Mark PodvinComposition and RhetoricUniversidad San Francisco de QuitoAssignment No.1Due date: see syllabusUnder NO circumstances do I accept late work!

Your initial task is to read an excerpt from my novel “It’s About Time: 12-23-12.” ISBN 9978451013. Words of wisdom: Do not attempt to complete the questions that analyze my excerpt until you have read EVERY SINGLE WORD!

Description: This novel is about a man who works meticulously to get a modern locomotive operating in hopes of escaping a solitary existence that he believes to be the result of some type of massive and unexplainable human extinction. Dillon’s desire to find other humans living within some form of civilization obsesses him as he eventually departs his place of frigid nothingness via his locomotive on a time travel trip filled with history, drugs and adventure. His quest for civilization is steadfast, yet his encounters with everyone except his faithful friend Sam are unsatisfactory. Dillon’s primary concern of staying alive is altered only when he voluntarily makes a spiritual decision of greater importance. (appears on the backside of my novel, “It´s About Time.”)

Chapter 1

The freezing wind ripped through Dylan’s worn parka as he secured the containers of diesel aboard the sled that lay ready to be pulled across the snow.

Despite the agonizing cold that stiffened his working hands, Dylan had diligently made what he believed to be the final repairs on his locomotive, and he now looked forward to a long-awaited dream of moving on. In the last few weeks he had made several trips from the bulk plant to fill the 32 fifty-five gallon barrels in the boxcar attached to the locomotive and the locomotive’s own saddle tanks. The locomotive was a standing testimony to Dylan’s hard work, and though he didn’t know where he had acquired the necessary skills to perform with such precision the repairs on this huge locomotive, he felt satisfied that he had managed to do so.

The Day of Judgment arrived, and Dylan knew he was soon to be the judge of whether his years of work could earn him the right to move on to another world, hopefully better than the current one he knew too well. He flipped on the locomotive’s several switches, and in short time the powerful diesel engine was idling. Emotionlessly, Dylan carefully tuned in to the coarse sound of the idling locomotive. For a few minutes there rose a thick, black cloud of smoke into the frozen air, and all signs indicated that he would soon reap the reward of years of skill and hard work. The thunderous sound was rudely harmonious for a man who knew that his only way to escape his solitude was aboard a streamlined piece of the future--or the past.

There was no disappointment when the locomotive’s growl faded away into the gray sky, for Dylan lived a life of patience, and it was patience that had greatly aided him in his survival for so many years.

Dylan meticulously inspected the cause of the shut downs, and his finding was that the radiator, along with a number of hoses, had become frozen blocks. For the next several weeks he made several adjustments, but nothing proved effective in keeping the extreme cold from freezing the locomotive’s operative parts.

When Dylan’s repairs on the locomotive went wrong, he generally escaped to a world of rich fantasy, which included tales of survival. He wasn’t sure how or why he recalled certain stories about men who fought against nature to survive, for too many years had now passed to remember such a thing. He did, however, recall a story about a man somewhere in an equally hostile land that needed to build a fire, but failed. He also had occasional flashbacks about another man who repeatedly talked about providence and lived on an island somewhere, and did survive. It was the latter that entertained him, not so much because the character survived, but rather because Dylan longed for a more hospitable land, a land that would allow him to do something other than work. He knew he was able to survive the raw weather for now, but the increasing cold made him wonder if some day he wouldn’t just pass off into oblivion. He sometimes thought that that would be a fine ending to his own story of survival.

Throughout the years he had found enough frozen corpses to continuously feed himself. Now he saw only ice and snow. What once existed had terminated, everything except Dylan. Strangely enough, he had come to feel secure in his frozen world; for he knew he was all there was. He had no pressure from an unforgiving world. He knew he could not hurt anyone nor be hurt, for there was no one else he had come across that was alive. He was all there was! He was the statue of David, he was Moses, and he was king, yet he was nothing. He entertained his mind with anything that would enable him to keep surviving; he played games in his mind and always won, he hummed songs to convince himself he was sane, and sane he was, schizophrenically sane. His zealous concentration on survival was his only weapon against emotional traumas. He needed to be focused. It was today and tomorrow that mattered; however, he remained constantly curious as to why he was all there was. He occasionally entertained the thought of there being a superior being, and he questioned whether his survival was a curse or a blessing. Many years had passed without his looking at his own face, and in this rejection of his physical appearance, he was indeed cursed. As far as he was able to calculate from the markings he had made on the wall of his locomotive, he had been a hermit for approximately twelve years. Being alive was his blessing, or so it seemed.

The most perplexing question of why only he was alive kept him in a permanent search for answers of an area that he calculated to be approximately forty square miles. Throughout this territory, his careful recording of the temperature revealed that there was a noticeable decrease every year, bringing him to have to bear with what his thermometer recorded as being -34 degrees Fahrenheit. And Dylan knew that the strong winds contributed even more to the cold.

