Hmh reading inventory lexile chart

The whirring blades of my MD-902 throbbed against the warm evening air, and I smiled.
From 5,000 feet, the ground flew by in a carpet of dark forests and kelly-green fields. The sun hung low on the horizon in a picturesque array of dazzling orange and gold, and I could make out the narrow strip of the Ohio River to my left, glistening in the fading daylight. This time of year, the trees would be full of the sweet aroma of fresh blossoms, and the frequent rains kept small pockets of fluffy white mist hanging in the treetops. It was a beautiful view, one that reminded me of why being a helicopter pilot trumped flying in a jumbo jet far above the clouds every day of the week.
Fourteen more days, and I’m debt free.
That made me grin even more. I’d been working as a charter pilot ever since I obtained my license at age 19, and after years of keeping my nose to the grindstone, I was closing on the final payment for real-estate in western Pennsylvania. With no debt, a fixer-upper house on 30 rural acres all to myself, and a respectable wage for a 26-year-old pilot, I looked forward to the financial freedom I could now enjoy. Maybe I’d take a vacation, somewhere exotic like Venice Italy, or the Dominican Republic. Or perhaps I’d sock the money back for the day I started a family.
“Remember kleineun, a real man looks after his own.”
My elderly ouma’s voice came back from the depths of my memories, her proud, sun-tanned face rising from the darkness. She and my Rhodesian grandfather had emigrated to the US when they were newlyweds, as the violence against white Boer descendants in South Africa spiraled out of control. My mother and father both died in a car crash when I was six, and it had been my grandparents who raised me. Due to this, I’d grown up with a slight accent that many of my classmates found amusing, and I could speak both English, and Afrikaans, the Boer tongue of our former home.
I shifted in my seat, stretched my back muscles, and glanced at the picture taped to my console. Both my parents flanked a grinning, gap-toothed six-year-old me, at the last Christmas we’d spent together. My mother beamed, her dark hair and Italian features a sharp contrast to my father’s sandy blonde hair and blue eyes. Sometimes, I liked to imagine they were smiling at me with pride at how well I flew the old silver-colored bird my company had assigned to me, and that made the long, lonely flights easier to bear.
A flicker caught my eye, and I broke my gaze away from the photograph.
Perched in its small cradle above the controls, my little black Garmin fuzzed over for a few seconds, its screen shifting from brightly colored maps to a barrage of grey static.
Did the power chord come loose?
I checked, ensuring the power-cable for the unit’s battery was plugged into the port on the control panel. It was a brand-new GPS unit, and I’d used it a few times already, so I knew it wasn’t defective. Granted, I could fly and navigate without it, but the Garmin made my time as a pilot so much easier that the thought of going blind was dreadful.
My fuel gauge danced, clicked to empty, then to full, in a bizarre jolt.
More of the gauges began to stutter, the entire panel seeming to develop terrets all at once, and my pulse began to race. Something was wrong, very wrong, and the sludge inside my bowels churned with sour fear.
“Come on, come on.” I flicked switches, turned dials, punched buttons, but nothing seemed to fix the spasming electronics. Every gauge failed, and without warning, I found myself plunged into inky darkness.
Outside, the sun surrendered to the pull of night, the sky darker than usual. A distant rumble of thunder reverberated above the roar of my helicopter’s engine, and I thought I glimpsed a streak of yellowish lightning on the far horizon to my left.
Calm down Chris. We’re still flying, so it must just be a blown fuse. Stay in control and find a place to set her down.
My sweaty palm slid on the cyclic stick, and both feet weighed heavy on the yaw pedals. The collective stuck to my other hand with a nervous vibration, and I squinted against the abyss outside.
Beep.
I jumped despite myself, as the little Garmin on my panel flared back to life, the static pulling aside to reveal a twitching display. Each time the screen glitched, it showed the colorful map detailing my flight path over the ground below, but I noticed that some of the lines changed, the names shifting, as if the device couldn’t decide between two different versions of the world.
One name jutted out at me, slate gray like most of the major county names, appearing with ghostly flickers from between two neighboring ones.
Barron County.
I stared, confused. I’d flown over this section of southeastern Ohio plenty of times, and I knew the counties by heart. At this point, I should have been over the southern end of Noble County, and maybe dipping lower into Washington. There was no Barron County Ohio. I was sure of it.
And yet it shown back at me from the digital landscape, a strange, almost cigar-shaped chunk of terrain carved from the surrounding counties like a tumor, sometimes there, sometimes not, as my little Garmin struggled to find the correct map. Rain began to patter against my cockpit window, and the entire aircraft rattled from a strong gust of wind. Thick clouds closed over my field of vision like a sea of gray cotton.
The blood in my veins turned to ice, and I sucked in a nervous breath.
Land. I had to land. There was nothing else to do, my flight controls weren’t responding, and only my Garmin had managed to come back to life. Perhaps I’d been hit by lightning, and the electronics had been fried? Either way, it was too dark to tell, but a storm seemed to be brewing, and if I didn’t get my feet on the ground soon, I could be in real trouble.
“Better safe than sorry.” I pushed down on the collective to start my slow descent and clicked the talking button for my headset. “Any station, this is Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, over.”
Nothing.
“Any station, this is Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, requesting emergency assistance, over.”
Still nothing.
If the radio’s dead, I’m really up a creek.
With my hand shaking, I clicked on the mic one more time. “Any station, this is—”
Like a curtain pulling back, the fog cleared from around my window, and the words stuck in my throat.
Without my gauges, I couldn’t tell just how far I’d descended, but I was definitely very low. Thick trees poked up from the ground, and the hills rolled into high ridges with flat valley floors, fields and pastures pockmarking them. Rain fell all around in cold, silvery sheets, a normal feature for the mid spring in this part of Ohio.
What wasn’t normal, were the fires.
At first, I thought they were forest fires for the amount of smoke and flames that bellowed from each spot, but as I swooped lower, my eyes widened in horror.
They were houses.
Farms, cottages, little clusters that barely constituted villages, all of them belched orange flames and black pillars of sooty smoke. I couldn’t hear above the helicopter blades, but I could see the flashes on the ground, along the road, in between the trees, and even coming from the burning buildings, little jets of golden light that spat into the darkness with anger.
Gunfire. That’s rifle fire, a whole lot of it.
Tiny black figures darted through the shadows, barely discernable from where I sat, several hundred feet up. I couldn’t see much, but some were definitely running away, the streaks of yellow gunfire chasing them. A few dark gray vehicles rumbled down one of the gravel roads, and sprayed fire into the houses as it went. They were fighting, I realized, the people in the trucks and the locals. It was horrific, like something out of war-torn Afghanistan, but worse.
Then, I caught a glimpse of the others.
They didn’t move like the rest, who either fled from the dark vehicles, or fired back from behind cover. These skinny figures loped along with haphazard gaits, many running on all fours like animals, swarming from the trees by the dozens. They threw themselves into the gales of bullets without flinching, attacking anyone within range, and something about the way they moved, so fluid, so fearless, made my heart skip a beat.
What is that?
“Echo Four Actual to unknown caller, please respond, over.”
Choking back a cry of shock, I fumbled at the control panel with clumsy fingers, the man’s voice sharp and stern. I hadn’t realized that I’d let go of the talking button and clicked it down again. “Hello? Hello, this is Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot out of Pittsburgh, over.”
An excruciating moment passed, and I continued to zoom over the trees, the fires falling away behind me as more silent forest took over.
“Roger that Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, we read you loud and clear. Please identify yourself and any passengers or cargo you might be carrying, over.”
Swallowing hard, I eyed the treetops, which looked much closer than they should have been. How far had I descended? “Echo Four Actual, my name is Christopher Dekker, and I am alone. I’m a charter flight from PA, carrying medical equipment for OSU in Columbus. My controls have been damaged, and I am unable to safely carry on due to the storm. Requesting permission to land, over.”
I watched the landscape slide by underneath me, once catching sight of what looked like a little white church surrounded by smaller huts, dozens of figures in the yard staring up at me as I flew over a towering ridgeline.
“Solid copy on that Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot. Be advised, your transponder shows you to be inside a restricted zone. Please cease all radio traffic, reduce your speed, climb to 3,000 feet and proceed north. We’ll talk you in from there. How copy, over?”
My heart jumped, and I let out a sigh of relief. “Roger that Echo Four Actual, my altimeter is down, but I’ll do my best to eyeball the altitude, over.”
With that, I pulled the collective upward, and tried my best to gauge how far I was by eyesight in the gathering night, rain still coming down all around me. This had to be some kind of disaster or riot, I decided. After all, the voice over the radio sounded like military, and those vehicles seemed to have heavy weapons. Maybe there was some kind of unrest going on here that I hadn’t heard about yet?
Kind of weird for it to happen in rural areas though. Spoiled college kids I get, but never saw farmers get so worked up before. They usually love the military.
Something moved in the corner of my eye, and I turned out of reflex.
My mouth fell open, and I froze, unable to scream.
In the sky beside me, a huge shadow glided along, and its leathery wings effortlessly carved through the gloom, flapping only on occasion to keep it aloft. It was too dark for me to see what color it was, but from the way it moved, I knew it wasn’t another helicopter. No, this thing was alive, easily the size of a small plane, and more than twice the length of my little McDonald Douglass. A long tail trailed behind it, and bore a distinct arrow-shaped snout, with twig-like spines fanned out around the back of its head. Whatever legs it had were drawn up under it like a bird, yet its skin appeared rough and knobby, almost resembling tree bark. Without pause, the gigantic bat-winged entity flew along beside me, as if my presence was on par with an annoying fly buzzing about its head.
Gripping the microphone switch so tight, I thought I’d crack the plastic, I whispered into my headset, forgetting all radio protocol. “T-There’s something up here.”
Static crackled.
“Douglas Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, say again your last, you’re coming in weak and unreadable, over.”
“There’s something up here.” I snarled into the headset, still glued to the controls of the helicopter, afraid to deviate even an inch from my course in case the monstrosity decided to turn on me. “A freaking huge thing, right beside me. I swear, it looks like a bat or . . . I don’t know.”
“Calm down.” The man on the other end of the radio broke his rigorous discipline as well, his voice deep, but level. “It won’t attack if you don’t move too fast. Slowly ease away from it and follow that course until you’re out of sight.”
I didn’t have time to think about how wrong that sounded, how the man’s strict tone had changed to one of knowledge, how he hadn’t been the least surprised by what I’d said. Instead, I slowly turned the helicopter away from the huge menace and edged the speed higher in tiny increments.
As soon as I was roughly two football fields away, I let myself relax, and clicked the mic switch. “It’s not following.”
“You’re sure?”
Eyeing the huge flapping wings, I nodded, then remembered he couldn’t see me. “Yeah, I’m well clear.”
“Good. Thank you, Mr. Dekker.”
Then, the radio went dead.
