Mount Seymour

An Excerpt of Entropy II
Alex Lyons invited me and Mark Whalley on a camping escapade. It was to be the ultimate guys'
weekend fulfilled with expansive horizons, alcoholic beverages, and true male bonding time.
I arrived at Alex's home the night before to help him prepare the supplies that he was so graciously
providing. Tents, sleeping bags, rations, and even beer. We weren't spending our night at a campsite.
We were hiking into the vast forestry of British Columbia. We decided it would be a smart idea to buy
some air-tight-sealing bags so that no bears or wild animals would be attracted to our food.
We were waiting for Mark to arrive so we could come up with a gameplan and figure out where we
were going to hike with Google Maps. In the meantime, Alex showed me videos of bald eagles flinging
mountian goats off cliffs and proceeded to make the best homemade macaroni and cheese; a true
delicacy.
Alex asked me to go downstairs and grab something for him. (I forget what it was.) When I went
into his bedroom, I saw the largest wolf spider I had ever laid eyes upon sitting on the doorframe. I
grabbed a book laying on his bed and smacked it with moderate force. It twisted and crinkled as it fell
onto the floor where it was to cease living.
I walked back upstairs. "Alex, you'll never believe the massive spider I found in your room and
killed for you."
To my surprise, Alex was in shock. "Jordan, you did not just kill Aragog..."
"Aragog?"
"That's been my pet spider for the longest time. He catches mosquitos and other bugs for me."
"Oh my god, I'm so sorry!"
Alex looked devastated like I had just ripped away a part of his soul. I swore to find some way to
make it up to him.
When Mark finally arrived, we noticed he was stoned. Probably why it took him two hours to figure
out a bus route he took everyday. However, he brought my sound system and it was long running joke
between our band of brothers. I bought a two-hundred-fifty dollar sound system that I couldn't play in
my highrise. So it kept ending up at other friend's houses. Everyone was apparently going to get a
round with my sound system.
We slept, got up early, made the most amazing health drinks that nearly demolished all of our
hangovers within ten minutes. And then departed from the house. To our horror, there was massive
spider infestation in and around Alex's house. Overnight, webs and spiders were literally everywhere
blocking every exit from the property.
It was just like one of those heist films where the theif was trying to acrobatically manuvre through a
maze of alarm-triggering lasers; except if you hit a laser, you'd get covered in minature spiders.

Somehow we made it through and loaded up Alex's Jeep. We departed across Metro-Vancouver to
North Vancouver. I kept complaining in the car that I wanted to buy a pizza as we drove by a dozen
establishments selling it. I was already hungry and I knew we only brought a couple buns and cans of
beans with us. Alex and Mark ignored my demands before we made the incline up Mount Seymour.
We arrived at a ski-hill where the road no longer continued, parked the jeep, strapped up the
equipment to our backs, and proceeded to traverse into the foliage. We traveled miles up what looked
like an old, dried up creek. Suddenly the route appeared overgrown and we had to improvise by cutting
through uncharted territory. We hoped we wouldn't get lost.
Mark started to talk about a news article he read about a couple that got lost the in very woods we
were in. The woman's husband ended up getting ripped apart by a bear while she barely escaped, and
woundly made it back civilization.
"Shut up, Mark!" I exclaimed. I was already hating the venture. Ever since getting out the car, we
had swams of horse flies following us. These were the most aggressive horse flies I had ever come into
contact with. They were fucking bomb-diving our heads. We wanted to consistently takes breaks during
our hike up the mountain, but we couldn't stop otherwise we'd be sitting ducks for the bugs that wanted
to take chunks of flesh out of our arms. Not only that, my feet were killing me.
"I can feel myself getting such bad blisters," I muttered unhappily.
Alex looked at my feet and burst into laughter. "Jordan, you seriously wore dress shoes?"
"Yeah, I didn't expect us to go off-terrain like this."
"You just can't help yourself," Alex continued to laugh, "all you ever wear are dress shoes. And the
soles are coming off!"
Suddenly a massive, black and white hornet landed on Mark's shoulder. Mark let out a shriek and
started flying through the shrubs. Alex and I looked behind to see a black cloud of hornets swarming
toward us. Alex and I literally started screaming as we started running with Mark.
"WE DISTURBED A NEST!" Alex shouted at the top of his lungs.
In all my life, I never seen Alex lose his shit like I just did. Our hands were in the air trying to swat
the bugs away. I deterred my route trying to evade death by bees. After running for quite a distance, I
managed to lose the insects. I was surrounded by dense trees and shurbs. I shouted at the top of my
lungs for Alex and Mark. I could hear them yelling in the distance, and after five minutes of effort, I
managed to reconvene with them. They were sitting on a large rock. It was evident they weren't
enjoying the trip any more than I was. We spotted a large pond of water and decided we were going to
set up our tents beside it. We were happy, sitting inside our tents where we had relief from the insects
for the first time in three hours. We fired up a little camping stove and cooked the beans we had inside
their cans. After spreading them out on our buns, we noticed a metallic taste in the beans that made
them almost unbareable to eat, but it was all we had.
We pulled out the beers and sat in a circle talking about how the camping trip from hell was going to
debut in my book.
We helped pick dozens of dead, little flies out of our hair for each other. Mark and I couldn't stop
lighting cigerettes because the bugs hated smoke. It was the only relief we could get outside our tents.

