I was twelve when my “little visitor” arrived for the first time. Its arrival was heralded by my mother as a “first taste of womanhood.” Frankly, in spite of her obvious enthusiasm, I found it a damn nuisance, nothing more. I can’t say I wasn’t prepared, though.

Given the right conditions, a single cell could mutate and then reproduce itself over and over, forming a new species, or something resembling a former colleague who was run over by a cement truck and survived, though he leaned to the right when walking. It is no wonder that this man—who spoke with a lisp, stuttered, and suffered from incurable hiccups—had trouble communicating, for aside from giving a lecture or a speech now and then, Vladimir Matzkvech’s chosen method of imparting his brilliance was to preserve his thoughts on paper. With his untimely death, (Matzkvech passed away at the age of 97), a collection of his papers are scheduled to be released this week in a book entitled To the Apogee.

I’m traveling alone, renting a cabin at a normally tranquil spot on the bank of the Big Laramie River at the edge of the Medicine Bow National Forest up in Wyoming. You won’t stumble upon Woods Landing on your way to someplace else, because that’s not where it is, and you’ve never been there on purpose.

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There will be no Revolution, man.  The world has already ended twice, once at the invention of the steam engine then again with the A-Bomb.  All that follows will simply be the unfolding of the inevitable consequences of our shitty behavior.