This is a test of the Emergency Blogcast System. The blogger you are reading in voluntary cooperation with her keyboard and other authorities (i.e., her brain and emotions) have developed this system to keep you informed in the event of an emergency get away. This is only a test.

It was a dark and stormy night. At least, that’s what her brain was telling her. The thunder roared all around her as if the infamous Concorde itself was crashing in her backyard. Lightning blinded her vision every few seconds and the rain poured in like bullets from the many holes in her roof.

“When will this end?” she cried softly underneath the wet blankets she pulled over top to shield herself.

As the woman lay sobbing, she plotted her escape. She knew in order to be free of the torrential downpours that consistently destroyed her home, she had to get away. She had heard of a place once where it hardly ever rained and when it did, it was like dew drops kissing the earth. Nothing like the laser guided water cannon she was experiencing tonight. She longed for that place and prayed with all of her soul to find out how to get there.

She’d had road maps before on how to find it, but it still eluded her. She sought the directions of many who had claimed to make it and come back to tell the tale, yet here she still lay, soaked to bone and jolting involuntarily with every thunderous cry. She didn’t think those directions were purposefully misleading or untruthful, they had only led her to a certain point in the journey and then stopped. She was now in a middle ground area without guidance or any more useful clues on how to complete this trek across baron countryside, dense forests and steep, steep mountains.

She had kept going thinking that for sure there would be some sort of mile marker or sign in the path that indicated she was still going the right way, but those, too, had stopped appearing many unthinkable miles ago. Or maybe she had just missed them because she could barely see through darkness. She only traveled in the cover of night as her days were spent pretending the night would never come all the while obsessively stocking supplies for her eventual underground travels. Now she feared she was totally lost without the ability to find her way back to where she was nor the stamina to keep going forward.

This was not the first time her quest’s path had veered dramatically from what she thought it was supposed to be. In fact, she was surprised she had made it this far. She had wanted to give up numerous times before, but something, something greater than herself, kept her going.

And now?

Well, now she was just fucking tired. She was tired of always picking up the reins of the horse to lead the carriage through the next deep valley or raging river. She was tired of looking to other people to take those reins with her only to be told that it doesn’t work that way. She must do it on her own. She looked around her and saw others doing it, why couldn’t she? She heard other folks get the words of encouragement needed to keep going, why wasn’t she hearing any?

So, on this night, the one that had become so dark and stormy, she decided she was done. She reached out and threw off the covers. The rain hit her hard enough to knock her back down. She got up again and stood strong. She looked around and tried to see which direction she would take. By all accounts and previous experience, she knew she should take the path to the right. It provided cover from the rain and there was a fifty-fifty chance she’d make it to next clearing before collapsing in exhaustion. Then she could rest again and start over. At least she would get respites from the rain.

The path on the left, however, looked less familiar, more daunting. There was no cover from the rain or lightning. The horizon was far off in the distance and she knew it would be dangerous and the opportunities to get lost again were great. It was totally open, no way to mark where she had been in case she wanted to find her way back. No way to plan which way she would proceed forward in a linear fashion. She could easily think she was walking in a straight line, but end up having curved far to the east or west without ever knowing it until it was much too late.

There was one benefit to this left pathway – it was full of sunshine. She could not see a cloud, well, at all. None. Just warm sun basking on the ground below.

It took her only a moment to make the choice. She took a deep breath, smoothed out her hair and took a step. Then another and another. She began to run. She ran so fast, she was quickly out of view…

If this had been an actual emergency, the Attention Getting Signal you just heard would have been followed by official information, news or instructions on how not to find the true location of the blogger.