Something in my chest dropped, a weight that made my stomach roil. This wasn’t right, none of it. Who was that man? Why did he know about the thing I’d just seen? What was I supposed to—
A flash of light exploded from the trees to my right and shot into the air with a long finger of smoke.
What the . . .
On instinct, I jerked the cyclic stick to one side, and the helicopter swung to avoid the rocket.
Boom.
My world shook, metal screeched, and a dozen alarms began to go off inside the cockpit in a cacophony of beeps and sirens. Orange and red flames lit up the night sky just behind me, and the horizon started to spin wildly outside. Heat gushed from the cockpit door, and I smelled the greasy stench of burning oil. The safety belts dug into my shoulders, and with a final slip, the radio headset ripped free from my scalp.
I’m hit.
Desperate, I yanked on the controls, fought the bird even as she spun toward the ground in a wreath of flames, the inky black trees hurtling up to meet me. The helicopter went into full auto-rotation, the sky blurring past outside, and the alarms blared in a screech of doom. Panic slammed through my temples, I screamed at the top of my lungs, and for one brief second, my eyes locked on the little black Garmin still perched atop my control panel.
Its screen stopped twitching and settled on a map of the mysterious Barron County, with a little red arrow at the center of the screen, a few words popping up underneath it.
You are here.
Trees stabbed up into the sky, the belts crushed at my torso, glass shattered all around me, and the world went dark.
Copper, thick, warm, and tangy.
It filled my mouth, stank metallic in my nose, clogged my throat, choking me. In the murkiness, I fought for a surface, for a way out, blind and numb in the dark.
This way, kleineun.
My ouma’s voice echoed from somewhere in the shadows.
This way.
Both eyes flew open, and I gagged, spitting out a stream of red.
Pain throbbed in my ribs, and a heavy pressure sent a tingling numbness through my shoulders. Blood roared inside my temples, and stars danced before my eyes with a dizzying array. Humid night air kissed my skin, and something sticky coated my face, neck, and arms that hung straight up toward the ceiling.
Wait. Not up. Down.
I blinked at the wrinkled, torn ceiling of the cockpit, the glass all gone, the gray aluminum shredded like tissue paper. Just outside the broken windows, thick Appalachian bluegrass and stemmy underbrush swished in a feeble breeze, backlit by flashes of lightning from the thunderstorm overhead. Green and brown leaves covered everything in a wet carpet of triangles, and somewhere nearby, a cricket chirped.
Turning my head from side to side, I realized that I hung upside down inside the ruined helicopter, the top half burrowed into the mud. I could hear the hissing and crackling of flames, the pattering of rain falling on the hot aluminum, and the smaller brush fires around the downed aircraft sizzling out in the damp long grass. Charred steel and burning oil tainted the air, almost as strong as the metallic, coppery stench in my aching nose.
They shot me down. That military dude shot me out of the sky.
It didn’t make sense. I’d followed their orders, done everything they’d said, and yet the instant I veered safely away from whatever that thing in the sky had been, they’d fired, not at it, but at me.
Looking down (or rather, up) at my chest, I sucked in a gasp, which was harder to do that before.
The navy-blue shirt stuck to my torso with several big splotches of dark, rusty red. Most were clean slashes, but two held bits of glass sticking out of them, one alarmingly bigger than the other. They dripped cherry red blood onto my upturned face, and a wave of nausea hit me.
I gotta get down.
I flexed my arms to try and work some feeling back into them, praying nothing was broken. Half-numb from hanging so long, I palmed along my aching body until I felt the buckled for the seat belts.
“Okay.” I hissed between gritted teeth, in an effort to stave off my panic. “You can do this. Just hold on tight. Nice and tight. Here we go . . .”
Click.
Everything seemed to lurch, and I slid off the seat to plummet towards the muck-filled hole in the cockpit ceiling. My fingers were slick with blood and slipped over the smooth faux-leather pilot’s seat with ease. The shoulder belt snagged on the bits of glass that lay just under the left lowest rib, and a flare of white-hot pain ripped through me.
Wham.
I screamed, my right knee caught the edge of the aluminum ceiling, and both hands dove into a mound of leaf-covered glass shards on the opposite side of the hole. My head swam, being right-side-up again enough to make shadows gnaw at the corner of my eyes.
Forcing myself to breath slowly, I fought the urge to faint and slid back to sit on the smooth ceiling. I turned my hands over to see half a dozen bits of clear glass burrowed into my skin like greedy parasites, red blood weeping around the new cuts.
“Screw you.” I spat at the rubbish with angry tears in my eyes. “Screw you, screw you, screw you.”
The shards came out easy enough, and the cuts weren’t that deep, but that wasn’t what worried me. On my chest, the single piece of cockpit glass that remined was almost as big as my palm, and it really hurt. Just touching it felt like self-inflicted torture, but I knew it had to come out sooner or later.
Please don’t nick a vein.
Wiping my hands dry on my jeans, I gripped the shard with both hands, and jerked.
Fire roared over my ribs, and hot blood tickled my already grimy pale skin. I clapped a hand over the wound, pressing down hard, and grunted out a string of hateful expletives that my ouma would have slapped me for.
Lying on my back, I stared around me at the messy cargo compartment of the MD-902. Most of the medical supplies had been in cardboard boxes strapped down with heavy nylon tow-straps, but several cases had ruptured with the force of the impact, spraying bandages, syringes, and pill bottles all over the cluttered interior. Orange flames chewed at the crate furthest to the rear, the tail section long gone, but the foremost part of the hold was intact. Easily a million-dollar mess, it would have made me faint on any other trip, but today it was a godsend.
Half-blind in the darkness, I crawled along with only the firelight and lightning bolts to guide me, my right knee aching. Like a crippled raccoon, I collected things as I went, conscious of the two pallets of intact supplies weighing right over my head. I’d taken several different first-aid courses with some hunting buddies of mine, and the mental reflexes kicked in to help soothe my frazzled mind.
Check for bleeds, stop the worst, then move on.
Aside from my battered chest and stomach, the rest of me remained mostly unharmed. I had nasty bruises from the seatbelts, my right knee swelled, my nose slightly crooked and crusted in blood, but otherwise I was intact. Dowsing every scratch and cut with a bottle of isopropyl alcohol I found, I used butterfly closures on the smaller lacerations that peppered my skin. I wrapped soft white gauze over my abused palms and probed at the big cut where the last shard had been, only stopping when I was sure there were no pieces of glass wedged inside my flesh.
“Not too bad.” I grunted to myself, trying to sound impassive like a doctor might. “Rib must have stopped it. Gonna need stitches though. That’ll be fun.”
Pawing through the broken cases, I couldn’t find any suture chord, but just as I was about to give up, I noticed a small box that read ‘medical skin stapler’.
Bingo.
I tore the small white plastic stapler free from its packaging and eyeballed the device. I’d never done this before, only seen it in movies, and even though the cut in my skin hurt, I wondered if this wouldn’t be worse.
You’ve gotta do it. That bleeding needs to stop. Besides, no one’s coming to rescue you, not with those rocket-launching psychos out there.
Taking a deep breath, I pinched the skin around the gash together, and pressed the mouth of the stapler to it.
Click.
A sharp sting, like that of a needle bit at the skin, but it didn’t hurt nearly as bad as the cut itself. I worked my way across the two-inch laceration and gave out a sigh of relief when it was done.
“Not going to bleed to death today.” I daubed ointment around the staples before winding more bandages over the wound.
Popping a few low-grade painkillers that tumbled from the cargo, I crawled wriggled through the nearest shattered window into the wet grass.
Raindrops kissed my face, clean and cool on my sweaty skin. Despite the thick cloud cover, there was enough constant lightning strikes within the storm to let me get glimpses of the world around me. My helicopter lay on its back, the blades snapped like pencils, with bits and pieces of it burning in chunks all around the small break in the trees. Chest-high scrub brush grew all around the low-lying ground, with pockets of standing water in places. My ears still rang from the impact of the crash, but I could start to pick up more crickets, frogs, and even some nocturnal birds singing into the darkness, like they didn’t notice the huge the hulk of flaming metal that had fallen from the sky. Overhead, the thunder rumbled onward, the feeble wind whistling, and there were other flashes on the horizon, orange and red ones, with crackles that didn’t sound quite like lightning.
The guns. They’re still fighting.
Instinctively, I pulled out my cellphone, and tapped the screen.
It fluttered to life, but no matter how I tried, I couldn’t get through to anyone, not even with the emergency function designed to work around having no service. The complicated wonder of our modern world was little better than a glorified paperweight.
Stunned, I sat down with my back to the helicopter and rested my head against the aluminum skin of the craft. How I’d gone from a regular medical supply run to being marooned in this hellish parody of rural America, I didn’t know, but one thig was certain; I needed a plan. Whoever fired the missile could have already contacted my charter company and made up some excuse to keep them from coming to look for me. No one else knew I was here, and even though I now had six staples holding the worst of my injuries shut, I knew I needed proper medical attention. If I wanted to live, I’d have to rescue myself.
My bag. I need to get my go-bag, grab some gear and then . . . head somewhere else.
It took me a while to gather my green canvas paratrooper bag from its place behind the pilot’s seat and fill it with whatever supplies I could scrounge. My knee didn’t seem to be broken, but man did it hurt, and I dreaded the thought of walking on it for miles on end. I focused instead on inventorying my gear and trying to come up with a halfway intelligent plan of action.
I had a stainless-steel canteen with one of those detachable cups on the bottom, a little fishing kit, some duct tape, a lighter, a black LED flashlight with three spare batteries, a few tattered road maps with a compass, a spare pair of socks, medical supplies from the cargo, and a simple forest green plastic rain poncho. I also managed to unearth a functioning digital camcorder my ouma had gotten me for Christmas a few years back, though I wasn’t sure I wanted to do any filming in such a miserable state. Lastly, since it was a private supply run from a warehouse area near Pittsburgh to a direct hospital pad in Ohio, I’d been able to bring my K-Bar, a sturdy, and brutally simple knife designed for the Marine Corps that I used every time I went camping. It was pitiful in comparison to the rifle I wished I had with me, but that didn’t matter now. I had what I had, and I doubted my trusty Armalite would have alleviated my sore knee anyway.
Clicking on my flashlight, I huddled with the poncho around my shoulders inside the wreck of the chopper and peered at the dusty roadmaps. A small part of me hoped that a solution would jump out from the faded paper, but none came. These were all maps of western PA and eastern Ohio. None of them had a Barron County on them anywhere.
The man on the radio said to head north, right before they shot me down. That means they must be camped out to the north of here. South had that convoy and those burning houses, so that’s a no-go. Maybe I can backtrack eastward the way I came.
As if on cue, a soft pop echoed from over the eastern horizon, and I craned to look out the helicopter window, spotting more man-made flashes over the tree tops.
“Great.” I hissed between clenched teeth, aware of how the temperature dipped to a chilly 60 degrees, and how despite the conditions, my stomach had begun to growl. “Not going that way, are we? Westward it is.”
