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Collins Rhōg – Josh Randal

Collins Rhōg

Collins Rhōg

Sedona AZ (September 24, 2014)The following has been randomly taken from Collins Rhōg’s private journal, and reproduced exactly as it was written, by his own hand. The dates have been omitted, at his request, but Collins’ view is always captivatingly honest, full of depth and color, heart, love, and perseverance in times of struggle. Collins spills his soul and captures his feelings with vivid imagery and heart felt emotion that oozes from the pages of this historic text.

The following is but a portholes view, from across the room of “The Life and Times of Collins Rhōg“:

This week, as well as excerpts from the Collins Rhōg journal, our readers are introduced to Canadian Josh Randal, as he shares his first encounter with a pilot who survived a plane crash in the Cascades:
 

It was December and I was living on the North Shore of Vancouver B.C. with my girlfriend, Sam. That day we had made a late start, heading into the Cascade Mountains for a weekend of snowshoeing. We were ascending an old logging road, pushing snow with the bumper of my well abused Mercedes Gelandewagen. Its light bar illuminated the logging road with over a million candle power as the truck’s four wheel drive and axle lockers powered us up the mountain, the Stones blasting out the stereo, all while flurries of snowfall danced across the mountainside, like filters rotating in front of the camera.

“You can’t always get what you want!”

We were singing to the chorus when my truck suddenly sputtered and died.

“It’s the fuel pump,” I said from beneath the hood, then, pulling myself out of the engine bay added, “I’d rather lay low and repair it tomorrow when it’s not snowing.”

“Is it alright if we camp here tonight?” I asked, wiping my hands with the red rag kept tucked near the truck’s air cleaner.

Sam didn’t say anything, but then I heard the scrunching of snow as she moved to the back of the G-wagen. Returning my rag back in its place, I heard the loud snap of one of the clamps releasing a corner of our roof mounted expedition tent, followed by more scrunching of snow and another snap, and so on, until Sam had made her way completely around the truck to where I was standing, just closing the hood.

She stopped and looked at me with big beautiful green eyes, a slight frown of disappointment on her face, “You need to get a new truck!”

We had just finished raising the tent, atop the Gelandewagen, when we heard the noise…it was around 8 PM. It was the unmistakable sound of something crashing down the mountain, very close to us, something that carried some energy behind it.

“What’s that?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know, but it didn’t sound natural.”

“No, it didn’t.”

My first thoughts were that the noise was from a rock-fall or a bunch of trees giving way beneath the weight of the recent snow. But there was a metallic sound amongst the folding roar, a noise like metal being twisted and torn to bits. We couldn’t comprehend what we’d heard. It was amazingly quiet outside, like it gets when a blanket of snow covers everything.

“We would have heard an engine had it been a plane,”  I told Sam.

“It’s probably an old tin shed that was used by miners or hunters fifty years ago and today it finally gave out, and we were here to hear it! By the way, Sam, if a tin shed falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it really make a sound?”

Sam smiled at my bad joke and shook her head.

We decided to investigate and grabbed some flashlights, strapping on snowshoes to ascended the mountain for a night hike. We were in no hurry, as neither one of us suspected anything close to what we were about to find. Carrying a light conversation between us, we shuffled up the mountainside, beneath the majestic fir trees which towered above us.

I saw the wreckage first, it was upside-down in the snow, near the edge of the timberline, a mangled monstrosity of painted and bare metal, wrinkled and torn. It was surreal. The scene resembled a movie set of a plane crash, from one of the studios in Vancouver. At that moment, the forest became quieter…or so it seemed.

We found one man inside the wreckage, the pilot. He appeared unconscious at first but came around shortly, and seemed to be in shock. Soon the man became coherent and aware. He asked to be removed from the plane before passing out and with night temperatures dropping, our only option was to cautiously oblige him.

Sam and I built a sled out of one of the wing spars. I punched holes through the fabric that covered the piece of aircraft and securely threaded the nylon seat belts that Sam had cut from the wreckage to use as strapping, so as to hold the pilot secure. He had complained of neck and back pains, we were extremely worried about him. It took us quite a while to get the wounded man down the mountain on our makeshift sled and we arrived at the G-wagen after two in the morning.

collins rhog photo (2)There was no cellular signal and I still had to repair the fuel pump. Hiking out wasn’t an option, it was too far and far too cold. The pilot was breathing well, he was beaten up badly, but fortunately didn’t seem to be suffering from any life threatening injuries, as there was no way of getting down the mountain until morning. Sam and I folded down the car seats, and keeping the pilot on the makeshift stretcher, we loaded him into the truck. She heated up some tea on the camp stove before retiring atop in the roof mounted tent, while I stayed with the pilot below in the cab.