Dylan jumped down from his locomotive, shut the steel door, and with his huge knife, a high-caliber rifle, and several yards of rope tied to a small backpack loaded with pieces of frozen corpses, he proceeded to walk along the slightly elevated, snow-covered terrain of the train tracks behind the only sign he had encountered that appropriately read ‘Winter Ave.’ He didn't know why he was able to read, nor did he know why this only sign, along with his boxcar and locomotive, remained.

He preferred to follow the train tracks, for he knew he could easily turn around at any time and get back with no fear of getting lost. It hadn’t snowed for the last few years, but the permanent and extreme cold kept the snow of long ago in place. And the sun, that one celestial being that had long ago faded out, remained only in memories.

Years ago, in one of his few overnight trips along his train tracks, Dylan noticed what he believed to be a thawed area in the middle of the ice and snow. He never did make a fair assessment of his discovery, believing it was just another hallucination, but today would be different, for he had a clear mind of his predicament. He was compelled to find new answers to old questions. He used to be fearful of the unexplainable, but now he feared only one thing--not knowing. Determination was in his blood, yet he wasn't sure why. Why did he want to know? Could additional knowledge make him better? Dylan knew that if he didn’t search out the unknown, he was doomed, and he preferred to not entertain that as his fate. But why exist?

The first few miles of Dylan’s treks always demanded adjustment, for his mind needed to walk together with his body, and so many years in isolation from any other form of life had stretched apart the unification of the two. His body was decrepit, but nobody was around to say so. His schizophrenic mind was his prize possession. His mind was, so it seemed, functioning, and he modestly declared himself a genius of the human race. He was what nobody else could be; yet he was uncertain who he was.

Dylan was not so much where he wanted to be, but rather where he needed to be. This horizontal mountain climber had no peak. He was en route to a location that was at the far end of his domain--a place that he knew would not be a rainbow, but rather a quest for yet another quest. He searched for answers, yet he wasn’t sure he had the appropriate questions.

Dylan seized nature as neither friend nor enemy, but rather as a flow, a kind of liquid nitrogen that would snap him in two if he didn’t handle it well. There wasn’t an ounce of thrill in his existence, nor was there any depression. He simply existed.

Several hours of one-way walking produced nothing of interest--just a lot of ice and snow and monotony. From a stainless steel thermos he drank melted snow that had been heated up from his ‘home’ heater; however, the temperature was now decreasing, and he knew he would not have the luxury of drinking water upon his return, for it would become frozen. A bend in his trail led him to an approaching hill that he recognized as being the appropriate place to explore. And as he climbed the slope, he felt a quivering in his blood, doubtful as to whether he had made the correct decision to explore this new territory. Yet, he wanted to see if his familiar land of nothing could offer any hope. He was one step away from turning back, but several steps away from discovering a new reality.

Dylan always carried the rifle on his treks just in case something unexpected happened, and now he swung the weapon around on its strap and clutched it with fear. Five steps separated him from seeing what might be worthwhile or what might be a terrible mistake. He knew he wasn’t stalking anything but truth, and truth had proven to be a vicious reality check for a creature that was all there was. And for the first time in several years, he felt fear. His gloved hands gripped the rifle, his huge pack boots moving much slower. Only the index finger on his left hand could grasp the trigger. Time crawled as Dylan instinctively reached on in search of something new.

The last step to the top of the hill was a stroll on LSD. He recalled the time concept and an altered mind. He was clear he wasn’t clear. He was tripping. He was one step toward truth, reason or frustration. One step to why! His heart pumped faster, his hands got sweaty and his mind was fried. He was a pillar of stone and king of Rome. All the ice and snow in the gray day were now transformed to a trip to heaven. An imaginary sun warmed him and the peacocks were coquettish, knocking on his window of hope. Dylan was eating fine blueberry marmalade on rye and drinking hot coffee with creamer. He felt handsome. He sniffed nutmeg and returned to pumpkin pie where he wore and turned the dirt to plant the tulips in the spring with beer on the road to doobie beach Mrs. Anderson from my friends suck delight on Hampton’s wild poker hand despite the bliss of Shirley's suckling kin mama nothing else for wine ghastly sorrow scoring wedding memoirs crucifixion after nine inside the sun now eat the chat red flow.

A small forest stood below him. Black and white birches, elms and poplars, stood as proud testimonies to there being life beyond death. His hungry eyes discerned a thick, green Mother Nature breastfeeding his mind. Deja vu! Dylan was a Magi coming to see a newborn baby. The sight was spectacular, almost unbearable. Twelve years of isolation from anything of life made this a frighteningly memorable time. The square area of paradise was small--perhaps the size of fifty locomotives, but the richness of his discovery was beyond his comprehension. He was in an oasis, and he felt blanketed by the comforting hands of an inexplicable force.