Walking away from my poor 902 proved to be harder than I’d anticipated. Despite the glass, the fizzling fires, and the darkness, it still held a familiar, human essence to it. Sitting inside it made me feel secure, safe, even calm about the situation. In any other circumstance, I would have just stayed with the downed aircraft to wait for help, but I knew the men who shot me down would likely find my crash site, and I didn’t want to be around when they did.
Unlike much of central and western Ohio, southeastern Ohio is hilly, brushy, and clogged with thick forests. Thorns snagged at my thin poncho and sliced at my pant legs. My knee throbbed, every step a form of self-inflicted torture. The rain never stopped, a steady drizzle from above just cold enough to be problematic as time went on, making me shiver. Mud slid under my tennis shoes, and every tree looked ten times bigger in the flickering beam of my cheap flashlight. Icy fear prickled at the back of my neck at some of the sounds that greeted me through the gloom. I’d been camping loads of times, both in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, but these noises were something otherworldly to me.
Strange howls, screeches, and calls permeated the rain-soaked sky, some almost roars, while others bordered on human in their intonation. The more I walked, the softer the distant gunfire became, and the more prevalent the odd sounds, until the shadows seemed to fill with them. I didn’t dare turn off my flashlight, or I’d been completely blind in the dark, but a little voice in the back of my head screamed that I was too visible, crunching through the gloomy forest with my long beam of light stabbing into the abyss. It felt as though a million eyes were on me, studying me, hunting me from the surrounding brush, and I bitterly recalled how much I’d loved the old Survivor Man TV series as a kid.
Not so fun being out in the woods at night. Especially alone.
A twig snapped somewhere behind me, and I whirled on the spot, one trembling hand resting on the hilt of my K-Bar.
Nothing. Nothing but trees, bushes, and rain dripping down in the darkness.
“This is stupid.” I whispered to myself to keep my nerves in check as I slowly spun on the spot. “I should have went eastward anyway. God knows how long I’m going to have to—”
Creak.
A groan of metal-on-metal echoed from somewhere to my right, and I spun to face it, yanking the knife on my belt free from its scabbard. It felt so small and useless in my hand, and I choked down a wave of nauseas fear.
Ka-whump. Creak. K-whump. Creak.
Underbrush cracked and crunched, a few smaller saplings thrashed, and from deep within the gloom, two yellow orbs flared to life. They poked through the mist in the trees, forming into slender fingers of golden light that swept back and forth in the dark.
The soldiers . . . they must be looking for me.
I swallowed hard and turned to slink away.
Ice jammed through my blood, and I froze on the spot, biting my tongue to stop the scream.
It stood not yards away, a huge form that towered a good twelve feet tall in the swirling shadows. Unpolished chrome blended with flash-rusted spots in the faded red paint, and grime-smeared glass shone with dull hues in the flashes of lightning. Where the wheels should have been, the rounded steel axels curved like some enormous hand had bent them, and the tires lay face-down on the muddy ground like big round feet, their hubcaps buried in the dirt. Dents, scrapes, and chips covered the battered thing, and its crooked little radio antenna pointed straight up from the old metal fender like a mast. I could barely make out the mud-coated VW on the rounded hood, and my mind reeled in shock.
Is . . . is that a car?
Both yellow headlights bathed me in a circle of bright, blinding light, and neither I nor the strange vehicle moved.
Seconds ticked by, the screech-thumping in the background only growing closer. I realized that I couldn’t hear any engine noises and had yet to see any soldiers or guns pointed my way. This car looked old, really old, like one of those classic Volkswagen Beetles that collectors fought over at auctions. Try as I might, I couldn’t see a driver inside the murky, mold-smeared windows.
Because there wasn’t one.
Lightning arched across the sky overhead, and the car standing in front of me blinked.
Its headlights slid shut, as if little metal shades had crawled over the bulbs for a moment and flicked open again. Something about that movement was so primal, so real, so lifelike, that every ounce of self-control I had melted in an instant.
Cursing under my breath, I lunged into the shrubs, and the world erupted around me.
Under my shoes, the ground shook, and the car surged after me in a cacophony of ka-thumps that made my already racing heart skip several beats. A weather-beaten brown tow truck from the 50’s charged through the thorns to my left, it’s headlights ablaze, and a dilapidated yellow school bus rose from its hiding place in the weeds to stand tall on four down-turned axel-legs. They all flicked their headlights on like giants waking from their slumber, and as I dodged past them, they each blared their horn into the night in alarm.
My breaths came short and tight, my knee burned, and I crashed through thorns and briars without thought to how badly I was getting cut up.
The cheap poncho tore, and I ripped it away as it caught on a tree branch.
A purple 70’s Mustang shook off its blanket of creeping vines and bounded from a stand of trees just ahead, forcing me to swerve to avoid being run over, my adrenaline at all-time highs.
This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening, this can’t be happening.
Slipping and sliding, I pushed through a stand of multiflora rose, and stumbled out into a flat, dark expanse.
I almost skidded to a stop.
What had once been a rather large field stood no taller than my shoestrings, the grass charred, and burnt. The storm above illuminated huge pieces of wreckage that lay scattered over the nearly 40-acre plot, and I could just make out the fire-blackened hulk of a fuselage resting a hundred yards away. The plane had been brought down a while ago it seemed, as there weren’t any flames left burning, and I threw myself toward it in frenzied desperation.
Burned grass and greasy brown topsoil slushed underfoot, and I could hear the squelching of the cars pursing me. Rain soaked me to the bone, and my lungs ached from sucking down the damp night air. A painful stich crept into my side, and I cursed myself for not putting in more time for cardio at the gym.
Something caught my left shoelace, and I hurtled to the ground, tasting mud and blood in between my teeth.
They’ve got me now.
I clawed at the mud, rolled, and watched a tire slam down mere inches from where my head had been. The Mustang loomed over me and jostled for position with the red Volkswagen and brown tow truck, the school bus still a few yards behind them. They couldn’t seem to decide who would get the pleasure of stomping me to death, and like a herd of stampeding wildebeest, they locked bumpers in an epic shoving match.
On all fours, I scampered out from under the sparring brutes, and dashed for the crumpled airplane, a white-painted DC-3 that looked like it had been cut in half by a gargantuan knife blade. I passed a snapped wing section, the oily remains of a turbo-prop engine, and a mutilated wheel from the landing gear. Climbing over a heap of mud, I squeezed into the back of the ruined flight cabin and dropped down into the dark cargo hold.
Wham.
No sooner had my sneakers hit the cold metal floor, and the entire plane rocked from the impact of something heavy ramming it just outside. I tumbled to my knees, screaming in pain as, once again, I managed to bash the sore one off a bracket in the wall.
My hand smeared in something gooey, and I scrabbled for my flashlight.
It clicked on, a wavering ball of white light in the pitch darkness, and I fought the urge to gag. “Oh man . . .”
Three people, or what was left of them, lay strewn over the narrow cargo area. Claret red blood coated the walls, caked on the floor, and clotted under my mud-spattered shoes. Bits of flesh and viscera were stuck to everything, and tatters of cloth hung from exposed sections of broken bone. An eerie set of bloody handprints adorned the walls, and the only reason I could tell it had been three people were the shoes; all of them bore anklebones sticking out above blood-soaked socks. It smelled sickly sweet, a strange, nauseas odor that crept into my nose and settled on the back of my tongue like an alien parasite.
Something glinted in the beam of my flashlight, and my pulse quickened as I pried the object loose from the severed arm that still clung to it.
“Hail Mary full of Grace.” I would have grinned if it weren’t for the fact that the plane continued to buck and roll under the assault from the cars outside.
The pistol looked old, but well-maintained, aside from the light coating of dark blood that stained its round wooden handle. It felt heavy, but good in my hand, and I turned it over to read the words, Waffenfabrik Mauser stenciled into the frame, with a large red 9 carved into the grip. For some reason, it vaguely reminded me of the blasters from Star Wars.
I fumbled with a little switch that looked like a safety on the back of the gun and stumbled toward a gap in the plane’s dented fuselage to aim out at the surrounding headlights.
Bang.
The old gun bucked reliably in my hand, its long barrel spitting a little jet of flame into the night. I had no idea if I hit anything, but the attacking cars recoiled, their horns blaring in confusion.
They turned, and scuttled for the tree line as fast as their mechanical legs could go, the entire ordeal over as fast as it had begun.
Did I do that?
Perplexed, I stared down at the pistol in my hand.
Whoosh.
A large, inky black shadow glided down from the clouds, and the yellow school bus moved too slow to react in time.
With a crash, the kicking nightmarish vehicle was thrown onto its side, spraying glass and chrome trim across the muddy field. Its electro-synth horn blared with wails of mechanical agony, as two huge talon-like feet clamped down on it, and the enormous head of the flying creature lowered to rip open its engine compartment.
The horn cut out, and the enormous flying entity jerked its head back to gulp down a mass of what looked like sticky black vines from the interior of the shattered bus.
At this range, I could see now that the flying creature bore two legs and had its wings half-tucked like a vulture that had descended to feed on roadkill. Its head turned slightly, and in the glow of another lightning bolt, my jaw went slack at the realization of what it was.
A tree trunk. It’s a rotted tree trunk.
I couldn’t tell where the reptilian beast began, and where the organic tree components ended, the upper part of the head shaped like a log, while the lower jaw resembled something out of a dinosaur movie. Its skin looked identical to the outside of a shagbark hickory but flexed with a supple featheriness that denoted something closer to skin. Sharp branch-like spines ranged down its back, and out to the end of its tail, which bore a massive round club shaped like a diseased tree-knot. Crouched on both hind legs, it braced the hooked ends of its folded wings against the ground like a bat, towering higher than a semi-truck. Under the folds of its armored head, a bulging pair of chameleon-like eyes constantly spun in their sockets, probing the dark for threats while it ate.
One black pupil locked onto the window I peered through, and my heart stopped.
The beast regarded me for a moment, with a curious, sideways sniff.
With a proud, contemptful head-toss, the shadow from the sky parted rows of razor-sharp teeth to let out a roar that shook the earth beneath my feet. It was the triumphant war cry of a creature that sat at the very top of the food chain, one that felt no threat from the fragile two-legged beings that walked the earth all around it. It hunted whenever it wanted, ate whatever it wanted, and flew wherever it wanted. It didn’t need to rip the plane apart to devour me.
Like my hunter-gatherer ancestors from thousands of years ago, I wasn’t even worth the energy it would take to pounce.
I’m hiding in the remains of the cockpit now, which is half-buried under the mud of the field, enough to shield the light from my screen so that thing doesn’t see it. My service only now came back, and it’s been over an hour since the winged beast started in on the dead bus. I don’t know when, or how I’m going to get out of here. I don’t know when anyone will even see this post, or if it will upload at all. My phone battery is almost dead, and at this point, I’m probably going to have to sleep among the corpses until daylight comes.
A dead man sleeping amongst friends.
If you live in the Noble County area in southeastern Ohio, be careful where you drive, fly, and boat. I don’t know if it’s possible to stumble into this strange place by ground, but if so, then these things are definitely headed your way.
If that happens . . . pray that they don’t find you.

