miss these fools ❤️
I know people on tumblr looove stories of underwater cave diving, but I haven't seen anyone talk about nitrogen narcosis aka "raptures of the deep"
basically when you want to get your advanced scuba certification (allowing you to go more than 60 feet deep) you have to undergo a very specific test: your instructor takes you down past the 60+ foot threshold, and she brings a little underwater white board with her.
she writes a very basic math problem on that board. 6 + 15. she shows it to you, and you have to solve it.
if you can solve it, you're good. that is the hardest part of the test.
because here's what happens: there is a subset of people, and we have no real idea why this happens only to them, who lose their minds at depth. they're not dying, they're not running out of oxygen, they just completely lose their sense of identity when deep in the sea.
a woman on a dive my instructor led once vanished during the course of the excursion. they were diving near this dropoff point, beyond which the depth exceeded 60 feet and he'd told them not to go down that way. the instructor made his way over to look for her and found a guy sitting at the edge of the dropoff (an underwater cliff situation) just staring down into the dark. the guy is okay, but he's at the threshold, spacing out, and mentally difficult to reach. they try to communicate, and finally the guy just points down into the dark, knowing he can't go down there, but he saw the woman go.
instructor is deep water certified and he goes down. he shines his light into the dark, down onto the seafloor which is at 90 feet below the surface. he sees the woman, her arms locked to her sides, moving like a fish, swimming furiously in circles in the pitch black.
she is hard to catch but he stops her and checks her remaining oxygen: she is almost out, on account of swimming a marathon for absolutely no reason. he is able to drag her back up, get her to a stable depth to decompress, and bring her to the surface safely.
when their masks are off and he finally asks her what happened, and why was she swimming like that, she says she fully, 100% believed she was a mermaid, had always been a mermaid, and something was hunting her in the dark 👍
i am always open for questions in regards to commissions
thanks everyone!!
the thing about working as a housekeeper is that sometimes I will be called to clean a room that is in such a state that it gives me pause.
The thing about being a housekeeper at a Hospital is that it is not the things that would usually be concerning that leave me with questions.
Like if I go clean a room and it is just covered in blood, I'm not all "where did all this blood come from" that would be silly. It came from inside the patient and they were already in a hospital so they're probably mostly fine hopefully.
In fact "Inside the patient" is where most of the potentially concerning stuff I have to deal with comes from. Vomit? That's from inside the patient. Urine? Feces? Inside the patient baby. Needles full of unidentified drugs? That was supposed to go inside the patient but I guess they frogot.
But when I go to clean a hospital room and it is full of Sand... Did that come from inside the patient? I hope not. Why is there so much sand? Where did it come from? Was there some kind of terrible beach accident?
I have many questions and I'm scared of the answers.
the patient was having an episode, and it was the beach episode.
I graduated high school in 99.
There was a student at our school named Wayne.
Wayne was gay. It was obvious. He was unable to stay in the closet even if he wanted to. To make matters worse, he was also Black. From a bullying standpoint, that was not a great combo. Both Black and white students made fun of him relentlessly. He was ostracized from the only community that may have given him protection. Only us theater kids stuck up for him, but not to significant effect.
Wayne was bullied so much that at one point he finally snapped and attacked his bullies with a lunch tray. I was actually seated in perfect line of sight and just sat there chewing my soggy fries in stunned silence. It didn't even seem real as I was witnessing it. The image of him wailing on his main bully as the food on his tray flew off is permanently logged into my long term memory.
The bully he attacked had blood all over his face and went straight to the nurse. Other than superficial cuts, he was not injured.
Before the attack, Wayne went to teachers for help. He went to guidance counselors for help. He went to the principals for help.
He did all of the things you were supposed to do. No one helped him. They wagged a finger at the bullies and warned them to stop.
Wayne's lunch tray melee was the only thing that worked. His bullies stayed far away from him. But a week later Wayne was expelled and the bullies were given no punishment.
So... no.
No one in my school talked about being trans.
Because the only way to survive being openly queer was to bash people with a lunch tray.
Yep, exactly that. I graduated high school in 2004. I went to a high school in South Carolina. If anybody even slightly dressed or acted or behaved in a way that even slightly didn't match their gender they were, at best, ignored and labeled as a freak or a weirdo if they didn't say it was a "joke". At worst they were, of course, relentlessly bullied. Some girls got away with being "tomboys" or "not like the other girls", but even they weren't always exempt. I think like at least 60% of my graduating class are some kind of queer now. I'm sure some were always were and were just very good at hiding it, but most probably only realized it much later, once they were in a place where it was safe to have those realizations about themselves and once they saw other people like them.
Just wanted to stop by and say your Xenonorph piece is so good 👌