A cold, yet companionable breeze shot through him like radiation as he fell to his knees to weep. The rush was like that of a beaver making the logistical observation that he is in control when the elements are present. He was quite literally frozen on the outside, but in flames on the inside. These few minutes of thrill were sheer ecstasy, and not even a return to his previous life could have yielded such an exhilarating experience. Uncontrollable appreciation ripped through his twisted body, reminding him that there was still something worth living for above and beyond concern with survival. Dylan gripped his head, wiped his tears from his hideous but smiling face, and rose to his feet with arms outstretched. He was a grateful Job ready to preach about the need to wait patiently for good things to happen.

The first step toward Canaan was a heavy trip unlike any mind-altering drugs. Leaving the ice and snow and making a dramatically slow entrance into a new terrain was a high that pumped blood to his thirsty arteries. The angels swarmed on him and made his entrance into the new world a trip of sweetness. The birch trees were racially well-mixed symbols of a mood that uttered peace, and in the foliage of friendship stood additional, massive creatures with several arms and fingers addressing the reverent sky. The underbrush gripped to its own personality in a chant that breathed contentment among the working class. A massive display of botanical gracefulness orchestrated a rhythmic beat that penetrated every crevice of every hideous pore in his body. Dylan’s ship had spotted its glittering land harbor; however, as he stood in an ocean of the unknown, he knew all too well the story of the siren’s lure to destruction. He knew that not all that glitters is gold. But for the meantime, Dylan wanted to lay fear aside and bask in his little Illyrian.

As he peeled away his clothes to make way for sunless warmth, he stood trembling at the thought of trying to understand why this miraculous piece of land existed. He was the target of both joy and fear with no understanding of why. There was a brief flashback of his first life, a brief remembrance of his youth when other people

existed, though he couldn’t remember who the faces were. But the inability to remember oftentimes proved to be favorable, for entertaining a prolonged stay at this apparently enjoyable stage would have proven to be more than Dylan was able to handle. What did remain in his mind was the severely blurred image of a past that was life, not survival. He was now fearfully alive again, and it was more than only the sense of sight that penetrated his mind, it was his sense of touch that jolted his depth of appreciation. As he caressed the first tree, a splendid birch that stood in its prime with leaves of green, his gruesome hands bore witness to the fact that opposites are attracted. Ugliness touched beauty in Dylan’s only contact with nature in a million years. Dylan looked upward to thank a greater force than him for this luxurious encounter. Despite a grotesque body that detailed the essence of human composition in hell, he embraced several trees with a beatific palpation. He was the tree doctor inspecting resurgence. The thick underbrush rose up to send Dylan’s sense of touch spinning out of control; there had always been so much clothing worn to protect him from the cold that this was the first time he was nearly nude. His tears were tears of joy that dripped unto his bare flesh as he danced wildly around his new territory. The party was grossly elegant, a freaky madman embracing nature, a lunatic defying gravity with leaps and bounds.

Dylan was not under the influence of LSD, he WAS LSD, squashing reality in a coherent world that made no sense. He was a desert with prickly cactuses sucking up what laid beneath his previously tamed extremities. He sat down against what appeared to be the tallest elm tree in his forest, closed his eyes and smelled the wood and brush and plants. Aside from the pieces of heated human corpses, he did not have much of an opportunity to use his nose for anything other than breathing oxygen, his body odor, and diesel; thus, this new delight of sniffing life awakened him to an improved alignment with nature. With eyes tightly closed, he listened to the slight breeze that danced through the tree branches, allowing every pitch and tone to be placed in a special neuron-storage vault with the hope that, in the event he should lose his forest, he could continue to savor the wind by uncapping his brain. Dylan knew he was physically unattractive to himself, but the beauty of his forest was transforming his heart and mind to beauty. He then rose to his feet to see if he could find some logical explanation as to why this forest existed.

He moved toward the center of his forest to inspect what appeared to be an unusual mound with no trees, but was full of thick bushes. Dylan approached the small hill with apprehension, knowing he needed to make an inquiry as to why all this richness stood amidst a world of tundra. Atop the mound, he found a small area where he could dig with his knife. Feeling guilty that he was performing an atrocity on his rich forest, he held the first excavation of earth for a long time before slowly releasing it. The knife probed around in the tender soil in an additional penetration, and there it stood, a wiggly creature that was fiercely trying to get somewhere quickly. He was able to identify this brown thing as being a worm, and almost as intriguing as this discovery of life, was the wormhole from which it crawled out. Dylan's heart beat rapidly with the thrill of seeing a life form, and though it was radically different than him, there was a powerful charge in observing something other than him move, and there was an intellectual impulse that told him that his observation of the wormhole was an indication that life can come out of darkness. He was learning the lesson of not doubting in the dark what is learned in the light.

