Crow Toes Quarterly
Tales From a Playfully Dark World
By
The Crow Toes Quarterly Narrator
& Christopher Millin
Smashwords Edition
*****
Published By:
Christopher Millin on Smashwords
Crow Toes Quarterly
Tales From a Playfully Dark World
Copyright © 2012 Christopher Millin
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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*****
Crow Toes Quarterly
Tales From a Playfully Dark World
The Narrator
I am The Narrator. Welcome to Crow Toes Quarterly. I live in this world and it is my job to tell you the story between the stories. We have many wonderful authors and artists who have created many wonderful stories with narrators of their own and it is my great pleasure to give those narrators a voice, but when each narrator finishes his or her story, there is a space where I must take over and lead YOU to your next narrator. In that space I am free to say what I want and I am free to do what I want. I have opinions and I make judgments. I can tell you what I want, or I can keep it to myself. I use the first-person pronoun "I" when I talk, which makes what you are currently reading a first-person narrative. I hope you like what I have to say.
I don't really know where I came from or who my parents are. I don't remember anything before my experiences with Crow Toes Quarterly. What I do remember is darkness and then the appearance of a beautiful glowing light and a vertical blinking black line coming from inside that light. I remember my head bursting with words. The blinking line suddenly became a door and the words filling my head used that door to appear in the white light. There were hundreds of words at first and then there were thousands. As the words appeared, the light dimmed. As the words appeared, the world around me appeared. I saw walls and sky and clouds and people walking their dogs. I saw mountains and airplanes flying overtop of them. I saw sunsets and sunrises. I saw our Staff Villain and Ogilvy. And as the words left my head I began to see my purpose.
Share the words.
Just because I don't have a past or parents, doesn't mean I don't have a story to share with you. It is the story of Crow Toes Quarterly and without this story, neither you nor I would be here right now sharing this time. I am sure you have all heard the often-quoted words "Once upon a time…" I always said to myself, if I was ever to write a story, it would never EVER start with those four words. They are the type of words that start stories with fairies and ogres and mystical valleys. They are the type of words that lead into an unbelievable tale with unbelievable characters. My story may seem unbelievable, but it is as real as the skeleton in your closet and the monster under your bed.
This is my story:
Once upon a time a man decided to put a garden in his backyard. That garden was filled with squash and potatoes and carrots and greens. The garden seemed like a good idea until one morning when the man came out to find his garden destroyed. He planted it again, and the next morning it was destroyed again. The man became very frustrated and decided to plant it one more time, but this time he decided to spend every night thereafter hiding in a bush next to the garden so he could catch the culprit in the act and tell him or her to stop it. Nothing happened the first few nights, or the few nights that came after that. But on the night after the seeds sprouted leaves and the gourds appeared out of nowhere, and just as the man was about to fall asleep, a piercing, "CAW!" echoed across the land. The man was so frightened by the sound, he momentarily felt his heart stop. When he regained his composure he peeked through the bush…and that's when he realized his culprit wasn't a he or a she, it was a crow. He sprung from the bush and flapped his arms and yelled, "Shoo crow! Shoo!"
The crow flew away, startled by the loud moving man. The man felt quite pleased that he had found the culprit and scared it off, but it would be a quick pleasure, because a few minutes later the crow returned to the garden with two other crows by its side. The three crows pulled at the carrots and unearthed the potatoes and the man screamed in frustration, "This is my garden! Get out! Shoo! Shoo!"
The three crows flew off and returned a few minutes later with nine more crows. The twelve crows pecked at the greens and split the squash and destroyed anything else that remained. The man continued to wave his arms and yell, "Shoo crow!" but it was all in vain. The crows knew the man's attack was harmless and no longer felt he was a danger to them. The twelve crows flapped their wings and flew at the "Shoo!" yelling man. Each crow dug its pointy toes into the man's clothes, and as a group, they lifted him up and away from his garden. They carried the man overtop the forest behind the garden and they dropped him onto the trees. The man pin-balled off the branches until he landed on the ground with a painful, "THUD!"