Alex mentioned that he was sure there were cliffs nearby that would possess a view to make the
journey worth it. I managed to get a couple bars on my cell phone and found a rock formation nearby
on Google Maps. We headed for the cliffs while tagging trees with flouresent, orange tape so we could
find our way back. Forty-five minutes later, we came to an expansive opening in the trees, scaled down
the cliffs edge, and took in a view to die for. We were so high up, I could see from Langley to
Vancouver.
Mark and myself were standing a million feet from plummeting to our doom. Yet, we stood there
shouting nonsense that was echoing through the valley.

We waited there until night.

I stood a foot away from the cliff's edge that stood miles above. "Aragog! I relinquish your life on
earth. Alex Lyons, I have no doubt that your spider friend will be going to a good place, where he will
be the spider of spider kings! Aragog was also the name of the king spider in Lord of The Rings who
also bit the dust. But let us not deter from the reality that was the great Aragog of the bedroom. Aragog
was a representation that spider-kind could live with human-kind. As brothers, as neighbors, as
greatness combined. We wish you an abundant after-life in spider heaven!"
Alex stood there in astonishment. He adored my ceremony for his fallen friend.
Suddenly booms echoed throughout the horizon. Vancouver had an event called The Celebration of
Light to occur that evening. Major cities from around the world were competing for the best firework
display. The three of us stood on top of the world watching the fireworks sparkle and flare miles below

us. Then Alex pointed west and way off in the distance were more fireworks that we could see in
Nanaimo. Nearly one-hundred kilometers away, we were watching fireworks in two different cities at
the same time.
After the fireworks, we made it back to our tents where Mark and Alex partook in a certain herb. I
climbed into my tent listening to them talk.
"But that's the thing," Mark started, "what if it was our destiny to be here and experience this
together."
I completely ruined the moment by saying, "Uh oh, I hear stoner-talk coming out," in the most eyerolling voice imaginable.
Alex howled away a storm. I don't know how or why, but everything I said resembled the most
memorable punch-line to every great comedy film to him.
In the morning, we found out way back to the jeep, and drove back to the city. I was incredibly
happy to return to the metropolis I was so used to.
The trip turned into the best experience we shared together. Good and bad, especially bad, is what
makes the most memorable moments with the best of colleagues, co-workers, and most of all, friends.
The trip was the beginning of many Lord of The Flies jokes, and became a trigger in my acting.
When I needed to be reminded of high stakes, they would always remind me of running from the cloud
of insects.
A month later, Alex sent me a photo via email. It turned out that Aragog survived and dragged his
carcass under the bed where we spawned an abundance of offspring.