The worm was two bodies in one, each extremity struggling to go its own way. Dylan cried and wished he had never disturbed this other creature; he would have covered the squirming ‘beast’ with lose dirt had his inquisitiveness not been in such fierce demand of an answer to why the forest existed. But he had a mission now, and nothing could interrupt him, not even a worm. He removed the worm from its hole, placed it on the ground in front of him, and watched as the one half won over the other half in deciding what direction to travel. Dylan, the heinous creature of superiority, continued to dig deeper into this uncharted land in search of a greater sign--something other than a worm to provide an answer. More wormholes appeared along with more quantum leaps out of the dark by more worms. There was a high pile of dirt outside the hole, but nothing of interest within it. He didn't have an idea of what he was looking for, but to be able to perform this task in unfrozen land was, if nothing else, a change of activities. His monstrous hands were covered with elegant dirt, and his ability to move his fingers free from the stiffness caused by severe coldness, enabled him to work speedily.

It was terrifying to have the greater part of his arm reaching blindly downward into a narrow hole, and he thought of a much larger worm, perhaps a relative of some of the worms he had now flung out of the hole, or a different kind of beast, grabbing his fingers and hand to feast upon. Dylan thought of how disgusting it would be to have his hand nibbled upon while unable to shake off the attacker; he thought of how helpless he would be with an attack of a hungry creature slowly making its way upward, chewing on his remaining flesh and moisturizing the dark dirt with his blood. He was losing it while finding it.

He swiveled his fingers around, grabbed small amounts of dirt and pulled his tired arm out quicker than he thought possible. His head was turned sideways, pressing against the earth while his hand made one last reach into the unknown; his fingernails then screeched against something he knew was not dirt. He removed his arm with such speed that his airborne hand struck him in his face. He remained mesmerized for a short while, focused on the branches to his side, and then regained his composure before rising to his feet to get his rifle to use as a poking device; his Winchester was a bit longer than his arm and would be his tool to separate his body from his newfound surface. Dylan inserted his weapon into the wormless hole and listened to a clank that definitely indicated there was something metallic beneath the surface.

Nightfall was about an hour away, and for the first time Dylan could remember, he would spend an evening in a hospitable place. He desperately wanted to find answers to: why he was the only human alive, why there was only ice and snow aside from his newly discovered forest, and why this forest existed. But the most persistent interrogation he injected into his brain was that of who and where he was before he came to be a survivor. Although he had no answers, he felt relieved to know that at least he had questions.

He had worked with expertise fixing the locomotive, but he didn’t know why he knew what he knew. And his hallucinations revealed lightning-like flashbacks of a life radically unlike what he currently lived, a life of unexplainable segments that indicated there were other events that, if circumstances arose, would allow him to utilize intelligence to put together the puzzle of the unknown; however, his encounter with the forest brought about a feeling that proved there were responses to events that had no intellectual explanation. Over the years, he had: accidentally hit his fingers with a

hammer several times, burned himself with his heaters, fallen from his boxcar and hurt his leg, and felt the numbing sensation due to long exposure to severe cold. Thus, he knew he had the ability to feel pain, and with his discovery of the first worm he now knew he could feel pleasure. Dylan was learning that the best way to understand something is to understand its opposite.

As he laid on his side in a naturally warm place for the first time he could remember, he trembled with delight as he ate pieces of thawing flesh.

The sky was darkening as Dylan’s mind was on fire trying to imagine what might lie beneath the earth. His questions hit upon him like meteorites. Could the discovery of something metallic beneath him, he thought, be the answer to why this little paradise existed in the middle of nowhere? Then he wondered if revealing what lie beneath him might be opening a door to danger. But he questioned if a dangerous situation was justification to quit exploring.

Though he gave much consideration to a multitude of things, his thoughts never distracted him to the point that he was unable to fall into a deep sleep. Dylan was frequently accustomed to having no answers to his questions; nonetheless, he swam with the current instead of against it. And sleep he did, rich comfortable sleep, and unlike flashbacks provoked by LSD that took him to The Land of Bliss, he was carried to an inhabited land similar to the land he had lived in for these last twelve years. Faceless people who were coming and going and lived in a considerably nicer home than his locomotive were bonded together by something that was new in his scope of reality, a strange relationship with some members interacting, talking, listening, yet without any audio to Dylan. The partial picture showed that he had traveled light years to a land that he lived in before. This was a trip with a vivid plot, a plot that held color, lots of red flowing substance. The dream revealed a particular individual that, despite the unidentifiable face, had a physical appearance similar to his. Dylan shifted from being an outsider looking in; he was now inside the dream embracing this faceless person.