The man returned to his house muttering, "How I'd like to murder those crows." It was a funny thing to mutter, because a group of crows is called a murder of crows, like a group of lions is called a pride of lions. The man searched his attic and his basement for anything that might scare the crows off, and that is when he found a bale of hay that gave him an idea. What scares crows better than a scarecrow? It was right there in the word: scare and crow. The man ran to his bedroom closet and found an old jacket and old pants. He ran to his hallway closet and found an old hat and a couple of wooden brooms, which he snapped the broom ends off of. The man stuffed the clothes with the hay and ran one broomstick up the back of the clothes and the other along the sleeves of the jacket. He topped the whole thing off with the hat. His creation was so frightening it even gave him the chills. The next morning the man replanted his garden, and along with the carrot seeds and the tomato seeds he planted his scarecrow. Its hay hands and feet twitched in the wind. Its button eyes glared down on the turned earth and assured the man his garden would be safe from pesky crows forever.
That night the man hid in the bush waiting to see if the scarecrow would live up to its moniker. And the crows wasted no time. They came that night and they came every night thereafter, but they did not land on the ground. They circled the garden and swooped at the scarecrow and "Cawwwed", but that was all. The garden grew thick and beautiful and the first salad the man made with his homegrown vegetables was the best tasting salad he had ever eaten.
As you have probably guessed, the man was I, your humble narrator. As I sat in my office contemplating names for this new magazine I was putting together, my little experience with the crows kept clawing its way into my head. I knew the magazine was going to come out four times a year, which would make it a quarterly publication. I also knew I wanted the title to reflect the dark mysteries and tales that would lie within the publication. Nothing seemed more dark and mysterious than crows. Where did they come from? Why did a screaming, flailing man not scare them? And why did that man's clothing stuffed with hay keep the crows away? It was a perfect fit. My mind was made up. The title of the magazine would be Crow Quarterly. My friends, that title stuck for about three minutes. When I mentioned it to our Staff Villain and Ogilvy, they shook their heads vigorously and said, "No way. It's too plain. It's boring!"
So I closed my eyes and went back to that first night when I encountered the crows. I remembered watching them pick at things with their beaks and pull at things with their toes. "Beaks" and "toes", "pick" and "pull" were words that came to mind. In the end, the perfect word was the one that happened to rhyme. "How about Crow Toes Quarterly," I said. And when my staff smiled I knew a name was born.
I am The Narrator and I am here to share Crow Toes Quarterly with YOU! Thank you for sharing your time with us.
Our Staff Villain
Our Staff Villain is not a pleasant man, and he'd be the first to agree with me. Most days he sits at his little desk and he complains. He complains about the weather and he complains about the music we play on our old record player. He complains about the "T" key on his typewriter, which is always getting stuck, and he complains about the cowlick I have on the back of my head. Our Staff Villain complains about pretty much everything and never really does anything to fix his problems. In reality, he should be our Staff Whiner, but his villainous past far outweighs his whiney present… Oh, just a second. Our Staff Villain just handed me a typed note. I'll share it with you:
Mr. Narra or
My head is aching because on my way o he office his morning a squirrel dropped a nu on me from high up in a ree. I hink he squirrel was ge ing me back from when I s ole a nu from him on my way home las nigh . Anyhow, you are yping far oo loud and I am having a hard ime focusing on my work. Please ype sof er.
S aff Villain
The first time I met our Staff Villain he had just been pushed over the side of the tallest building in this here city and he was holding on to a tiny ledge with three of his fingers. I had been on the roof waiting for the sunset when I heard grunting and groaning coming from over the side of the building. I carefully stepped to the edge and looked down. "Excuse me, sir," he said in the most polite manner I had ever heard him speak. "It seems a couple of chaps didn't like the way I did business with them and they took the liberty to push me off this here building. Would you be so kind as to…" and this is when our Staff Villain took a deep breath and said, "…help me." I think it is the only time in his life he has uttered those two words.
After I pulled him up he dusted off his knees and said to me, "You are a good man, sir. I have seen the error in my ways and vow that from this moment on I will devote my life to doing good things. I will start by thanking you. Thank you, sir. The only other person I ever thanked was my father when he sold me his secret formula for world domination. I never got the chance to tell him his formula didn't work. When I went back to confront him he was gone. Only a note remained and written on it were two words. 'Ha' and 'Ha'."