I've viewed the records logged on government run websites, and they're generally ambiguous. Not necessarily by intent, but I think the actual readings were just hidden in some cases. Just a blanket statement that technically nothing is of substance to hurt you, but to keep you from being alarmed we won't show you the readings. I saw one exception where a reading went up to like 400+ counts per minute vs a background of like 20 in Washington state. But it didn't say when. There is not chart like what we can generate with data from home Geiger counters, and upload onto say gmcmap.com.
Any private recordings or areas lesser known to have this data, at like a university or monitoring site?

Hi and thanks for taking the time to read and hopefully answer. I have been collecting star fragments from a certain skytower as they seem to drop often in the air. I went on to collect my 13th and when I was in my inventory after getting bored and doing some more shrines I noticed there is now only 1 likely the last 1 I collected. Do they have a lifespan in the inventory? Is this a bug? I know they dissapear from the ground if not quick enough but I ha e been catching these in the air so non-issue there. All responses welcome and thank you.

I have what I think are a very basic (read: dumb) set of glycol chiller questions that I have not been able to find answers to on the interweb.
First, all of the “glycol concentration charts” I find online refer to “freeze point” but do not specify if this is the point at which crystals begin to form (slush point) or when the mixture is fully ice (burst point). So which is it?
Second, if my chiller is working properly but is taking longer than usual to bring the glycol down to temperature is that indicative of having too much or too little glycol. We recently topped up our chiller at a rate of 36% glycol and now suddenly the chiller is taking 2-3x as long to come down to the set point after knock out.
My guess is that an error was made when calculating the mixture but without knowing exactly what freeze point means I’m not able to verify by placing a sample in our deep freezer. I have taken a refractometer reading which puts it at 16 Brix, or 20% glycol by volume but I would think with too much water the chiller would work better, not more slowly.
Thanks for your help. This summer is going to be brutal if the chiller isn’t working properly

Alt Title: Am I doing this right?
tl;dr at the bottom
Context here. This is a sister post to my other post about Easy/Medium charting; you should give it a read too, if you're up for it (though it's about as long as this one). If you don't feel like clicking though, here's the short version.
This is my first time doing a Full Difficulty chart; I've done a couple Expert ones in the past, and thought it'd be fun to give this a try. The song I'm working with—"Tell Me You Know" by Good Kid—is about a 3/6 in terms of complexity, which I'm pretty sure means you should be able to beat it at the difficulty of your choosing, but watch out.
I basically charted this song in reverse order of difficulty; I did Expert, and simplified down to Medium and then Easy. All you've gotta do is move the notes down and/or get rid of the extra fret, and reduce the number of notes when possible. But I saved Hard for last. See the issue is, this song isn't that complex; there's not a lot of room for me to remove notes (or rather, there were a lot less notes that needed removing). For instance, the song starts with a simple alt strum of 16th notes; people playing on Hard can do that. There's a single 3 note extended sustain chord at the end as well as a single 3 note reverse extended sustain, and the next most complicated chord is a GB—Hard players can hit all of those.
So what did I change?
Almost all the changes I made had to do with chord switching. There were some HOPO chords I removed (because they typically served as a slide between a low chord and a high chord, which might prove to be difficult if you aren't ready for it), and a few that I reduced to a single note. When that wasn't possible, I'd move the frets closer together, so it was less about moving your fingers and more about simply moving your position. If that description doesn't make sense, this is the only way I can think to illustrate it; there's a section during the verse that was changed like this:
from Expert: YB,RB,—,YB,RB,—,YB,RB,—,GB,GY
to Hard: YB,RY,—,YB,RY,—,YB,RY,—,RY,GR
Same rhythm, significantly easier to hit.
Since I try to keep my notes internally consistent (the same notes hit in a different order later in the song sharing the same frets), this had the unintended consequence of simplifying a few sections that didn't really need to be simplified, but I don't think anyone playing on Hard would mind the change.
Aside from that, the only other change I made was adding more HOPOs. This song specifically uses a lot of alt strumming—in fact, when I was doing the initial Expert chart, there were sections that I thought about making HOPOs, but decided against doing it because strumming was more authentic (if harder). In these instances, I just put the HOPOs back. That means there's a number of 4-7 16th note strings where you only have to hit the first one.
But that's it. The rest of the notes were completely untouched. (I'd give you the difference in note count to illustrate my point, but I'm away from my gaming computer and my laptop does not have Clone Hero, so...)
So what do you think? Am I handling this right, or am I over simplifying things? After all, Hard is the second highest difficulty, so if someone's made it this far, maybe they expect a bit more of a challenge.
I might upload a preview video/do a beta release of the chart to make the comparison easier in the future, but this post isn't technically about this song specifically, but charting Hard songs as a whole.
So what are some good tips for charting Hard songs? Are there any explicit rules on what's too difficult for this level, or do I need to play it by ear?
And what's your experience with charting Hard songs? What's your journey been like? I know I'm not the only person doing Full Difficulty charts, so what's the road ahead like? Feel free to share your experience.
I look forward to any and all feedback!
​
tl;dr Are there any explicit rules on what can and can't go into a Hard chart? And how do you reduce the complexity of a song that isn't that complex to begin with?

Big thanks to u/28FFthrowaway, u/bunnybunnykitten, & u/WampaCat!
Here are the various measurements I’ve taken. There’s so many because I kept doubting if I was doing it right and took new ones every other day.
Based on all the guides I’ve read & watched, advice I’ve received, and personal experience trying bras on so far this is what I’ve determined…
I have broad roots, a shallow top, I’m fuller on the bottom, a bit bony at the sternum, I have significant MBT & underarm spillage, and to top it all off my skin can be sensitive to rougher fabrics.
I’m looking for brands & styles to try in the range from the linked chart above… sizes 32DD/DDD/E, 34C/D/DD.
As suggested elsewhere I'd like to try each bra in all these sizes, but at least 2-3 will do of course if they're not made in all of them, focusing on the 32DD & 34D.
I don’t know bra brands and styles at all so any help is so very appreciated. Especially in determining if any of the suggested bras below can accommodate wide roots with side support. That seems to have been my biggest issue when trying some on.
These are some fit suggestions I’ve been given so far…
Try a sewn cup bra in half cup, balconette, or demi cup
You need wider wires to encompass all breast tissue on the sides
Look for soft, seamed bras that specifically say “side support”
Avoid molded cups for the purpose of fitting / sizing and determining shape
Non-wired bras have a very flexible fit so are not that helpful for fit checks.
From the shallow guide…
The cups should have only vertical seams, and no horizontal seams.
The top edge of the cups is as close to horizontal as possible.
The top edge is open (vertical), not closed (curved in towards the body).
These are the various bras that have been suggested so far in various posts I’ve read. There's notes if I tried them already.
*Aerie Real Sunnie
*Natori Cherry Blossom - 34D gaps in cups, 34C cups ok, mbt spillage
*Natori Feathers - 34D gaps in cups
*Natori refined - 32DD too tight, 34C/D/DD Wire too narrow

• Freya Starlight - 34D gaps in cups
  
• Freya Offbeat Side Support
  
• Panache Jasmine
  
• Panache Envy
  
• Panache Clara
  
• Cleo Asher
  
• Cleo blossom
  
• Wacoal How Perfect Wire Free T-Shirt - 34D/DD Cups too tall/full
  
• Wacoal Side Smoother Underwire T-Shirt - 34D Cups too tall/full
  
• Wacoal Elevated Allure Wire Free
  
• Wacoal Elevated Allure Underwire
  
• Wacoal Women's Back Appeal Underwire
  
• Warner's No Side effects Underwire T-Shirt
  

And these are the ones suggested in the shallow guide as will most likely work

• b.tempt'd Ciao Bella
  
• Betsey Johnson Eyelet Lace Demi
  
• Boux Avenue Chloe Lace Balconette
  
• Claudette Sophia Icon Demi
  
• Cleo Juna
  
• Cleo Neve
  
• Cleo Koko Flirty/Mode/Belle
  
• Curvy Kate Soda Pop
  
• Ewa Michalak
  
• Freya Deco Moulded Soft
  
• Freya Deco Strapless - original
  
• Gilligan & O’Malley Lightly Lined Demi
  
• Just Peachy Lace Padded Balconette
  
• Lepel Fiore Padded Balconette
  
• Lepel Fiore Padded Plunge
  
• Natori Feathers Contour Plunge
  
• OnlyHer Latte Plunge
  
• OnlyHer Tabasco Plunge
  
• Parfait Charlotte Padded Plunge
  
• Tutti Rouge Liliana
  

Thanks so much bra fam!