There was no continuation of this encounter as Dylan passed off into nothingness, awaking in the early morning to a piercing sound above him. The sound was quite agreeable and he could only attribute this high-pitched tone to having something to do with another life form in his newly found forest. He quickly rose to his feet and peered through a birch tree’s leaves to see that the owner of this peculiar noise belonged to a small, orange-breasted creature perched on a branch. And in an instant, Dylan’s newly discovered creature flew to another tree where it repeated the noise several times before it returned only to be honored by Dylan. Unlike Noah who didn’t want the bird to return, Dylan was quite content that it did. With another riff of mini-concerts to put him in an appreciative mood, he raised his hands uncontrollably in the air, shouted, and even tried to imitate the bird’s sound.

Yesterday it was worms, today a bird, and Dylan felt that there might be a good reason to believe there were other signs of life, not only in his newly found wonderland, but elsewhere. What a score to have found the forest! Dylan was beginning to have reactions to stimuli that he had never before imagined, and now he was about to dig a bigger hole than his first to see what lie beneath him. His pieces of food and some melted snow were devoured hurriedly to energize him for the big dig, the one dig that could shine some light on his dreary existence; he was an arm's length away from a metal fortress of hope or a step downward from purgatory.

Dylan found himself sweating, a healthy, agreeable sweat produced by his digging and the day’s warmth, and although he was unable to dig rapidly due to a knife being his only tool other than his hands, he eventually dug a two-foot by two-foot hole. He inhaled new life thanks to the comforting trees that exhaled a kind of rustic perfume; it was an encounter of a rich, green, leafy canopy and the struggling, yet grateful worker. His curiosity was his quenching relief.

The thankful bird stopped chirping long enough to get within a few feet of the brown, creepy crawlers being thrown out of the hole. Halfway to somewhere unknown, Dylan took a short break under the big elm tree to have a few gulps of water and munch on another tasteless piece of flesh he had brought from the boxcar. It wasn’t a perfect picture, thought Dylan, but it was wonderful to be able to lay down in the forest thinking of another life with other beings; however, there was also a feeling of security to know that by himself he didn’t have to hide anything about his identity. He was hideously free. He was Xenon The Stranger! He was now the king of the forest, the solitary emperor in control of no one but himself. He couldn’t conceive of there being a better life than his own, nor a worse life. He was miserably content in his shallow world of everything and nothing. To come across another being like him could be a rich encounter or a tremendous disappointment. An insane mental battle swelled up inside him; he was a lunatic who honestly didn’t know who he was, where he was, or what, if any, purpose he had in life. Dylan was a freak who grew magic scenarios in his mind to tear down any adverse attacks from his other self. He was the inventor of truth, yet he needed to lie to

survive. He was a mental mess who could easily function well in the real world--if such a world existed. Did anything make sense, and did it matter if it did?

The hole made sense, and for the time being that was all that was important. Fearful that he might fall through the metal once the dirt was cleared, he secured his waist with a rope to a nearby tree. More dirt was thrown out of the excavation to make way for the standing digger. Like a mole in a hole, Dylan had burrowed to within a few inches of the metal surface. His hands were covered with a grateful gravedigger’s dirt. Dylan had a filthy job that was closer to a possible pay off, as he knew that one man’s death is another man’s survival.

The forest’s bird was delighted with the human intruder, showing its contentment by eating and chirping, and Dylan, unknowingly, had made a friend. He breathed relief as he scooped away the last handful of black dirt covering his gaping hole, and standing atop the thick, metal surface of his discovery like a lordly archaeologist, Dylan was rushed with fear knowing that he could not turn back, and he needed to penetrate the rusty surface in hopes of obtaining an explanation to his existence and the deaths of everyone else. With the exception of when he was tripping, he was void of any previous experiences that allowed him to know how to act in life. He acted not like an instinctive animal, but like an unborn man; thus, rather than standing atop his downed prey, he stood atop what he may have been before he became nothing. He was less significant than the earth, for he had progressed in his existence only to produce nothing; he had no trees growing from neither his trunk nor leafy foliage growing from his arms. And his tampering with nature only swirled earth, not truth, and now he pondered his existence.

Dylan’s mind was so concentrated on his survival that he oftentimes gave little consideration to things he knew and how and when he had come to know them. His mind tapped into knowledge of a vast array of highly potent chemical agents that, if released

effectively, would kill all those exposed. He knew of the dangerous V-series agents, particularly the VX gas, and his mind drew the chemical structures for soman, sarin and tabun. His concern was that he was about to tap into a liquid form of a dangerous gas, and instead of administering an antidote such as atropine into his system, he had only pieces of human flesh, and they were far from helpful in a potentially threatening situation.

Dylan crawled out of his earthly cavity, untied himself, and sat down in the naked filth to sip some water and think about how he was going to make an opening into the thick steel. It was good to be finished with the digging, and like all the other jobs Dylan had performed; there was a slight sense of satisfaction knowing that he had one less thing to do. The forest was stabbed, the bird was full, and Dylan was tired.