Our Staff Villain grew up in the village of Elak in Mitoyenland, a tiny country across the ocean, where people speak a dialect of Mitoyen called Mitti and wear pants that always look too short. His father was a chemist and his mother was a school librarian. They were angry little people who talked nonstop during dinners about one day ruling their tiny country and then one day after that ruling the world. His father would say, "I will create a formula that turns people into brainless fools and I will take control of this country." And his mother would say, "I will take all the books in the library and replace them with books about us. That way, all people will ever be able to learn about is us." From an early age our Staff Villain was taught that the only way to achieve anything in life was to take it, which, of course we all know, is the absolute wrong way to achieve anything in life. And one day when our Staff Villain was sitting at dinner listening to his parents talk about all the things they were going to take, the door broke into five-thousand pieces and five big policemen stormed into the dining room and took his parents away. It was several years before our Staff Villain finally saw his parents again.
While our Staff Villain's parents were in prison, our Staff Villain was placed in the care of a man who didn't just talk about doing bad things, he actually went out and did bad things. His name was Phineus Goon and one of his favorite things to do was kick people in the shins and steal their wallets and purses while they were lying on the ground writhing in pain. How our Staff Villain ended up with this man I have never been able to uncover, but it was during these days and nights with Phineus Goon that our Staff Villain truly became villainous. Phineus taught our Staff Villain how to pick pockets, and the art of the con. Phineus and our Staff Villain spent years tricking people into giving away their hard earned money. Phineus and our Staff Villain also spent years spending other people's hard earned money on flashy cars and big TVs. But one day our Staff Villain's time with Phineus Goon came to an abrupt end when Phineus chose to target an undercover policeman dressed up like a little old lady. Our Staff Villain was put on a large boat and sent across the ocean to a place called The Ewell Home for Children Corrupted By Crime, or EHCCC. He was forced to watch movies about the consequences of doing bad things and when he was unruly he was wrapped across the knuckles with a long wooden ruler. EHCCC's effect was the complete opposite on our Staff Villain. Instead of becoming a better citizen, he became even more corrupt and even more determined to stay that way.
Our Staff Villain escaped from EHCCC a year after he was sent there and for several years he lived off of the teachings of Phineus Goon. He stole enough to live quite comfortably. He was a bad bad man and he wouldn't have had it any other way. But being a petty criminal left our Staff Villain very unsatisfied. Since a young age he had been groomed to want more…to want it all. Our Staff Villain began to devise his plan to take over the world. To do this, he needed the formula his father was going to create…the formula that turned people into "brainless fools." To do this, he needed to find his father again.
After his parents were released from prison, they disappeared into the forests that lined the border between Mitoyen and Ingsolveland. Our Staff Villain paid a man to make him a passport that said he was someone named Innis Ronald Ic. It was a funny name, but it worked. Our Staff Villain was able to board a plane and fly to Mitoyen. He spent several months hiking through the forests looking for any sign of his parents and just as he was about to give up, he came across a tiny wooden shack hidden by bushes and rotting tree stumps. A thin stream of smoke funneled out of a chimney on the shack's roof, which meant it was occupied. Innis, I mean our Staff Villain, approached the shack cautiously. He tapped on the front door and waited. And waited. And waited. And continued to wait, because he knew someone was inside. He could hear them shuffling around. "I know there's someone in there," our Staff Villain said. "I can hear you."
The door creaked open revealing a bearded man in tattered clothes. Behind him, hiding behind a chair made of tree branches, was a tiny woman with messed up hair. "We did our time," the man said. "We just want to spend the rest of our days up here in peace. Please leave us alone."
"Father," our Staff Villain said. "It's me. Your son."
The man stepped out of the shack and moved his face up close to our Staff Villain's face. He raised his hand up and touched our Staff Villain's nose. "That bump on your nose. I know it," he said. "Son. It really is you."
The man turned around and said excitedly, "Honey, it's our long lost son."
Our Staff Villain spent the next day at his parents' shack catching up. They talked about all the things that had happened to each of them through the years. And eventually the conversation turned toward our Staff Villain's desire to take over the world. As our Staff Villain described his plan, a twinkle sparkled in his father's eyes. "It has been a long time since I've had a bad thought," his father said. "A good father would try to steer his son in the right direction. A good father would say, 'Son, it is a very bad thing to want to take over the world. Maybe you should think about taking over something a little less dangerous, like an apartment complex, or maybe the lease on a reliable automobile. Yes, that's what a good father would try to do. But I have never been a good father, so I am going to sell you my formula for one million dollars. I guarantee it will work."
