over my ears – just like I was doing now, here, on a gray, isolated beach, in the wet sand and driving rain.

“It was all anticlimactic for me, after that. Soon enough, my parents came to the end of the hall to get me, and sat me down on the bench, as my mom tried to comfort me. My dad was staring down the hall, pacing, watching intently for any sign, good or bad. The code blue crew had wheeled their cart into Grandpa’s room, and we could hear all kinds of disciplined, urgent, professional, coordinated medtech voices, echoing down to our end of the hall, as the team fought against Grandpa’s imminent death.

“I was numb, slowly recovering from the shock and the fear. My mom held me, as I was crying now, head down, in that mental place where the world has done its worst to you, and you just don’t want to be in it anymore, where nothing could possibly matter more than this misery. Shutting down. I don’t know how much time had passed.

“After some time, my emotions, and my physical response to them, were starting to normalize. Still sitting on the bench, red eyed, exhausted, in a daze, nowhere to go, no reason to do or think anything. I became aware that my dad was walking toward us now, coming down the hall from Grandpa’s room, and my mom and I both looked up. He just shook his head. ‘Grandpa’s gone,’ he said, in a hollow, unreal voice. My mom gasped.

“That was it. I think the words didn’t register emotionally with me, but subconsciously, a part of my brain knew that Grandpa’s death, peace, oblivion, was preferable to that hellish suffering. And within that, deep down, a realization flashed through my mind, with an emotion that should have felt like guilt – Grandpa had died, trying to speak my name. That should have crushed me, had it bubbled up to the surface, but I was emotionally spent, empty. My mom drove me home, while dad stayed at the hospital to do whatever came next.

“Then I went back to the rest of my life, and over time, dealing with the trivial, all-consuming concerns of teenagerhood, those terrible moments of Grandpa’s agony got buried in the deepest part of my memory, consciously forgotten, but indelibly grafted to my emotional core, part of my very existence. I just didn’t know it, until the moment I heard Max undergo that same torture, here, now, in the maelstrom, and it tore me apart, just like then. Oh, god …

“Hands still on my ears, all I heard now was the rain, hitting my head and back. The rain felt like it was fading now, this wave of the storm passing over. It also seemed like the trancelike disco beat that had been pounding in my head was becoming a memory, insistent, but distant, faint. I took my hands from my ears, letting them drop to the sand, but I stayed bent over, face against my knees, still recovering from my sudden, self-induced terror. I didn’t know if I even had the will to move.

“I realized that I should be hearing Max’s terrible breathing, but I didn’t hear it. I may have zoned out, reliving my Grandpa’s horror, hands over my ears, for a while. For how long, minutes? I didn’t know. What had happened to Max?

---

Edited July 20, 2019 by saintsrow

July 20, 2019

So..... this is what happens if a thread is allowed to live past the first day...lol.

This is comedic gold though.

July 20, 2019

I will post some NSFW content for the really lonely Karen fans. Under two spoilers. 18+.

Your innocent young eyes are been warned.

July 20, 2019

Just now, Polynoid said:

I will post some NSFW content for the really lonely Karen fans. Under two spoilers. 18+.

Your innocent young eyes are been warned.

Hide contents

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HD version of this pic.

July 21, 2019

What the f*ck?

July 21, 2019

More NSFW content. 18+. You have been warned.

July 21, 2019

I'm in that weird part of GTA Forums again.

July 21, 2019

Just now, Polynoid said:

More NSFW content. 18+. You have been warned.

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Stylish and tastefully done.

Karen looks very alluring while she's smiling and relaxing in the IAA building with the glow of a beautiful sunset behind her.

July 21, 2019

3 minutes ago, Arnold Stallone said:

Stylish and tastefully done.

Karen looks very alluring while she's smiling and relaxing in the IAA building with the glow of a beautiful sunset behind her.

I was thinking it might get hot in the office during the summer, so getting a little cool evening air to the skin before calling it a day would be rather pleasant.

July 21, 2019

Note to all who would post 'WTF' at this point: At least it's not Agent 14 in a French Maid outfit.

(I hope that didn't trigger anything)

Edited July 21, 2019 by Lance Mayhem

July 21, 2019

26 minutes ago, Lance Mayhem said:

Note to all who would post 'WTF' at this point: At least it's not Agent 14 in a French Maid outfit.

(I hope that didn't trigger anything)

There's probably a thread for that. [god I hope not]

If I were to accidentally stumble across such an abomination, I would be sure to leave a snide, WTF comment. Just because.

July 21, 2019

1 hour ago, Lance Mayhem said:

Note to all who would post 'WTF' at this point: At least it's not Agent 14 in a French Maid outfit.

(I hope that didn't trigger anything)

Hmmmmm....

July 21, 2019

What in the goddamn...

July 21, 2019

4 hours ago, Polynoid said:

I was thinking it might get hot in the office during the summer, so getting a little cool evening air to the skin before calling it a day would be rather pleasant.

Now that you've shown this to us, I'm gonna have to write an office desk shag into the sequel.

July 21, 2019

26 minutes ago, saintsrow said:

Now that you've shown this to us, I'm gonna have to write an office desk shag into the sequel.

...thus avoiding carpet burn. Safety first!

July 22, 2019

9 hours ago, Lance Mayhem said:

Note to all who would post 'WTF' at this point: At least it's not Agent 14 in a French Maid outfit.

(I hope that didn't trigger anything)

July 22, 2019

I’m half expecting a Live Jasmine ad to pop up every time I click this thread.

(Don’t even shame me. If you know what I mean, you’re all f*cking guilty as charged.)

Oh great. I’m on the new page with this. f*ck it. I’ll wear it.

Edited July 22, 2019 by PetrolCB

July 22, 2019

Really? I only get online kezin0s ads every time i get on GTAF.

July 24, 2019

On 7/21/2019 at 11:40 AM, Arnold Stallone said:

Stylish and tastefully done.

Karen looks very alluring while she's smiling and relaxing in the IAA building with the glow of a beautiful sunset behind her.

Yes, first things I noticed about this picture were the beautiful sunset, and Karen's gorgeous smile. Really.

July 27, 2019

Guys, it looks like i'm not allowed to post even censored Karen pics.
I'll be at /aco/.

The Unofficial I Love Karen Daniels Thread

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