What is the difference between a Cash account and a Margin account?
A cash account means you must pay for your securities 100%. On the sell side, you must maintain enough funds to cover your entire max loss.
Conversely, in a margin account, the broker will only require you to have a certain percentage of the cost in the account, and will loan you the remaining balance. On the sell side, they will require you maintain only a certain percentage of your potential max loss. The amount they require will increase if the position moves against you. If it moves against you to the point that your required margin amount exceeds the cash in your account, a brokerage will margin call, telling you to deposit more funds or they will close (buy back) some of your positions. Interactive Brokers says they do not make margin calls, but they do send you notifications.
You can read about the liquidation warnings here:
https://www.reddit.com/usedmagee33/draft/769c4662-006d-11ee-94e8-6e93db83e07f
You can read more about Margin here:
https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=24862
What are the Margin requirements I see inside of Trader Workstation?
When you view the order preview pane, you will see the amount of initial and maintenance margin required to take out the position. It will show the change to your account. This is up-to-date but impractical in seeing the "big picture".
The IBKR help staff may also tell you to view the margin requirements on the description page of the stock. These can be WRONG and should not be relied upon as they are not kept up to date by Interactive Brokers.
The help staff may also refer you to the margin formula page. These may also be wrong as the formulas may not be up to date, and should not be relied upon for calculation.
There is no way to see accurate margin % inside of Trader Workstation (TWS). We can only see accurate dollar amount of a chosen position by selecting it and pulling up the order window pane. There is no way to compare margin inside of Trader Workstation unless you pull up each position one at a time and check the value in the order window pane.
To accurately see margin percentages and compare it from one position to another, we can achieve this by accessing their API and using ib.WhatIfOrder. I have done so and posted the results below.
​
Cash Requirements for Selling Naked Put Options:
The data here was pulled on June 1, 2023. This shows you how much of the potential max loss (strike price * 100) that you would have to contribute to sell a naked put option that is "At-The-Money". you'll notice these are significantly different than what is shown in the software for some of these tickers.
You can see on the chart below that any stock that was caught up in the "meme stock" volatility of the early 2020's has been cranked up to 100%, meaning you will have to deposit enough cash in your account to cover the full potential loss before they will let you sell it. Popular volatile tech stocks such as TSLA and NVDA are higher as well, around 50%. Generally, anything that has steered clear of the volatility is still around 30%, which is the default amount. The indexes are a bit below that, with SPY at 20% and SPX at 15%.
ATM Margin % Requirements:

Ticker	ATM Margin %
AAL	99.8
AAPL	32.94
AMC	100
AMZN	32.74
BABA	32.67
C	32.6
CAT	32.77
COIN	100
CRM	30.24
CVS	33.23
DKNG	54.63
GME	100
HD	32.82
INTC	33.41
JNJ	33.03
JPM	32.82
KO	32.91
MCD	33.28
META	40.39
MS	32.71
MSFT	32.69
NIO	54.66
NKE	33.07
NVDA	49.53
PFE	32.79
QQQ	21.08
SPX	15.66
SPY	20.66
TGT	32.85
TSLA	55.12
V	32.87
WMT	32.75
XOM	32.77

Also note that you get some assistance in that the premium of the option goes into your cash account immediately after the sale. IB does factor in the premium in determining whether you meet the margin % requirements, meaning the actual amount of cash you will have to deposit might be a little bit less. On the graph below, you see COIN's required margin % has been overridden to 100% for every option contract, but when factoring in the premium from the sale, the blue line shows that you'll only have to deposit 95% of the potential loss for an ATM put.
https://imgur.com/PANO8BF.png
​
Cash Requirements for Selling Naked Call Options:
Call options work a bit differently in that there is no max potential loss. The loss could be infinite in theory. Therefore, the amount you have to deposit can exceed over 100% of the (strike price * 100)
​

Ticker	ATM Margin %
AAL	107.67
AAPL	35.59
AMC	208.45
AMZN	35.74
BABA	35.58
C	36.37
CAT	35.66
COIN	204.88
CRM	31.9
CVS	35.16
DKNG	62.25
GME	199.25
HD	35.72
INTC	34.62
JNJ	35.68
JPM	35.82
KO	35.82
MCD	35.53
META	35.06
MS	36.06
MSFT	36.09
NIO	63.83
NKE	35.55
NVDA	35.5
PFE	35.73
QQQ	21
SPX	15.59
SPY	20.56
TGT	36.18
TSLA	36.21
V	35.62
WMT	36.18
XOM	36.01

We can take a look at COIN again and see the amount is much higher than 100%. It costs double the amount of cash to sell a call on COIN ATM than a put, which destroys the profitability of a call in this scenerio.
https://imgur.com/Sla8HRL.png
Compared to the non-volatile tickers like SPY, which has an almost equal cost for an ATM call or put. You can see the calls for SPY below.
https://i.imgur.com/FRPCgkp.png

I just got in one of the 2023 E400 smart watches.
I am blown away by how well it works.
It does heart rate, blood pressure,body temp, sleep ,ECG,and glucose level.
time is synced to cell phone, no setting required.
Uses H Band app to link & display data back to phone.
Only drawback is data displayed is metric. Celsius vs ferinhight.
and glucose in MMOL/l instead of regular sugar numbers.
(online conversion charts are available.)
Does do on the spot glucose readings with out breaking skin.
Logs most readings every 30 min.
It is NOT a lab instrument. But does faithfully present trends.
​
​
​
.

So I was/am looking for a twitter and reddit alternative as twitter is.. well... yeah and reddit just getting worse in general as well. I stumbled upon Mastodon and sounds very cool! I'm still a bit confused and I've watched a few videos and read some posts/articles but I feel like this isn't getting through my head.
​
What is the actual point of a server? like.. am I posting IN the server that I select? is it like a forum? Every "server" has it's own rules, I feel like one would have to be very careful about posting things that could violate server rules if you're in multiple servers with different rulesets how do you know whats appropriate all the time? I saw a flow chart that explained how the multiple "timelines" that you can view in mastodon but it feels overly complicated. For example, I followed arstechnica as I want tech news in my feed, but they don't have a server listed after their name, what's up with that? Do I NEED a server? To find people or topics to follow I just went to the search function and searched people and hashtags to find accounts to add to my main page feed but don't understand WHY servers are a thing it feels like a classification/organization option that doesn't need to exist? Is there another way to explain this to me or am I completely missing something? Please help thanks!
​
​
EDIT:Ok, follow up question.
example: I follow a political account that talks about democracy and such. If I reblog a political post but I'm "on a server" that doesn't allow political posts do I get in trouble? Do I need to change my server every time I post something to make sure it's in line with the topics? I guess I don't understand where "toots" ARE. Are they posts to the server? Are they to my profile? Should I just make my own server so I can post whatever I want regardless of topic?
I understand that servers are kind of like communities (but are actually being hosted by an individual/group?) where they have a topic or a theme but I don't get where the communities "end". So in Reddit's case I came to /Mastodon and I posted this topic. You would only see this post if either you follow me and look at my posts, come to Mastodon, OR if it got super popular for whatever reason and shows up on all. If I posted an article to this subreddit not related to the topic (mastodon) then the moderators would rightfully remove the post as it's not on topic. Also all subreddits are on reddit (obviously) and reddit could shut down the community, how is this resolved on mastodon? Can anyone just create their own server so they can make their own rules? If so why doesn't everyone just do that? Again, I don't understand the POINT of servers, why would you make one? It's all decentralized so whats the point of making a "centralized" group (a "server" that has a theme/topic if it's limiting the post types?) I guess if you only want to use mastodon for a specific thing, like posting pictures of dogs and you only want to go there and see pictures of dogs that is an easy goal, but what about the people who want to have a multitude of topics? Do you just need to make sure you join a server that allows that or make your own server so you are in control of your content? (I think I'm starting to understand, but feel like everything I've read/watched has glosses over the "server" aspect as everything just says "just join whatever you want to get started" but doesn't explain the WHY of it all, the decentralization aspect).
Second EDIT: Ok this post can possibly be removed, reading documentation from mastodon made everything click in my head. It’s just so different than anything before that it was hard for me to understand.

Lululemon (LULU) is scheduled to report its fiscal first-quarter results today. I expect LULU stock to likely go up due to revenues and earnings beating market expectations. Retail stocks have continued to come under pressure as economic headwinds coupled with inflation have intensified. Despite the current macro headwinds, Lululemon has been able to churn out robust quarterly earnings reports in FY 2022. Management now expects net revenue to be in the range of $9.30 billion to $9.41 billion, representing growth of approximately 15% y-o-y in FY 2023. The previous year saw $8.11 billion.
Analysts expect earnings of $1.96 per share compared to earnings of $1.48 per share from the same quarter last year. In terms of sales, they anticipate an increase of 19.24% over the prior-year period, coming to $1.92 billion. For the fiscal year, analysts expect a profit per share of $11.60, compared to $10.07 in the same period last year.
As you guys may already know, the company specializes in yoga products for Becky and workout gear, competing against industry heavyweights Nike and Adidas. The retail landscape looks more challenging for the remainder of the year. Barclays noted in a May 2 research note that "consumers across all income brackets are pulling back" on discretionary products as inflation takes a chunk out of their wallets.
Meanwhile, analysts (that means you, right?) have been closely watching inventory levels as companies try to offload stockpiles of excess merchandise. Storage costs for those mountains of goods, and the promotions and discounts often needed to move them quickly, tend to weigh on profits.
One of the top retail sectors early in the year, footwear and apparel retailers, has started to show signs of weakness. Rival Nike (NKE) was downgraded to sell last week based on a challenging outlook for its U.S. business and "choppy" recovery in China. Elsewhere, Foot Locker (FL) received a downgrade and price target cut from Citi based on price-sensitive consumers and an "unhealthy" U.S. athletic market.
However, some consumers plan on restocking their fitness gear with summer around the corner. Roughly 35% of consumers plan to splurge on apparel and 19% expect to spend big on fitness products this year, according to a monthly McKinsey survey in May. That's up from April's results of 33% of consumers planning to splurge on apparel and 15% on fitness products, respectively.
Despite the choppy U.S. market, LULU stock received price target upgrades in late April as analysts are still positive on the company's overseas outlook. TD Cowen raised its price target on LULU stock to 525 from 500 on April 27 and maintained an outperform rating on the shares. The firm noted it expects direct-to-consumers and e-commerce growing to 43% of sales and current trends "suggest a bullish read for the international mix shift."
That followed a Bank of America (BAC) price target upgrade on April 20, which lifted BofA's forecast to 450 from 410 but still chose to maintaine a buy rating on LULU stock. Lululemon continues balancing its historically grassroots-focused marketing program with "several more meaningful campaigns," the firm wrote. Bank of America noted Lululemon's "unique" membership program is gaining traction. And growth in China will be a key near- and long-term driver.
On April 18, media reports emerged Lululemon is looking to sell the at-home fitness business. Bloomberg News reported Lululemon was working with an advisor to solicit interest in the business. CNBC later reported Hydrow, a private startup that makes in-home rowing machines, has interest in a deal with Lululemon.
Lululemon previously announced at the end of March it was "evolving" its at-home fitness business strategy with plans to focus on digital app-based services. In its fourth-quarter earnings, Lululemon disclosed a $443 million impairment charge related to Studio Mirror, the company's streaming workout service.
Lululemon averaged 28.8% earnings growth over the past four quarters while revenue averaged 29.8% quarterly gains last year. The yoga company found its center and beat Wall Street earnings estimates the past two years.
As mentioned earlier, analysts expect Lululemon adjusted earnings to bolt 32.4% to $1.96 per share while sales sprint 19.3% to $1.924 billion.
FactSet forecasts same-store sales to rise 15.4%, slowing from the 28% growth last year and 27% growth in the fourth quarter, respectively.
In terms of TA, LULU stock formed a handle for a cup-with-handle base after breaking out on April 17. Shares fell roughly 9% from the buy point and are nearing the maximum 12% handle decline for the pattern. Lululemon stock tumbled 13% from its 386.80 buy point for its previous cup base on the weekly MarketSmith chart following its May 5 breakout. The move triggered the 7%-8% sell rule. LULU stock is hovering above its 200-day moving average but trading well below its 50-day line. Shares retreated the past week after slipping below the 10-day moving average on May 19.
For earnings tho, my research has provided me with a mix of bearish and bullish news. Just for fun I want to inverse my gut instinct that initially says "buy calls." So I'm gonna grab puts just to see. That being said, it's up to you guys to read this and come to your own conclusions. IV is very high so it's better to go for a spread, regardless of what you choose. The average move with earnings has been about 10% so we might see a big move tonight. Grab your popcorn!