As we know now, the formula did not work. This deception by his own flesh and blood made our Staff Villain even angrier and even more determined to take over the world and punish everyone who had ever done him wrong. He devised a list of enemies and wrote one word on that list: Everyone. Everyone would suffer at our Staff Villain's hands. Our Staff Villain created a company called PowerFlex Personal Muscle Builders, which was nothing more than a front for his wrongful doing-ness (and yes, I know doing-ness is not a real word, but I really like the way it sounds when read aloud). He promised the world wonderful machines that would give you the perfect body without all the work. All you had to do was sit, and hey, who doesn't like to sit? Imagine getting a workout while sitting. Well, that is what our Staff Villain promised. Unfortunately, all his talk about these miraculous machines drummed up interest he never anticipated. People wanted PowerFlex Personal Muscle Builders, or PPMBs, and they invested heavily in the idea of the PPMB, but as time wore on and the PPMB continued to be nothing more than talk, the investors became restless. The investors eventually hired two goons even more villainous than our Staff Villain, and they lured our Staff Villain to the top of the highest building in the city in which he had set up his fake business.
"The investors want their money back," one of the goons said.
But the money was long gone, spent on scientists and researchers paid to create a formula our Staff Villain could use to take over the world. "The money is all gone," our Staff Villain said.
"The investors have made it clear to us what to do if you said that," the other goon said.
The two goons each put a giant palm on our Staff Villain's shoulder and pushed him over the edge of the building. It just so happened to be the building I was heading towards to watch the sunset.
Ogilvy the Lackey
Ogilvy does not speak very much. He says, "Please" and points at the water cooler when he is thirsty. He always says, "Thank you." Even after he does something for YOU, he says, "Thank you." It is a quality I admire in Ogilvy. Every once in a while I catch Ogilvy talking in his sleep while he takes his afternoon siesta. It is through these sleepy dialogues, and a few secret phonecalls, that I have been able to piece together a somewhat choppy version of where Ogilvy came from and how he made his way to us.
Ogilvy was born inside a cloud. The thing with clouds is they don't have floors, so if you happen to be born inside a cloud, you're going to fall right through it. As we all know, clouds are quite high up in the sky, so a fall from a cloud is going to be quite a long one. The newborn Ogilvy fell and fell and fell and when he finally landed, he didn't hit hard ground as most of us probably would. No, my friends, Ogilvy hit square in the middle of a large barrel of freshly picked grapes.
We must backtrack here for a second for I am sure you are asking yourself, "How can someone be born inside a cloud?" I know I'd be asking that question after reading the above paragraph. After several hours of research down at the library I figured out that Ogilvy's parents were Cloud Carvers. I am sure it is a profession you have never heard of, for even I, your humble narrator, was unaware of such a profession until I read about it in a book called Jobs You've Probably Never Heard Of.
A Cloud Carver sits atop the highest mountain or hill in or near your town and waits for the clouds to pass through him…or her. When the Cloud Carver is in the center of a cloud she pulls out a tool called a cumushear and literally begins to carve pieces away from the cloud. Quickly, for a cloud moves much quicker than you think, the Cloud Carver shapes the cloud into something, which eventually someone in town notices and says, "Hey, that cloud kind of looks like a (insert thing here)." It takes a good thirty seconds to a minute to get a recognizable shape out of a cloud, therefore, a Cloud Carver often has to move with the cloud while she carves. A good Cloud Carver knows exactly how much space she has before she falls off the edge of her mountain or tumbles down the hill she is on top of. Ogilvy's mother was one of the best Cloud Carvers in the world, but even being one of the best Cloud Carvers in the world doesn't help when your newborn son arrives right in the middle of a Carving. Ogilvy's mother lost focus of her surroundings and stepped off the edge of the mountain with the passing cloud. And that is how Ogilvy fell.
The grapes the newborn Ogilvy had landed on were picked by a man named Artenza Zeal. Mr. Zeal owned a farm, which produced grape juice, grape jelly and a wide assortment of wines, which just so happen to be made from grapes. Mr. Zeal's grapes were world famous; not for their taste, but for the way they looked. Mr. Zeal's grapes were blue, like the sky. It was a mystery that made many of the grape growers in the region hire spies to infiltrate Mr. Zeal's farm and try to find out how he did it. To this day, Artenza Zeal's blue grapes are still a mystery to me.
But this is not the story of Artenza Zeal, is it? No. This is the story of Ogilvy, the Cloud Carver's son, who fell from a cloud and landed square in the middle of a barrel of grapes.