In short time he had conceived of a way to penetrate the steel box. He climbed the birch tree to where he was able to reach over, and using the serrated side of his knife, cut off a branch about six feet long and three inches in diameter. He let the dead limb fall to the ground, climbed back down the tree, quickly removed the much smaller branches and leaves, and cut the middle of the big branch in two before placing the halves across the hole. He then got his rifle that was leaning against the elm tree, and pointing it downward into the hole, tightly secured it to the bridged branches with a stretch of frayed rope, running the rope loosely around the trigger, and, ever so carefully, for fear of blowing himself to smithereens, ran the rope to behind the elm tree that stood as his shelter. He was not surprised that he had figured out a way to make a piercing hole in the steel structure, for with a mind that had only him to focus on, he easily found solutions to predicaments. Dylan believed that if there was no solution to a problem, it was because there was no problem.

Dylan tugged the rope just tightly enough to see from his safe place behind the tree that everything was ready to go. Even the bird sensed fear, thus it flew to the other end of the forest. He was no ‘rocket’ scientist, but a ‘rock it’ commander about to explore in the other direction. He yanked the rope and immediately heard a loud roar shake the forest's peaceful state, and to his delight there was no additional explosion. He scurried over to his war zone to observe a thick, red liquid slowly ooze out of the hole and mix with the surrounding dirt. His curiosity peaked; he wanted to know what connection there was between this substance, the forest, and his own existence. Perhaps the red flow was a kind of atonement, thought Dylan, to allow for rebirth of an area that perhaps had previously been dead. He stood in awe as he flashbacked on his last dream, the colored one that included the red flowing substance, and despite the fragmented picture in his mind, there was a piece of the dream that was similar in appearance to what was still slowly oozing out of the injured steel. There was union between the dirt and the red flow, and Dylan, mystified and curious, did something he hadn't done since he could remember--he smiled!

For what may have been two hours or so, the excavation finally ceased to fill with more of the red liquid, at which time Dylan thought of conducting a series of tests to find out what this matter was, or wasn’t. He felt relieved to see that no wild beast had crawled out of the hole, nor was there any further explosion to rock his already quivering existence; nonetheless, there had to be something about this phenomenon that would allow him to at least tap into answering some questions.

The elementary tests began. One of the cut branches was inserted into the shallow liquid to see if anything happened. Nothing. Careful that no red substance would drip

onto his hands, Dylan removed the branch and learned it against a nearby tree, red side down. He removed another piece of human flesh from his backpack, sat down, and in the time it took to eat this culinary failure, he noticed nothing peculiar about the substance. Nothing. He didn't know if there was anything that should occur; he knew that no action is better than a bad reaction. He then tied his knife to the other branch and inserted it into the red guck to see if there would be any reaction on a metallic surface. Again, he took out the drowned knife, placed it next to its twin branch, sat down and watched. Nothing. Dylan then had a flashback of a time and place where radioisotopes were used in the preservation of food, and he thought that drinking the substance might preserve his own body. He scooped up a handful of the slippery red liquid and swallowed it. He didn’t particularly care for the stuff, but he didn’t totally dislike it. At any rate, he considered it wise to not drink any more of the substance for fear that his body might react violently to it.

Resting under his forest's birch tree, Dylan turned his head in response to the bird’s noisy return to the nearby elm tree, and sensing Dylan’s despair, the feathered friend offered a beautiful serenade to soothe the filthy human. So moved was Dylan that he calmly spoke to the celestial being, “Hello. How are you?”

The bird’s response had no linguistic form to an individual craving human speech, and there was no need for any high-level of communication between a bird and a strange man who, if he was educated, didn’t know it, and nobody else was around to test him.

There was; nonetheless, a sense of beauty in this infatuating meeting that, unlike any memory in Dylan's brain, ran thru his blood like an altruistic river runs through a desert.

Talking with a bird was a highlight in Dylan’s existence, and he knew this to be true more than the bird believed its encounter was with a man. The bird was satisfied; Dylan was euphoric.

In a slow-moving act of appreciation, he reached over to remove additional pieces of human flesh from his backpack to both eat and offer. He took the first bite while listening to the curious chants of his free friend, and gently threw a piece a few feet in front of him. Once again, Dylan exercised his freedom of speech, “Come now, it’s all I have.”

He was swept with joy to see that the bird, feeling no threat, swooped down from his tree to check out the offering. Dylan had made his move, and now he desired to see a favorable reaction. Here was the offertory and the chance to participate in a ceremony of sharing, but the bird quickly flew back to its branch, rejecting the food. Dylan, still holding his portion of the flesh in his hand, looked over to a worm not far from him, and in short time he was slurping down the worm, tossing his piece of human flesh into the woods. He was then on his knees searching for additional worms, and he was soon devouring mouthfuls of worms.