It must have been around 3 AM when the man woke up, groggy and complaining of aches, saying his name was Collins and that he was hungry. He sat up…completely against my wishes…and slowly drank from the mug of now tepid tea which Sam had prepared earlier, before finishing off the remainder of a tin of cold beans I had opened.

Then, after awhile, he said, “There’s something I must share.”

“It can wait,” I softly replied.

“No, it can’t.” He looked away and stared out into the darkness, haunted by something and it wasn’t the traumatic ordeal he had just suffered.

I said nothing, but sitting next to the pilot I began to feel the tremendous weight of what he was about to say. It was apparent that his tale wore heavily on his heart. The man sighed and blinked slowly, gingerly caressing his mug of tea, and blankly stared out the darkened window into his own reflection as the candle-lantern that hung from the ceiling shined its warm glow.

Silently I watched the stranger, not wanting to disrupt the stillness in the air. I sat quietly, for several long minutes, waiting for something to escape his mouth…but it didn’t come, he just sat there in silence, looking into his reflection. Occasionally he would raise his mug to his lips, close his eyes and take a sip, savoring the cold brew in his mouth for several seconds before swallowing loudly in the silence of the G-wagen interior.

The pilot was right beside me, yet he was miles away. I couldn’t help but be fascinated observing this man’s, ever so slight, facial gestures while he sorted his troubles out in his head. Sometimes he would look really serious, wrinkle up his eyebrows just a tinge, and stare into the window. Other times he would bite his lip a bit or close his eyes and squint his face up, as if remembering something painful.

I was so intrigued watching the stranger that I began to feel some of the burden from the forces that wrestled within his soul. Watching the pilot struggle with himself was like watching a wounded ship, deeply listing to one side, its skeleton crew inherently manning their positions. For some reason I couldn’t remove my eyes from the vessel before me, but rather watched his slow painful attempts to right himself, in fascination.

There was a moment that I secretly thought I’d witness the pilot capsize fully into the disparity that haunted him. I’m not certain how many minutes of torturous silence passed, then piercing the stillness, the pilot spoke.

“Where’s my journal?”

“Excuse me?”

“Where’s my journal?” he said firmly. “I need my journal.”

I tossed him the small khaki canvas bag we’d retrieved from the wreckage.

“Is it in here?”

He caught the bag and opened it, only to produce a a burnt leather bound book.

“Here!” he said while thrusting it towards me.

“What?”

“Take it! Take it and read it, you need to know…the world needs to know!” He held it out.

So I took the leather journal, all burnt and worn, with two puncture holes clear through, and gingerly opened its fragile cover to now crisped and pungent pages. A Concord Airlines boarding pass fell to the floorboard. I picked up the ticket and then carefully read the first page which held the following two entries:

“You have your life, like a mirror to reflect upon. When you start over, that mirror’s shattered and you don’t have anything to look at, to gauge yourself, just little bits and pieces, until you slowly put the mirror back together.” Sergei Gassi,  my friend

and

“My name is Collins Rhōg. The following events are real – I was there. What you are about to read will profoundly change the way you perceive the world’s political events that took place during the fledgling years of this new century and the last decade of the 20th century.
Pandora’s box was opened with the fall of the Soviet Union and out came dreadfully awful things that can never be recaptured, but are left to roam about and evolve into a higher evil. The mess that I was caught up in had global ramifications that affected and still affect nearly everyone in the world today.  I’m reminded of this as I record the first entry in my journal, aboard a Washington State Ferry bound for Seattle as a woman’s voice calmly blares over the loudspeaker instructing passengers not to leave any belongings unattended along with a whole slew of other do’s and don’ts that must be carried out in this age of “global terrorism.”
I believe that it is tremendously important for the world to know about these events, these events that changed every facet in which we live today. This chapter in history must be told and it is my hope that my telling it brings even a dim light to the darkness in which we are surrounded. As you read my journal, know that I am no longer living in Western society and even though time does heal, I will forever be a ghost.
I will urge you to use your common sense. Don’t be afraid to cross reference anything you read within these pages via the internet or whatever sources you have at your disposal. Take a good long look around you and peer beyond the facade that has been so carefully engineered to keep you in the dark. Certainly you must suspect that all is not as it seems? Certainly you will heed my words, the words of a ghost.
What you are about to read is but a porthole’s view from across the room of a vast dark ocean. Take in all you can.” – Collins Rhōg

The story continues in the SedonaEye.com.

Excerpts  from “The Life and Times of Collins Rhōg, limited edition, first printing, available January 15, 2015.”

 

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For the best Arizona news and views, read www.SedonaEye.com daily!

 

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