When Mr. Zeal noticed blue grape juice shooting upwards from the barrel of grapes he had just picked, he was confused, for he could see no person or machine that would be squeezing the grapes. He ran to the barrel and peered inside. There, lying on top of a bed of blue grape peels was a small child, his skin the same colour as the grapes.
Mr. Zeal looked upward and scratched his head. If he was confused before, now he was dumbfounded. I have talked to Artenza Zeal about this event and he told me Ogilvy's appearance on top of the grapes was the second strangest thing to ever happen in his life. The strangest thing that ever happened to Mr. Zeal was what happened next. As he peered into the barrel at the mysterious boy, a woman appeared out of nowhere screaming, "My Child! Has anyone seen my child?"
She wore a flowing white robe and carried a funny tool that looked like giant scissors. "My Child!" she screamed again. Mr. Zeal knew the boy in the barrel must be the boy she was screaming about, so he said to the woman, "Over here. There is a boy in my barrel of grapes and he does not belong to me."
The woman rushed to the barrel and looked in. She looked for several seconds before saying to Mr. Zeal, "This child has blue skin. The child I am looking for would have skin the colour of yours and mine. Sir, I do not find your joke amusing."
"But Maam," Mr. Zeal said, "This is no joke. One second there was a barrel of grapes sitting here and the next second there was a barrel of grapes with a small boy in it. If this is not the boy you are looking for, then who is he?" But the woman couldn't help Mr. Zeal answer that question, because she was already gone.
Mr. Zeal, a man with no family of his own, lifted the boy out of the barrel and looked into the boy's eyes. It was that one look that set Mr. Zeal's mind straight. It was that one look he had been looking for all of his life. "I will make you my son," Mr. Zeal said, "for I have never had a son of my own. I will pass on to you my knowledge and my experience and one day you will take over where I have left off. From this point on you will be named Ogilvy after my own father, a man who spent his nights looking at the stars and his days dreaming about what mysteries those same stars held."
Eventually, the blue that coloured Ogilvy's skin faded away and his appearance became no different from yours or mine. By the time Ogilvy was ten, he was a master grape grower and was all set to take over the Artenza Zeal kingdom. But there was something missing from Ogilvy's life and he wasn't sure he wanted the Zeal kingdom until he could figure out what that thing was. And then one day after a long day of picking grapes off vines, it all became clear to young Ogilvy. As usual, all the work had tired him, and like always, he needed a quick rest before dinner. Ogilvy climbed to his favourite resting spot, the highest point of the vineyard. It was a nice place to read a book or take a nap, because it overlooked a massive valley filled with creeks and other vineyards. Ogilvy laid down on his back and was about to close his eyes when he noticed a fluffy cloud floating not far above him. The cloud was shaped like a little boy. Behind it floated a cloud that looked like a woman in a flowing dress. Her arms were outstretched as though she was trying to catch the little cloud in front of her. Ogilvy jumped up off the ground and ran down the hill to where Artenza Zeal was busy peeling grapes.
"Did I ever have a mother?" Ogilvy asked. It was a funny question to ask, because everyone has a mother.
"Of course you had a mother," Artenza Zeal said. "Everyone has a mother. They have to have a mother or they would not exist. Why do you ask this of me now?"
Ogilvy scratched his chin. "You have kept me so busy these past ten years, teaching me to read and to do math, teaching me how to play the piano and how to grow grapes, that I have never had the time to wonder about my mother. But there has been a sadness in me, which I could not explain until only a moment ago."
And that is when Artenza Zeal sat down on a hill of dirt and motioned for Ogilvy to join him. Artenza Zeal had dreaded the moment Ogilvy would come asking about his mother, but he had prepared himself for it long ago. "My boy," Artenza Zeal said, "you are so very special and you don't even realize it."
They spoke a long time about Ogilvy's origins and they made a pact that when Ogilvy was old enough, Artenza would send him out into the world to find the woman in the flowing dress. Artenza knew the woman was Ogilvy's mother and Ogilvy felt it as well. And on Ogilvy's eighteenth birthday, Artenza Zeal let his boy go into the world armed with only a backpack filled with grape products, a cellphone, and a list of details Artenza Zeal had recalled about the woman in the flowing dress.