Dylan knew that his new life in the forest was responsible for his improved level of hope, but he also knew that the need to find a way out of both his frigid home and newly discovered paradise was a high priority. And what he believed to be his ticket to somewhere was the locomotive. He had once walked on the tracks in the opposite direction of where his forest lay, and an inexplicable instinct informed him that if he could travel far south, he would perhaps find life, not a small piece of it like his current discovery of the forest, but a considerably more spacious forest. Finding other beings was

not an agreeable thought for Dylan, for though he knew something was missing in his life, he wasn’t sure that finding other beings would be a reward or a curse. He wanted to find a civilization, but he contradictorily was not keen on having to encounter other humans. His previous dream of faceless beings further indicated that at some time in the past there were characters attached to the corpses he had found buried in the snow, and he knew enough about himself to know that he didn’t feel any particular need to know anyone else.

It didn’t take him but a few minutes to fall asleep. He had no dreams, or at least none that he could remember. The following morning was another gray day, but Dylan awoke with a revitalized spirit. He would return to his home and work diligently on getting the locomotive to operate. The locomotive was his only hope.

Dylan put on his heavy clothing, swung the rifle around to hang on his back, inserted the knife in its sheath, and was reminded that nothing had happened to the blade. The red fluid was to have been a miraculous substance to aid him in something. The good side of the discovery was that there was nothing negative the liquid did. If the substance didn’t do what he would have liked it to do, and he had no idea what that was, he was content in knowing that it didn’t do anything harmful. Still curious as to what the stuff was, Dylan filled up his thermos with the apparently harmless red substance he had resurrected, and placed it in his backpack to take home with him.

The bird showed up to wish the sojourner a good trip, and Dylan simply nodded to it as he proceeded to leave his forest behind. He didn’t have in him the capacity to feel lonely toward another creature, and as for feeling any loneliness toward leaving the forest, he knew he was doing what he needed to do, and that, in his mind, meant there was no room for feelings. So many years with severe coldness surrounding him had, for better or for worse, governed his behavior. And Dylan had no time to involve himself in any inconsequential activities.

What he did feel was an eventual change in temperature as he slowly left his three days of warmth behind, not knowing when he would return to his paradise retreat. Dylan heard the last faint chirp from his feathery friend, and he smiled as the sub-zero temperature approached him. What an unusual distraction he had had, and no need for LSD. He had a good arrival, and now he desired a good return.

The harshness of the cold caught him trembling for a few minutes, then his body warmth kicked in and he was on his way. To avoid having to walk in the colder night, he knew he needed to walk swiftly and avoid any stops. Now that he had filled his thermos with the red stuff instead of melted snow, he periodically scooped up small mouthfuls of snow along the partially buried tracks to quench his thirst. As for missing anything about the forest, he felt he should have taken the time to hunt for worms and carry them back with him. As he munched on another piece of insipid flesh, he thought of how enjoyable it was to have eaten the worms. He was the only customer eating his one-millionth piece of despair, and now that he had eaten something tasty, he was able to compare.

Mark PodvinComposition and RhetoricUniversidad San Francisco de QuitoAssignment No.1

Due date: see syllabusUnder NO circumstances do I accept late work!

Name: _______________________________________

Student No. __________________

*Signature: __________________________________

*Your signature testifies that you have worked independently on this assignment, that you have received help from NO one. Believe me, you do not want to plagiarize in this course! Note: Keep your answers short.

1.) Geographically speaking, where is the most likely place that the first chapter of the story occurs? You must indicate to me why you answer the way you do.

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2.) Provide a character description of Dylan. Note: You are not allowed to use quotations from my book in your answer. You need to use your own words based on what I have written.

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3.) Defend cannibalism in Dylan´s situation.

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4.) Dylan is a madman, a survivor and a pragmatic individual who attempts to do anything possible to find a way out of his desperate situation. Why do you think the author (Mark Podvin) has Dylan repeatedly speaking to a locomotive?

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5.) Quoting from myself, “He was a grateful Job ready to preach about the need to wait patiently for good things to happen.” Who is Job?

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6.) Pretend you are a movie director searching for a book to be turned into a movie; although you have read just the first chapter of this novel, do you believe you have

enough information to determine if this book is worthy of being turned into a movie? Why or why not? Please be honest, I hate BS.

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7.) Dylan encounters a worm, and obviously, a wormhole. In your own words, describe what you think the author may be implying with the words, “…the wormhole was an indication that life can come out of darkness.” Note: You need to search on the internet what wormholes are and incorporate this in your response.

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8.) “His concern was that he was about to tap into a liquid form of a dangerous gas, and instead of administering an antidote such as atropine into his system, he had only pieces of human flesh, and they were far from helpful in a potentially threatening situation.” (from my book)

atropine/at·ro·pine/ (at´ro-pēn) an anticholinergicand antispasmodic alkaloid used as the sulfate salt to relax smooth muscles and increase and regulate the heart rate by blocking the vagus nerve, and to act as a preanesthetic antisialagogue, an antidote for various toxic and anticholinesterase agents and as an antisecretory, mydriatic, and cycloplegic.

