This is an excellent piece written by Spenser Villwock. It gives you a
taste of what life can be like on Fukue, and an insight into Crazy Mike. I have
left in unedited to maintain the urgency and excitement with which most of it
was written.
Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2003 11:51:23 +0900
hey, just wanted to let you guys know the following--
below is an excerpt from an exhausting message that i just wrote to my
parents. Sorry i couldn't muster the energy to personally address it
toward you
guys as an individual audience, but i thought that you wouldn't mind once you
have
read it...
love, s&a
things have continued to be crazy here recently...
been going to several parties and hanging out with friends and such.
two days ago, our good friend mike (s.african guy) and amy and i went on a "mike
adventure."
Mike is a crazy dude that takes life to the hilt. always fighting against the
elements of a steep 75degree hike up a slippery mountain making his own path,
diving off of a cliffside into the ocean smashing against the rocks down below,
running marathons, guzzling coffee inbetween breaths, and sitting in his trailer
(the only trailer on the island) watching BBC news, reading the newspaper and a
novel at the same time as he checks his email and watches a conspiracy-propogating
movie.
Amy and i have been on several "mike adventures"--cliffdiving, snorkling, always
challenging ourselves and always going home happy, tired, and unbelivably
satisfied. we have sworn to
adopt some of his spirit within ourselves and always continue to do the
seemingly undoable.
anyway, on sunday we all went for a drive--the weather was a bit
crappy--overcast and spotty rain. originally, we had planned on heading to the
inner mountains and hiking into this hidden waterfall and doing some jumps off
the top into the "don-don" pool below. wound tight with coffee and rejoicing in
our friendship that is forseeably coming to a hasteful end, we thought that this
may be the last "adventure" that we may all be on together in this turning of
the clock. and it certainly
pronounced itself as such as the day progressed.
we stopped at the grocery for some nutritional intake and liquid to unparch the
pallet. laughing and dancing around the whole way. it was promising to be a good
day. so we piled back into the car and set off in a direction, completely
forgetting about our aforementioned waterfall destination, a
spontaneous change in plan was happily embraced by all. part of the endearing
spirit, mind you.
we drove along the shore road and soon found ourselves in one of the most remote
areas on the island, about 45minutes away from the city, serpentined through the
coastal mountain road, perched on the edge of breathtaking views of the sea
beyond. from high above we spotted a small rocky beach being massaged from
the incoming waves. striated with white surf, it seemed angelic as it rest in
the valley of the tapering mountains. we set our sites on the place to be.
once we got to the beach, it was apparent that the waves were coming in a little
too rough. the beach was nothing like i have ever seen before. no sand, it was
lined with boulders in various sizes, the smallest being as big as two people's
hands ontop of eachother in a fist-like manner, the
largest rocks being half-car sized. they were all rounded and looked like
chipped bowling balls from bumping eachother in the undertow of the violent sea.
the most amazing noise rumbled from them when the waves would pull them back
down the beach.
mike, being a wee-bit loonier than amy or i, said "awwh, c'mon" and dove
straight into a 5 foot wave coming into the shore. he paddled out and swam
around. amy and i chose to sit on the rocks and just observe the unique setting.
it was a bit too much for the both of us to take on, we thought.
and were perfectly content being pushed (literally pushed!) by the incoming
crashes of the frothy sea as we sat there. that was fun enough. after 20 minutes
or so, mike finally came back into the shore and we took to some more
wave-sitting.
as it was approaching 6 or so, we decided to get a move on, but the landscape
around the area was so inviting--it really felt like you were on another
planet-- i have never seen anything quite like it before. so we took a small
jaunt over to a homey little cove area and scaled the rocks to get there, all in
all about 5 or 6 minutes from the beach. many places in japan, a cliffside
suddenly drops off into the sea--part of what creates this "otherworldly"
effect. we came face to face with a 20 meter cliff and spotted a rope left by
some fisherman, no doubt his or her favorite fishing cove. amy and i again opted
to see the view from the ground as michael climbed up the rock face and we only
could catch earshot of his boasting on the beauty which he could see from that
crow's nest perch. the next thing i remember is amy saying "oh shit, he fell"
and then i could hear mike bellowing about something. now, he has "cried wolf"
before on previous adventures and for a
split second or two, i was uncertain of his seriousness until he confirmed it
with "oh shit man, i'm serious. i can't feel my toe. it is lopped off and just
hanging there."