I'm reaching out to Everyone with an Idea of Changing the World.
I know my Mission in Life, and I know the Work it entails. If someone tries tackling this Idea..... Even Better!
I would Humbly Help in providing a clearer picture of My Vision, To someone who I choose is 1000% Committed and wholeheartedly wants to Help Change the World.
I have so MANY more ideas as well.
Even writing this Post is Cheating Life's work. But...
The Sooner this idea gets out to the World, The Higher the probability of my idea being Funded / Created / and Hopefully integrated into Ones Daily Life. The Urge to get this Idea Out is Driving me.
You will be The Bridge of the Glitch in the Matrix. The Gratitude app I have Envisioned is Comical, Simple, and will make Billions.
PITCH
I Have the Idea that will Link the Past to the Present. I will Create the FREE Mobile phone app that will enable people to acquire "The Laws of Attraction", "The Secret", Enlightenment, or be Born Again.
The Universe Gave me Tools to Collapse Space and Time. The Bridge between Mind and Matter is a click away. The Mind, subconscious Mind, and Energy are the Driving factors of this app I will be Creating.
I'm New to this Frequency and could possibly write a book on this app. The Universe allowed me to download this information and I'm Humbly grateful to Give this to the World.
I come from a Hall of Fame Polynesian Athletic Family. I'm the Black Sheep. I recently started coding, and will turn my Vision into Reality regardless.
The Main app gives Awareness of a individuals Emotions, whether Positive or Negative thoughts w/ a click of a Button.
It will Chart a individuals Positive and Negative thoughts in Real-time in: mili seconds, seconds, minutes, hours to 24hr, weeks, months, years.. etc.
It will be Aligned with their Energy, and be able to Precisely calculate How many Positive and Negative thoughts, an individual chooses to Have within a Minute, an hour, days, weeks.
It will give a Blueprint Chart in Real-time of an individuals Mind, subconscious Mind, and Energy.
With a Chart of Your personal Beliefs, and Your Belief of Change for Wholeheartedly Goodness... if The goal is to Change for the Good. This app will Mentally, Physically, and Spiritually Satisfy your Soul.
We will be Able to Flip any Negative thoughts based off Mind, subconscious Mind, and Energy based off an individuals Chart... AND Based off the Willingness to Change.
This app Will Be The Answer to Addiction, Depression, Anxiety, Stress, Jealousy, Greed, Envy, Diseases.. and So Much More.
We'll also have a FREE Real-time Weight loss program. FREE Real-time diet program. FREE fitness program. FREE mental Health program. ALL in One app.
We'll Be Giving a Chart in Real-time of Your:
[ ] Choices of Positive & Negative Thoughts.
[ ] Energy Output / Input (metabolism rate / food intake)
[ ] Sleep Energy
[ ] Diet Plan (calculated with AI, based on macronutrients of specific individuals Height, weight, and Age. to precise timing of water, of food, and of exercise.)
[ ] Meditation Time
[ ] Overall Video Game Point System, that accounts ALL Energy Points.
*If Gratitude app is Synced to Main app:
[ ] Added Gratitude Points to Overall Game Point System.

• Possible additions

[ ] Custom made Watch tailored for Both Apps. $10 - $29⁹⁵
*For Those Not interested in The Laws of Attraction.... it will be a FREE (Mental Health app / Gratitude app / Fitness App / Diet App ALL in One.)
The First app I will create will Cost a fee. It will be a Daily simple app of Gratitude. It can also be synced into the Main app, if chosen too.
CATCH
The Goal in Life is to Live in the Now. Live in the Moment. Be 100% Aware and Conscious of ALL Thoughts Positive and Negative.
Main Goal is to Flip ALL Negative Energy thoughts to Positive. Clicking the Reset button in Your Soul to Positive. Developing untapped Gifts inside of Yourself. Creating Oneness in the Universe. Hopefully inturn, Creating an Ocean of Like-Minded individuals with Positive untapped potential.
This app Will Be My legacy to the World. This app will be on Earth, until Earth is No more. It will be Made with Love and Gratitude. Thank You for Your Time and Energy Reading this Far.
With this statement, 99+% of Healing money received will be used as Healing money to help 8 billion people across the World Change Frequencies. I will Open up Free Autistic Daycare centers across the Country and Hopefully World.
Blessed Day 🙏
Twitter @Consistent143