Source: http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/atropine

Vagus NerveThe vagus nerve runs throughout the body and is responsible for the function and regulation of several bodily systems such as the heart and digestive tracts. If the vagus nerve malfunctions these systems can stop functioning properly.

The vagus nerve is one of the largest nerve systems in the body. The name vagus is Latin for "wandering," which describes the long and complicated path this nerve takes through the body and all of the different systems it comes in contact with. In some cases this nerve is linked to medical conditions such as low blood pressure, and in other cases doctors will stimulate this nerve to help treat disorders such as epilepsy.

What is Vagus Nerve?

The vagus nerve is actually two cranial nerves that extend from the brain stem and connect down to the viscera. Sometimes this nerve is referred to as cranial nerve X, the 10th cranial nerve or the wandering nerve. These nerves are used to send a variety of

signals throughout the body, but will also transfer signals back to the brain. The vagus nerve is also known for wandering through the body, weaving through the abdomen and branching into other nerves that extend through the limbs and organs.

The vagus nerve is used to regulate a variety of body functions including the heartbeat and the muscle movement necessary to keep you breathing. This nerve also regulates the chemical levels in the digestive system so that the intestines can process food and keep track of what types of nutrients are being gained from the food that is taken in.

What is Vagus Nerve Disorder?

Vagus nerve disorders are basically broken down into two categories. There are the disorders that are caused by a nerve that is underactive or not functioning properly and there are those that are caused by your vagus nerve overacting to the stimuli it receives. Overactive vagus nerves can cause frequent fainting. On its own this is not particularly dangerous, but this can lead to injuries when a person falls due to the immediate loss of consciousness.

An underactive vagus nerve can lead to a condition called gasteroparesis. This condition leads to nausea, heartburn, stomach pains, spasms in the stomach and weight loss due to the digestive system having too little of the chemicals it needs to break down food. An underactive vagus nerve can also lead to a dropping heart rate. Pacemakers can be used to help maintain a heart rate that is healthy to help prevent the heart rate from dropping to an unsafe level and causing dangerous conditions such as coma.

Symptoms. Symptoms of a vagus nerve will vary based on whether or not the nerve is under or over reacting to stimuli. One of the most common side effects of this disorder is pain, which will feel very similar to a pinched nerve. This pain may also be coupled by muscle cramps when you move or perform action such as picking up objects. In severe cases this pain can make it difficult to walk properly. You may also have trouble swallowing because the vagus nerve also helps to control the muscles that allow for the intake of food. You may also notice that your gag reflex is no longer as active when the vagus nerve is damage. You may also notice that your voice is altered due to the muscles in the throat reacting differently.

In addition to the organ damage or difficulties that accompany a damaged vagus nerve there are other side effects that may be a sign that your vagus nerve is not working properly. You may be more susceptible to developing peptic ulcers because the body is producing more stomach acid than it should. You may also begin to develop constipation because your intestines are not regulating water intake the way they should. Patients who are dealing with an abnormal vagus nerve may have difficulty controlling their urine and may suffer from urinary incontinence.

Treatments for Vagus Nerve Disorders

Consult doctors. If you believe that your vagus nerve is not reacting to stimuli the way it should then your first step should be to consult your regular doctor. They can recommend you to a nerve specialist that will be able to determine whether or not you are suffering from a nerve disorder.

Undergo nerve therapy. If it is determined that your vagus nerve is not functioning properly then you will need to undergo nerve therapy. Therapy typically includes vagus nerve stimulation. A device will be attached to the nerve to send electric pulses to the nerve to help regulate the signals sent by the nerve. This device functions very similarly to a pacemaker in the heart.

Medical treatment. In addition to treating the nerve, those who are suffering from this disorder will need to seek medical treatment to help regulate the side effects that this condition has caused on the body. A traditional pacemaker may be needed to help ensure that the heart beats regularly and medication is needed to help make sure that your digestive system is regulated properly.

Source: www.md-health.com/ Vagus-Nerve .html

Would you, as a medical doctor, diagnose Dylan as a man suffering from Vagus Nerve Disorder? Why or why not?

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9.) “Dylan believed that if there was no solution to a problem, it was because there was no problem.” (from my book) Is Dylan´s belief accurate regarding how humans should view problems and solutions? Explain in one sentence.

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10.) “Dylan then had a flashback of a time and place where radioisotopes were used in the preservation of food, and he thought that drinking the substance might preserve his own body.” (from my book) Dylan, or the author (me), in a medical sense, is absolutely mistaken to make mention of this. How is the author justified, if at all, to make reference to this in a novel?

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