somehow, he managed to get back to the rope and rappel down with a stream of
blood preceeding him. i grabbed ahold of him and he was definately in a huge
shock. "lets go, lets just go!" he said as we then had to scurry through the
rocks again, leaving a blood trail. we stopped for a brief
second to whip off my socks and tie a tournaquet around his right calf, to help
slow the bleeding. there was a long way ahead of us yet, even to get to the car,
let alone to the hospital back in the city. amy ran off among the rocks to get
our bags back at our swimming spot and i supported
mike as best i could over my shoulder and we quickly scurried along. about
halfway to the car, he started getting dizzy and the pain started to kick in.
up the rocky beach and up a muddy path, i took as much of his ~200lb. frame as i
could manage. amy joined us and we got to the car. the rain was coming harder
now.
the switchback roads along the mountainside seemed unsurmountable. the pedal was
floored, but the speed seemed to be barely creeping. the higher we got, the
foggier it was. visibility decreased and we wove our trail back as quickly as we
could. mike laying in the backseat yelling in the ebbs of
pain, holding amy's hand, trying to calm him down. we got out of the mountains
and hit the more travelled "direct" route back to Fukue City. got tangled
behind a island bus for a bit, and overtook them hooting the horn and passing
them in a mad dash.
pulled into the emergency room about 40minutes after it all began. ran in and
sent the awaiting staff in a whirlwind. "tasukette, tasukette kudasai! haiyaii,
haiyaii! ano karuma ni, otomodachi no ashii ga takusan chii bluh-bluh (gesture
of squirting blood from his foot)! tasukette!" in a few
seconds, which seemed like forever at the time, a stretcher and hospital staff
were standing in the downpour and trying to get more specifics as we lifted mike
onto the cart and they we wheeling him off.
as luck would have it, an ambulance was pulling in at just the same time and we
got in a near accident with the two incoming stretchers as they wheeled in a
cardiac-arrest patient into the adjoining room. now it being sunday night, this
being a tiny remote island, and therefore only one doctor being on staff that
evening. the tiny old lady that was wheeled in at the same time took immediate
precedence. mike had to wait in agony for a few more minutes before they could
get a sedative into him and assess the damage. amy called mike's wife and she
arrived by taxi in a few minutes. the last we saw of mike that evening was him
being taken into the xray room. the same one that i went into when i was hit by
the taxi back in february. mike's wife midori said that we should go home and
although amy and i felt horribly guilty for leaving, we decided that there
really wasn't
anything else that we could do.
mike had been on that crow's nest perch trying to scale a few more rocks to get
to a bit higher position when the rock that he was holding onto gave way and he
fell off onto his back as the rock
followed his path and landed directly onto his right foot. it squished it like
when a grape gets stepped on on the kitchen floor. his lascerations were due to
the foot being crushed under the weight of the rock and it in turn broke his
bones and he went into surgery for 3 hours on sunday
night. they wheeled him out at around 2.30am.
the doctors say that he may have to stay in the hospital for about 1 month
and that they will remove the wires that they put into his foot to secure the
bones in about 6 months and that he will be in rehabilitation for the next year
at least.
up until the accident, sunday was one of the greatest days. joy, laughing,
adventure, beauty, fun...
mike is gonna be alright, but he's going to have to accept a more sedentary
lifestyle for awhile. we gave him a big load of books before we headed out for
our adventure and now he's gonna have a few minutes to kill reading them, it
sounds like. we assured him that laying out for a stint of time with an injury
can be a challenge in itself, but to simply accept your reality and enjoy it for
what it is. reminding him about my knee injury that had me laid up for about 5
weeks last spring. the body is an amazing thing. we must never forget how
quickly things can punctuate themselves in our lives, and render themselves as a
new "adventure."
needless to say, it has been a bit crazy around here.
hope that you all are well and healthy and the wind is always at your
back.
love,
spenser and amy