Fun Fact To Cover Spoilers: The first Final Fantasy was released in December of 1987 and has since had 15 main game instalments (though there has been many more side games released). There has also been various adaptations across various pieces of media such as mangas, animes, and films.
CW: Gambling
Mood Warning: Positive Ending
This is a repost, it was posted on here more than a year ago by u/asakurosol . OOP's account is now deleted.
This was originally posted in FFBraveExvius so it was written with the expectation that everyone would understand certain terms. Here is a brief explanation!
Whale- Someone who spends a lot of money on mobile games
BanneEvent-Where, for a limited time, you can get special characters by using the in game currency (In this case "Lapis") to pull for the character (like a slot machine).
-
Whale of a Tale (December 13th, 2017)
Caution - Wall of text incoming.....don't say I didn't warn you....
I started playing FFBE shortly after launch in July of 2016. It was a fresh take on an old classic, my favorite series of all time, Final Fantasy. When I was 11, in 1988, living in New Jersey, I went to the Nintendo CES in New York City. Nintendo had demo booths for all the upcoming games, and the original Final Fantasy was one of them. It was the coolest game I had ever seen. I got it when it was released and it remained my favorite series of games for years. FFII and FFIII on SNES, I bought a Playstation so I could get FFVII, I got a PS3, but all I wanted to play was FFXII (I personally like Vaan).
Along came married life, kids, jobs, responsibilities, and I could no longer spend time on a console. I didn't have time to sit and play and grid out levels and complete the extra quests like defecting Ruby Weapon. Then FFBE was released. A short format game that I could play for 5 or 10 minutes and put it away. It didn't require a console or a TV, just a few minutes to play a couple of dungeon runs or a quick exploration, then I could put it away for later. It was perfect.
Expedition into the Abyss. The first banner I spent money on. I had been playing the game for 6 weeks or so and I had not found the FFBreveExvius subreddit or the Exvius Wiki, I went into the exploration blind and got wiped out. I leveled my team, I maxed my stats and I just could not win. I got to Ansel finally and beat him, but I was so low on energy. I used lapis refills just to limp past him. Then I got to the exit with the 3 bosses that kicked my but with their 10,000V attack. I was frustrated beyond belief, I had spent all my resources to pass this exploration, and I couldn't leave it like this. I broke my F2P resolve and put down $20. That should be enough to get me out of this dungeon and replace some of the lapis I sepnt so I could at least do the dailies again. I was adamant that I would not spend again.
The first Mog King event I recall was Festival of the Autum Moon, baking Mog Cakes. I spent hours, day after day, grinding the Coast for recipe ingredients. I kept my 2 ovens going, then I increased my capacity to 4 and I stayed true to my resolve, I did not spend any more money. I made it through, I got the Stellar Shield, I got the Lunar Pestle and the Rabbit's Foot. I acomplished my goals without macros, without more resources. My family though kept asking me, what am I tapping on my phone all the time? Why am I always looking at my screen?
I put the phone away and tried to limit myself, only a little while in the morning before I got everyone up for school, I would play for a little while at lunchtime when I wasn't around anyone. I would play on the toilet since I had nothing better to do while I poop. I would play after putting the kids to sleep. I was not taking anything from anyone. I was just playing a game.
I made it to November. The Crystal Tower. The release of Luneth and Refia. The best DPS and the best Healer available at the time. I had saved my lapis, I could do a 10+1 pull, I had maybe 20 or so tickets saved. I used all my resources and was trolled by a rainbow Edge. I was enraged, insenced, insistent that I get Luneth. I put in my card number into my digital wallet and upped myself $99 of Lapis. Then I pulled and pulled and pulled, and I got nothing. So I put in another $99 and pulled and pulled and I got Luneth! I could advance and defeat all new content and share the best DPS possible to all my friends.
It was only $200. I can spare that. I haven't bought a video game in 6 years. I deserve it, I earned it.
I didn't pull for the Brave Frontier cross over event. I saved my resources. I was depressed by all the Elza's I saw my friends sharing, but I was not lucky enough to pull her. I conceded that it was ok, and I could get her again in the future. I still beat the Trial of the Creator and got Maxwell. I had to work hard, but I got the Power of Creation TMR. That made my Luneth a king again.
Then came the Big Bridge. Gilgamesh. The BEST TMR you could get. I still have a 10+1 pull left after my Luneth. I had saved the tickets from the Mog King. I pulled for Greg and failed again. It was only $200 to get Luneth. How bad would that be for the best accessory in the game? I can make my Chizuru or my Cecil so strong. I put in my money again, $99....no Greg, $99....no Greg, $99....no Greg.... I took a break for a little bit. My family had plans for the day. I was angry now. How could I have spent $300 and not gotten what I wanted. When nobody was looking, around everyone, I did it again. $99....no Greg, $99...no Greg, $99...no Greg, $99.....
Finally. I had Gilgamesh. I had maxed out all of my unit inventory. I had to spend time to fuse units, I got my first Excalibur that day as well as some other great TMRs. But I finally had the Genji Golve and I could now make Chizuru strong enough to share with others. She could DPS at 350 attack and more! I could beat all the content with ease using her and Luneth. Yeah, I spent $700, but I would stop now. I had enough. I didn't want to be caught spending money I shouldn't on a video game. It was enough.
Lightning strikes, and I didn't spend anything. I was in control. I didn't need anything new. I was still in the game and doing great. So many events passed and I was still killing everything in sight with my team. I cleared all of the events and new story content. It was fun, I was not an addict, I spent time with my family, I didn't take their time away. I was on top.
Noctis, Prince of all Trades came along. I got greedy. I pulled again...another $300. I got off easy there. I was again in the lead. I was on top. I had the best attacker, best support, best all around at everything. I didn't need anything else.
The Mana Mystery Event came. I was excited! Randi, the Secret of Mana! The Secret of Mana was, hands down, one of the best games to ever come out for the SNES. Open world, exciting characters, fantastic story and fighting. The Nostalgia was incredible for this event. I had to have Randy. I had paid down most of the bill from getting Gilgamesh. I could afford it to have a piece of my childhood back, no matter what the cost. It cost me about $400. I was back to square 1 with paying my bill back. I had spent nearly $1700 on this game now, I couldn't spend any more. It was getting out of control. I unlinked the credit card and got back to my senses. I could keep playing my game. I put my maxed out Randi as my friend unit. I was determined to get the most out of him, no matter what. It was my hard earned money, I should not spend it frivilously.
I made it almost 4 months.
It was my birthday. The Brave Frontier banner was back. The Scyth weilding Queen Elza was back. It was my birthday and I wanted Elza. This was the first double 5* banner I ever tried to pull on. This was the first banner I pulled on after the guaranteed 5* base for Rainbows was announced. It was my birthday and I had to have Elza. I have to get what I want on my birthday. I charged $1500 that day to get her.
I was sick of my actions. I de-linked my card again. I now had a balance of nearly $4000, including other non FFBE related purchases. I had to find a way to stop. I transferred the balance to a new, zero interest card. My family was going on vacation and I needed to be clear to help with expenses. I had some cash saved, I was paying down my debt slowly, I had a plan, I was still in control.
While on vacation, the Veritas Banner was announced. The most anticipated unit since Orlandeau. I had an Orlandeau from tickets, it would be awesome to get a chaining partner for Orlandeau. Veritas of the Dark is the coolest, with the black armor, Dark Damage heals him, and Dark Retribution attack. Something in me snapped, and I was back to I had to have him. It was another double Rainbow banner, maybe I would be lucky this time.
$1000, no Veritas of the Dark. I had 4 Veritas of the Flame. I was angry. How could I have spent so much and not gotten the unit I wanted! Why would Final Fantasy, Gumi, Square Enix, not give it to me? How could I spend so much and not get what I want! Another $1000. I got 2 more Veritas of the Flame, another Orlandeau, a second Freviya, Olive, Emperor, but no Dark Veritas! How! Why! Now I am stubborn. I am not putting this much money out there to not get what I want. $99...no Dark Veritas, $99...no Dark Veritas, $99...a second Emperor, I almost threw my phone against the wall. $99....Finally, Veritas of the Dark. $2500, 9 Veritas of the Flame, half a dozen other 5* base, and I finally got the Veritas of the Dark.
Wait....WTF did I just do?!?!
Did I just really spend $2500 to get a little animated piece of code? What is my wife going to think? What will my kids say? I tell them I don't have much money to spare, I dutifully split my paycheck 3 ways, household expenses, savings and my spending money. I can do what I want with my spending money. I just won't get anything for myself for a year or so, pay this back to my card a couple hundred at a time.
Fuck it. I have what I want. I put in another $1000 just to keep me going with energy refils and I can play whenever and however I want.
Neir came, I pulled with the lapis I had left and got A2 and 2B. Luck is on my side now. Onion Knight, I got on 3 10+1 pulls. I am on top of the world. Gumi must have had some mercy on my account. I have all the units I need, sure there are some I want, but I can get by without Rem and Wilhelm. But who is this awesome new healer! Ayaka, dual white magic, reraise, the things I was missing for Agaion, the Robot Trial! With her, I could be at the top again. I could beat all the trials, all the new story content. It would all be a breeze. I had to get her. I moved all my debt to the balance transfer card. I have a clear card to work with. I can get it and make it go away and I can continue on as normal, just pay down the card and not spend on myself.
Next came Nyx. The Hero of Kingsgalive. I know most people thought it was aweful, but I even like Spirits Within, so hate all you want...I wanted to have Nyx. Another $400. I skipped halloween, but decided I had to have Loren for her TMR. It was a good as the Genji Golve, even better. It would make my team unstoppable for the 10 man trials. Another $500. Honestly I don't know what I spent here, I lost count.
The Tower of Zot! We can have Rubicant! Barbariccia would be cool, but Rubicant is one of my favorite enimies of all time. $99...no Rubicant, $99...no Rubicant. WTF!?! This is a 4* base! What is happening!? F&k it, AGAIN. $500, just to be sure. Get Rubicant, keep pulling for Barbariccia, don't need her, I already have 2 Trance Terra's, but why the F*%k not. Its good for the Raid Bonus.
All right! Rainbow Rate is up! EX rewards are 1.5X! Cloud is coming in December! This is the best time to put some $$ in so I am guananteed to get Cloud. Cloud is Awesome! Cloud is iconic! Cloud is the heart of Final Fantasy! I have my zero interest card at $11K, but I am paying it. I have a way of making it look like I am paying off an old debt to cover if my wife asks where the money went. I went all in. $3000 in lapis. That will last me a good long time, then I can pay off my debt and play and just let it all go away.
On December 7th, 2017, my wife asked if she could use my credit card to buy food and send it to a family member celebrating a huge accomplishment. Offhand, she asked if she could see the balance. She saw something in my response trying to dismiss it and wouldn't let it go. I asked her to go upstairs so we could talk in private. I confessed to having a balance of $5600 on my card due to Final Fantasy. A couple days later, I told her the rest of the story.
I am currently $15,800 in debt. My wife no longer trusts me. My kids, who ask me why I am playing Final Fantasy all the time, will never understand how I selfishly spent money I should have been using for their activities. Their birthdays, their festivals, their clothes, their school events, their weekends, their movies.
I have never spent more than $1000 on my wife at one time. I spent $16,000 on digital garbage in about a year. If she decides that she will not divorce me, I owe her more that I could ever repay. I am not playing anymore. I will not get Cloud. I will leave 500K lapis in an account that will stay idle. The "friends" I have will drop me as my days since last played increases. I will not get to beat Marlboro. I will not see how Chapter 2 plays out. I will not have any 7* units. FFBE is over.
I became a gambling addict over a game where there is no return, no reward, for spending my money.
I Flushed $16,000 down the toilet over a game.
TL;DR - Don't whale irresponsibly, the consequences WILL outweigh the investment.
TL;DR #2 - Some people are on this planet to be an example to others, don't be that Guy.
Edit -
Thank you all for your support and ideas. I have a lot of feedback on how I can improve the situation, I will update in some time after getting a few actions completed first.
I really appreciate each and every comment, I have read them all, and I plan to continue to read them to reinforce my resolve to keep my promise to my wife and to my family to remain open and honest.
Please be patient and OP will update.
Whale of a Tale-1 year later (December 7th, 2018)
Well....Its been a year. A year of repentance, a year of ups and downs and everything in between.
One year today marks the day my wife uncovered my FFBE gambling habit. If anyone is unfamiliar with the story, sort by Top (all time).
In the past year I have made a lot of progress. I have substantially paid down my debts, made amends with my family and worked hard to move forward. I cannot say I have been a perfect husband or father, but I would like to think I have improved in many areas. My life is changed beyond measure because of my inability to control myself playing this game.
The biggest blessing I have in my life is my wife. She looks out for me, for our family, and everyone she knows so that people are happy, do not go overboard and keep on a right path.
"Too much of anything is never a good thing" she tells me often. It can apply to food, exercise, work and gaming. I have changed my habits and work hard to include her and my children in everything, instead of trying to escape from them.
To people who wondered, I am 41, a hardware development engineer building servers and father of 3. I help get kids up and ready for school, help them with their homework and make sure bedtime and brushing teeth are enforced.
At my worst, I was pulling for Veritas of the Dark on a trip to the Aquarium with the kids and cousins, spending ~$2500 that day and ignoring my family as they joyfully wandered around looking at fish, octopus and seals. Playing raids on nature hikes with the Cub Scouts.
Now, I would like to believe I am more attentive, more present, in their lives and their mother's life.
My worst guilt is that I still want to play a game that nearly ruined my life.
I just wanted to say to everyone, thank you for your support. Thank you for your kind words, and even many of you who said outright how stupid I was. Thank you for the chance to be a part of Final Fantasy. May all your summons break into Rainbows.
Whale of a Tale - Epilogue (December 7th, 2020)
3 years ago, I posted a story of how I fell. I fell in the eyes of my family, the ones I swore to protect, opening them up to a mountain of risk and debt. Today, I have paid off my debt fully and I hope that I can leave this chapter of my life, my lies, my hidden obsession, my half truths, fully in the past.
Over the past 3 years I have seen a lot of changes. Since the pandemic began, it has been hard to watch as my children spend more and more time playing Roblox and less time playing outdoors, less time studying, physically active and spending time as a family. I realized that I set the precedent of this behavior. I do try to be a more engaged father and husband, it is a daily challenge to keep everyone happy, healthy and well fed.
As to the state of the game, I have followed what is going on at a distance. When I stopped playing, at the release of OG Cloud, a top tier DD was in the 1500 ATK range. When I started, Chizuru was a beast with a 300 ATK. Now, I see NV Remake Cloud at 5000+ ATK. Power creep is real and basically every dollar that I spent ($16000 and then some) has little to no value at this point in the META.
It has been a long period of reflection. There have been fights where all I can do is hang my head in shame as I accept the guilt of spending selfishly on a game when I could have redone the floors in my home and replaced the kitchen counters, the two of these desires of my wife have been postponed due to my lack of self control. These are my priorities now, doing things for my home, saving for my children's future, and I hope doing more to show my wife that she is the most important connection in my life. She forgave me, she supported my recovery and she kept me on the right path. She deserves all the credit for keeping our family together.
Do I miss playing? I do. I said it in the 1 year update and I will say it again. I hate that I still have a desire to play a game that nearly ruined my life. Do I regret my decision? I regret hiding what I was doing from my family and I strive to be more open and honest about what I want and what I am doing.
I don't want to ramble, so I will end here. I did it. I paid my debts. I hope that no one else falls into the same trap and spends beyond their means, or hides what they are doing from their loved ones. Good luck everyone!
-nothing
Reminder that I am not the OOP. Also brigading is not allowed on this sub.

