Dispersion Rate

The roar of a fighter jet tears through the hazy, silent, motionless summer sky. The noise - so sudden and imposing - pulls Florence out of her drifting daydreaming slumber just enough to roll onto her side and feel how far the shade from the oak tree had moved.

‘Not enough,’ she thought, ‘but soon I'll have to get up’. The hot summer heat had wafted through the leaves gently while she slept, kissing her cheek and tussling her hair.

That alone was enough of a warning of the heat that would barrage her if she had slept long enough for the shade to cease its defence.

The flies and insects had long since given up on her, and she had been in a perfect, uninterrupted equilibrium of peaceful snoozing for at least 2 hours now; time had lost all meaning in this heat.

Her only concern - now that the jet engine had reminded her that there was still a living, moving, chaotic world out there - was for her dog ‘Gordon’, whom she had left confidently snoozing beside her in the shade. At some point, at least, she must have fallen into deep sleep. Because when she rolled to her side, she couldn't feel him. She assured herself that he'd probably wandered indoors to get himself some water or moved further into the shade.

She had woken that morning with so many intentions for the day. Take Gordon for a long overdue trip to the park, finally tackle the overgrowing garden, return correspondence to her concerned family members. More importantly deal with some of the concerns her family had for her, such as starting a financial plan to cope with the overdue rent arrears and moving all the bills into her name. When she had split with her partner ‘Jessica’ she had kept the house and the dog but shortly after slipped into an overwhelming sense of ‘what now?’. She hadn’t intended to quit her job, but she had also stopped going to work or communicating with them in any way. She was in the midst of what she would call extended ‘me time’, what her friends and family would call ‘depression’. The difference being she saw it as a temporary measure to readjust her priorities and they saw it as simply giving up. She had started cutting through the overgrowth that morning, and had felt good for a while. Then she started watching the bugs and creatures as they scurried around looking for new homes, and started appreciating the wild flowers and she thought ‘No it’s fine how it is, I don’t care what the neighbours think I like the wild look’. So she found a good spot in the shade where nobody could see her and settled down with Gordon sprawled next to her in agreement ‘it’s too hot for the park’.

She forced her eyes to open, realizing how much time had probably passed, just a crack at first, to assess how the light would hit her eyes.

Painful, as she had expected, but one of many brief, brutal, abrupt sensations she would have to subject herself to in order to pull herself back into the world of the awake, a world she wasn’t eager to reintroduce herself to. She had become troublingly enamoured by the half world she could feel herself slipping into, still conscious but only softly, still alive but only enough to experience time.

“Just ten more minutes”, she thought, “ten more”.

Time passes, she swims in thought. Time passes… Nothing ….

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Nathan hopped into his 2023 Mercedes-Benz E-Class Cabriolet; the full leather interior felt soft and caressing in his gym shorts. As he nimbly negotiated the car through the suburban traffic and into the morning city rush, he considered his hopes, wishes and dreams for the day. An exercise in positivity, his therapist had recommended to him and one he meant to pursue with the same vigor he pursued everything in life.

He pulled into the parking lot, where his vehicle was scanned, the time noted, and the length of his stay charged directly to his account. A great convenience on a day like today, where every moment had to be accounted for. His usual parking bay was occupied, immediately frustrating him to the point he was about to lean on his horn and let out a shrill scream. Still, he withdrew, recentered and remembered to “tolerate and accept the things you cannot change and look for any opportunity for growth,” another gem from his therapist. ‘Each syllable of that drivel probably cost me $20,’ Nathan inwardly thought.

He got the elevator to the 6th floor, which opened straight into the Emerald cardholder's private gym, and strode directly and confidently to the walking machine that he had come to consider ‘his’ walking machine, as it had the best panoramic view out of the sheet glass windows facing the woods on the hillside above the city. As he walked, he put his headphones into his ears and started the “woodland serenity” audio track he had purchased to calm his mind during his morning 5-mile simulated uphill hike. "Time permitting, I might attempt 6 this morning, ’ Nathan thought ‘I’m still a young man, in my prime, if that idiot on the freeway hadn’t cut me off, I might have gotten through traffic faster, then I would have plenty of time.’

As he approached, Nathan could see someone else was already on ‘his’ walking machine. His face went red, he stood immediately behind them and stared with vitriol into the back of their slightly balding, thick-necked head, hoping that the discomfort and force of his disapproval would somehow radiate through to them, and they would step off the machine and disappear.

None of those things happened. Nathan sulkily walked to the next machine down, which had a slightly subpar view, in his opinion, and started his hike. First, he adjusted the machine's elevation setting to an impressive 25° incline. Set the speed to “Alpine Athlete”, corrected his foot positioning and posture and hit start.

The ascent began smoothly, but as he settled into his 2nd mile, he felt the distracting itch of all the day's annoyances rising in the back of his mind. ‘Keep focused, stay in your centre, ’ he thought to himself as he peered wistfully at the distant woods. Beautiful through the shimmering waves of hot air that rose from the valley on this bright summer morning.

He thought he could see movement between the trees, hikers, and real live hikers. With backpacks and walking poles, a group of 6, he thought. ‘What am I doing!’ he said aloud to himself. The thought hit him hard between the eyes like a slap ‘Why am I here, paying to pretend to walk up a hill, while watching real people doing it just a 20-minute drive away!’

Nathan disembarked the machine with purpose. ‘Tomorrow, tomorrow I’m doing it for real!’

