Down in the Flood
Desert Oracle Radio
Ken Layne
4.9 • 852 Ratings
🗓️ 19 August 2022
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
An interesting thing about a raging flash flood is how quiet it is, for the most part. Sometimes you’ll hear a pinyon log sort of bonk against a boulder, but the silt and the mud absorbs most of the sound. Sometimes, you feel a rumble from the ground below, a pleasing sort of rumble. Like it’s far away, a distant freight train. But it’s right there, ready to pull you down to the Underworld.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Transmitting from the Mojave Wilderness in Joshua Tree, California, now is the time for Desert Oracle Radio, the voice of the desert. |
| 0:16.4 | Night has fallen on the desert. |
| 0:22.7 | The flooding continues here and there. |
| 0:29.9 | What's the difference between a flash flood and a regular flood anyway? |
| 0:38.3 | Well, the flash flood is pretty fast, like that comic book guy who breaks into people's houses |
| 0:47.0 | and takes all their liquor, and it doesn't need to be raining where the flood occurs. |
| 0:56.0 | Just the other day, I was taking a rare walk inside the National Park. |
| 1:04.0 | Going up a wash, I thought, might get a good flow going, even though the rain was |
| 1:09.4 | mostly to myself over Warren Pete, named after |
| 1:15.0 | Elizabeth Warren, 1876. |
| 1:19.6 | And while it wasn't raining at all where I was, little rivulets maneuvering around the rocks and branches and bushes told me it was coming. |
| 1:33.3 | I walked a while more to the south, and soon I noticed a stick of about a foot long that was being carried by the thin little stream. |
| 1:49.6 | And that's usually a good sign to make sure you've got someplace to go on the one side or the other. |
| 1:59.5 | I followed some quail up past the Mormon tea and a big old Joshua tree that had fallen over and nearly died, |
| 2:09.6 | but for the new branches that burst sideways from the trunk and were now about 18 inches high. |
| 2:23.3 | And now I'm hearing a bit of water moving, sort of like what they call a water feature in a garden. |
| 2:28.3 | Trickling over the rocks, it's supposed to reduce stress. |
| 2:33.3 | They even may not be able to over the rocks. It's supposed to reduce stress. |
| 2:45.7 | They even made little water feature gadgets for the sad people working in offices and cubicles. |
| 2:56.6 | This was long ago before they had everybody hooked up to the depression apps on their phone. |
| 3:04.6 | And before they had everybody on medication. |
| 3:17.8 | You could buy these little water features for your desktop and the back of maybe Parade magazine. |
... |
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