Where to start? Where to start? Artenza Zeal had said that Ogilvy had fallen from the sky. Ogilvy looked up and saw a cloud shaped like wild boar pass by. Out of the corner of his eye he also saw the tip of Mount Sophoclis, which had stood like a sleeping giant for as long as Ogilvy could remember. It was so quiet and inconspicuous, Ogilvy had often forgotten it was even there. Ogilvy checked the soles of his shoes to make sure there was still some grip left and he headed toward the mountain. It was as good a place as any to start his journey.
The climb was slow and difficult, but Ogilvy was lucky, because many had made the same climb in the past and they had left a clearly defined path that lead the way. After almost eight hours of climbing Ogilvy reached the summit. He had never seen a more amazing sight in his life. The farm he grew up on looked like nothing more than a speck of dirt. The creeks that wound through the valley looked like raindrop trails after sliding down glass windows. The forests to the north looked like tiny hairs on a balding man's head. The gentle sobs of a woman broke the silence of the summit. Ogilvy turned around and saw the woman Artenza Zeal had described. She was tall and beautiful and she wore a white dress that blew wildly in the wind. She was holding what looked like giant scissors. "Why are you crying?" Ogilvy asked.
"I lost something dear to me eighteen years ago," the woman said. "And I have been crying ever since."
"I have been told you might be my mother," Ogilvy said.
The woman dropped her giant scissors and rushed toward Ogilvy. The way her dress flowed behind her, she appeared to float. The woman grabbed Ogilvy's face with her hands. Her skin was as white as the clouds that passed through them. "Who has told you this?" she demanded.
"The grape grower in the valley," Ogilvy said. "His name is Artenza Zeal. He is my father."
"I do not know a man named Artenza Zeal," the woman said. "He is lying to you."
"He says I fell from the sky," Ogilvy said. "He says I landed in a barrel of grapes and when you looked at me you didn't believe I was yours."
The woman stared into Ogilvy's eyes and suddenly began to cry even louder. "This cannot be," she sobbed. "Your skin was blue."
"It was just the grapes," Ogilvy said. "It disappeared within days."
The woman let go of Ogilvy and stepped back. She looked him up and down and wept even louder, "My boy. My beautiful baby boy." She wrapped her arms around him in an embrace that lasted several hours.
I am sorry to say this is as much information as I could gather about Ogilvy. He is reluctant to open up about what happened next. However, I can tell you that it was while Ogilvy was coming down Mount Sophoclis that I was fortunate enough to meet him. I had decided to spend a day hiking. You see, from my little office in the city I often stared out my window at the mountain and imagined the view from the top of it. One day I realized I was tired of imagining what the view looked like, so I packed a light lunch, I left a short note for our Staff Villain informing him of my plans and I left the office for the first time in weeks. The hike was much more difficult than I thought it would be and at one point I found myself in the same precarious position our poor Staff Villain had found himself when he was pushed over the edge of the building. I was hanging from a precipice by three fingers unable to move. The end, I felt was near. I closed my eyes preparing for the long, painful fall down when I felt someone wrap their hand around my wrist. This person pulled me up and out of danger. I opened my eyes and saw a young man with swollen eyes. He had been crying. "Thank you," I said. "I don't know how I could ever repay you. You have saved my life."
He smiled and wiped his watery eyes with his sleeve. "There is no need to repay me," he said. "I have already received the greatest gift of all today." He turned and began to walk away from me.
I caught up to the young man and said, "Come and work for me. Your strength and good will is just what I need to help my literary magazine succeed."
His eyes widened. "I love to read."
"And I love it when people love to read," I said. "Please, come and work for me. It will be menial chores at first, but in time you will take over more important aspects of the magazine and eventually, I will leave it all to you. It is the least I can do."
He smiled and stuck out his hand. "My name is Ogilvy," he said.
Poinsettia Park
Poinsettia Park comes from a long line of adventurers. Her Great Grandfather was Edmund Hillary Park II, the first man to climb to the summit of Mount Pondama, the most treacherous and dangerous mountain in the world. Mount Pondama has claimed more lives than all the other mountains in the world combined and to date only three other adventurers have succeeded in reaching the summit. That success came with a hefty price. Two of the adventurers lost their hands due to extreme frostbite and the other adventurer was attacked on his way down by a creature he described to be, "like a tiger, only bigger and uglier, with red eyes and a nasty disposition." This creature took a large bite out of the man's side and left him for dead. It was only by pure luck that a group of researchers studying high-altitude ice formations came across him and were able to get him to a hospital in time.