Returning from work that evening, Nathan stopped to buy himself some high-spec hiking boots, a ‘Hydrafill Extreme Hiking Backpack/Fluid Container’ and some high-protein energy bars and isotonic sports beverages.

He barely remembered sleeping when his alarm woke him an hour before its usual time. In some sort of mission-filled robotic haze, he had put on his new boots, set his satnav to the location he had researched the night before that seemed like the best place to start hiking from, and jumped in his car. There was no traffic this time in the morning, especially in the direction he was travelling out of town, and before he knew it, he was opening the car door to the crisp morning breeze. It filled him with hope, hope for a new perspective, hope for a day filled with experience and tribulations; his otherwise climate-controlled existence was missing.

He hadn’t set any dedicated time for his walk, nor had to adjust the elevation or speed. He just started walking without any frustrating interactions; his mind was clear. So clear that after 45 minutes, and with the path appearing to divide and disintegrate into smaller, rockier, less clear routes, he suddenly realized he hadn’t planned his journey, he didn’t know where he was aiming for or how far he was going, he had just started walking. His initial panic subsided into a calm acceptance. ‘This is the Californian hills,’ he thought, 'this isn’t some Siberian wasteland, people don’t get too lost out here’

He pushed on, feeling like every step he was taking now was into the unknown; some deep explorer instinct in him was awakening. His thoughts were solely focused on which way to maneuver through the ever changing complex and challenging terrain. He felt completely relaxed without any background chatter in his mind, just thinking about where each foot was going to land next. He became so adept at this new challenge that he started to take notice of the gentle noises that had been surrounding him the whole time. A bird on a distant hill calling, the leaves flapping in the wind, the very occasional drop of a nut or twig falling to the ground. Something that had started to creep up inside him was an awareness of how much his heart was pounding and how hot he had become; the sweat was pouring from him faster than could replenish himself with the strange-tasting “isotonic sports beverages”. He came to a point where a fallen tree had forced him to clamber through branches that flicked back at him and grazed his naked legs. ‘This is not nearly as easy as the walking machine had implied it would be’ he thought to himself as he submitted and sat flustered on the fallen tree. He didn’t know how long he’d been out here and started to wonder how far he had come. He began to wonder how lost he might be. He had fought that if he turned back and headed roughly downhill, it would not only be easier and quicker than it had been to get to where he was, but the path would make itself more visible as he went.

As he thought about this, he remembered something he’d been told by a golfing buddy of his "Dispersion rate” the words came to him “Dispersion rate, bud” he remembered it as his friend trying to explain the variability of his golf shots, or something like that. But it had got him thinking that if he went back down the hill at a slightly different angle to the way he’d come up he could end up miles from where he had left his car. This thought started to worry him. ‘Why is there no-one around up here?’ was another thought, it was a beautiful day and when he’d set off he’d thoughtt he was just there earlier than the average hiker, but he’d have thought he might’ve stumbled upon 1-2 people by now. At first he’d been grateful of the solitude but now he was contemplating the real possibility of being ‘lost,’ alone in the wild, he started to regret it.

He sat and ate his energy bar and contemplated the best thing to do next. ‘If I push on there would likely be a more established path further into the hills.’ He thought ‘much less risky than trying to recount your steps heading down the hill, for awhile back there you weren’t even thinking let alone remembering where you were going’

Another 2-3 miles of steep uphill clambering and Nathan was spent, his backpack was running empty, his shirt was soaked in sweat, his feet throbbed. But he felt good, alive and accomplished. To top it off he could see a path just a little way further through the trees. He headed directly for it, eyes fixed on his goal, no longer ambling now striding straight for it.

Suddenly he was face down into the undergrowth, a bad step had ricocheted up through his hip and spine, he felt his leg buckle. A sharp unyielding pain burst through his ankle. He lay still for a moment then rolled to face skyward, raising his compromised leg he winced. It was not a simple sprain he concluded as he looked down at his foot that was now pointing jaggedly inward and twisted awkwardly sideways. He tried to flex it gently in the air but any small movement was hindered by clamping bone and unbearable pain.

As he lay in the heat, sweat drenching his face, a cool breeze blew over him, a small pleasure in an otherwise painful situation. He closed his eyes and rested for a while, not sleeping just letting his mind clear, as he did he felt himself drifting. Dehydration, panic, overwhelming trepidation. All might have played its part, as Nathan slipped out of consciousness and drifted.

A wet tongue licked his face, and he squirmed, ‘What is this!?’ he thought, shocked and faintly disgusted. He opened his eyes and saw a small, domesticated dog staring back at him.

“Hello boy” Nathan said aloud to the dog, “are you lost? Me too…Me too.”

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Florence felt around in the grass as she regained wakefulness, much cooler now

“There you are, boy”, she mumbled as she felt Gordon's furry body close to hers. “Where did you get to?” she said softly as she came back around from sleep, her eyes slowly opened, and the light was setting. A soft golden glow was all that was left of the ferocious summer's day. Florence’s face felt wet and sticky; she could smell dog breath and sweat on her.

‘How long did I sleep?’ she thought as she struggled onto her feet, her ankle felt swollen and burnt,, ‘Those damn fire ants’ she thought ‘that’s what must have woke me’.”Gordon, you’re covered in leaves!”

She was dismayed as she limped back to her room and looked in the mirror, her face was a tinge of pink, not yet the deep rouge of sunburn, but the smoldering was on its way. ‘I really need to pull myself around’ she thought ‘’when life gives you these opportunities for growth, you really need to take them’.

She looked out at Gordon still sniffing around the garden. “Come on boy, let's go for a walk!”