When I was twelve I got knocked off my bike by a drunk driver. I split my head right open and broke nearly every bone in my body. For four days I hovered between life and death. My parents said goodbye and even picked my funeral song. They held my hand and told me they were sorry for every silly argument, but I wasn’t there anymore, I was somewhere else.
I was in the in-between. I was connected to the hospital room by only a small frayed thread that with every passing minute threatened to snap. I could hear they’re voices but only faintly, not that they were a comfort anyway, there was no such thing as comfort where I was. It was impossibly dark in that in-between, and so cold you could feel the chill in the marrow of your bones. I can’t remember what it looks like exactly, that oddly empty place.
From my waning memory, I recall it as a formless mass of, wet, dripping, nothing; there was no left or right, no up or down. You’d float around like a kite in the wind with only that little string holding you down. It felt like I was there for years. Time just seemed to elongate there. Eventually my family’s voices faded into nothing and all I could hear was the loud deafening thud of silence. It was then I heard him."
“Hulqu-ša māru.” He said, over and over. His voice was soothingly consistent. I transcribe the phrase to you now accurately, though to my young, uneducated ears it sounded like a jumble of mismatched vowels. It was only in my adulthood that I found out that the voice he spoke to me in was Old Akkadian. Translated it meant; my child is lost.
Then I woke up. My eyes squinted from the bright hospital lights and my mother’s tears formed a puddle on my face. I can’t remember much following that, but my mum says that I kept saying “he’s real” over and over.
That’s why I know there is a god. He spoke to me, I walked in his kingdom and then I came back. Nearly eight-years later when I took my seat for the first day of my Religious Studies degree, I was perhaps the only one in that lecture theatre that knew with absolute certainty that there was a god. Was it the Christian God? The Islamic? Maybe no one has it right, but he existed. He was real. I knew that. I spent four years studying religion, and learnt nothing more important than what I found out when I was twelve.
“I have some concerns regarding your dissertation title Jeremy, Proving that God is Real, it’s… well it’s impossible to prove. We wouldn’t require faith if there was a burden of proof.” Professor Alcott said to me as he shifted through my research. “Personal anecdotes are also not sufficient subject to base an entire dissertation upon.”
“I’m committed to this research paper professor, I know with certainty that there is a god and I would like an opportunity to make this clear to everyone.” I said. “By next week sir, I will have more than anecdotes. Give me a chance.”
“I’m not one to quash academic innovation, if you would like to give this topic a bash, then I will not stand in your way. You are such a promising student Jeremy, I just don’t want you to waste your talent.” He said, looking dissatisfied.I left Alcott’s office with a seemingly impossible task. For centuries people have been looking for scientific proof in a higher power and all so far have failed. All I had was my own experience, I needed more. I scribbled down in my notebook the two most pressing features of a god with a puzzle knitting my brow together.
He’s everywhere.
He can’t be seen.
I was lying in my bed, in my dingy little student rent when I had my epiphany. Mould. It had followed me my entire life. Every room I slept in, it would curl up in the corner, an ugly black mass of reaching tendrils. It was watching me, haunting me. He was in the very air I breathed. I’m real, he was saying over and over, I’m right here. I’d been bleaching him away all of these years, drowning him in chemicals.
Mould, like mushrooms and other fungus, travels in spores, invisible to the human eye. It is said that there are fungal spores in every gulp of air we take. They grow only in conditions where they thrive, in the damp of a rundown house or in the soil at the foot of a withered tree. It made too much sense, how else could he be everywhere all at once? And with that I had a new dissertation title. Proving God is Real: The Mycological Evidence. Alcott was bemused but satisfied at least that he was in for an interesting read.
I wasn’t a mycologist when I began my dissertation, but I was by the end of my study. Fungus don’t need light to grow, in-fact there are some sources that suggest they thrive in the dark. All they really need is moisture. The in-between I’d hovered in as a child had been so damp and wet. With every new nugget of mycological trivia, the dot to dot I’d been solving my entire life was becoming clearer and clearer.
It all made so much sense. There are some suggestions from credible scientists that the consumption of psilocybin mushrooms had aided the evolution from home erectus to homo sapiens. He had nudged us, even then. Not to mention the countless ancient civilisations that had claimed to commune with gods through the burning and consumption of teas made from various fungus.I needed more, coincidences and anecdotes are so easily solved.
Armed with a little scalpel and a mason jar I scraped some of the mould off my wall. I added some water and sealed it. Growing mushrooms is exceedingly simple, as all budding recreational drug users and mycologists know.. “Give me a sign.” I said to it. “Please.”
I left it on my desk and let it fester, and it did. It grew and grew until nearly the entire jar was black. I don’t really know what my plan was for my little mason-jar experiment, I certainly didn’t expect what happened.
“Dude, that shit is rank. Stick in the bin.” My roommate pointed to my desk one day as he popped his head into my room. I had almost forgotten about it. I glanced at what he was looking at and felt my heart stop.The mason jar was smashed.
Sharp little pieces of glass were inter-mingled with thick moss-like mould that was now spreading all across my desk. It hadn’t been like that in the morning, it had to have happened recently, maybe even in the past few hours that I’d been napping. I briefly considered wiping it up with a cloth, but I couldn’t - it was god - I couldn’t clean up god.
So I left it there and charted it’s growth casually in my notebook. Until one day I returned from my morning lectures and saw something… disturbing. It had grown out from the table; it’s awful tendrils reaching out towards the empty air. If you squinted it sort of looked like a hand, oddly malformed and misshapen though it was. I started to spend my nights in the library as I was so unnerved by it.Then one morning, It was gone. The mould, it was gone, like it had never even been there before.
There's an animalistic side to all of us, one we don't realise we have until it's triggered. I felt it then, an overwhelming feeling of dread that built up to a crescendo where the very utterance of silence rang in my ears like alarm bells. I ought to have listened to it. But it was god, and god had a plan.
I went to bed that night with that feeling still tugging at me. Sleep did not come easy, in fact it did not come at all. My eyes narrowed from exhaustion, my room almost pitch black save for the small amount of light from my phone screen. I thought it was the silhouette of a jacket at first.
I stared hard at it, trying to discern any familiarity in it's shape.
I stared for what felt like hours. I felt as though I was being watched, like I wasn't alone. Then it came. Just the smallest of twitches. My finger danced over the torch button on my phone, but there was a comfort in not seeing, in the dark haze there was still a chance that it was my jacket or an odd shadow.
“Si unus extisat, sic facit alterum.” The shape said an inhuman voice that filled me with an overwhelming amount of dread. This wasn’t what I had felt when I was child, the voice of god was soothing not… wrong.
I turned the light on. All the horror films I’d watched told me that when you put the light on the awful things just… go away.
It’s a lie, a tired old trope.
Illuminated in the torchlight, It stood on hind legs, this black mass of awful clinging mould, and it looked at me, even though it did not have eyes, just empty holes. It tilted it’s head, like a dog trying to comprehend that the bag of treats had an end. It took a few steps towards me, like it had only just learned to walk, and it said it again, this time directed at my soul.
“Si unus extisat, sic facit alterum.” It said again and then, with odd movements, it slipped out my door. I heard the thud of it heading down my staircase and with every awful hoof on my steps, I felt as though I was being shot.
I knew the words this time, while the akkadian god had spoken to me in my youth had eluded me, this had not. My grammar school had a rather impressive latin department and I was close to fluent.If one exists, then so does the other.
That’s what it had said. It’s a simple turn of phrase that haunts me to this day. I wrote it all down. I turned in my dissertation with a heavy weight on my shoulders. Alcott offered me a place on his PHD programme, but I declined and he said farewell to me with an odd look glinting in his eye. He didn’t believe me, but he believed at least that I did. That’s faith for you.
He’s out there somewhere. The other.
By looking for god I had set him free and now he walks, on those unsteady legs. Maybe he’s that pile of oddly shaped clothes in the corner of your dark room, or the queer shadow that moves just slightly out of tune with your own, perhaps he’s all of these things and nothing. If one exists then so does the other. It is upon this uncertain balance that our world is built. I only wished I had met just the one.

Once again I made a video and uploaded it below to explain my problem and then added the code snippet in the end. Any help will be appreciated. If you guys need any more details. Do let me know.
This is the video explaining the problem. Please pause the video whenever needed to read the captions entirely.
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https://reddit.com/link/13xmtb3/video/5nu73f0t5g3b1/player
And this is the code behind I'm using:
Main Method:
First we get all the items required which is:

1. workbook from Workbook combo box
2. worksheet from worksheet combo box
3. columns from columns list box ( they are actually cells)
4. type of graph from graph combo box

Then with if statement we check if everything required has been selected.
Then I have the plotting graph logic.
In the end there is else statement which throws an error if everything required hasn't been selected.

private void GraphPlottingButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { // Get the selected workbook, worksheet, columns, and graph type string selectedWorkbook = WorkbookCB.SelectedItem as string; string selectedWorksheet = WorksheetCB.SelectedItem as string; string selectedGraph = GraphCB.SelectedItem as string; var selectedColumns = ColumnsListBox.SelectedItems.Cast().ToList(); // Check if all selections are made if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(selectedWorkbook) && !string.IsNullOrEmpty(selectedWorksheet) && !string.IsNullOrEmpty(selectedGraph) && selectedColumns.Count > 0) { // Create the file path of the selected workbook string filePath = Path.Combine(directoryPath, selectedWorkbook); // Load the selected workbook using (var excelPackage = new ExcelPackage(new FileInfo(filePath))) { // Get the selected worksheet var worksheet = excelPackage.Workbook.Worksheets[selectedWorksheet]; // Retrieve the data from the selected columns var columnData = new List>(); foreach (string columnName in selectedColumns) { int columnIndex = GetColumnIndexByColumnName(worksheet, columnName); if (columnIndex != -1) { var columnValues = GetColumnData(worksheet, columnIndex); columnData.Add(columnValues); } } // Create a chart object based on the selected graph type var chart = worksheet.Drawings.AddChart("Chart", eChartType.ColumnClustered); // Add series to the chart using the data from the selected columns for (int i = 0; i < columnData.Count; i++) { _ = chart.Series.Add(worksheet.Cells[2, i + 1, columnData[i].Count + 1, i + 1], worksheet.Cells[2, 1, columnData[i].Count + 1, 1]); } // Customize the chart properties if desired chart.SetPosition(0, 0, 3, 0); chart.SetSize(600, 400); chart.Title.Text = selectedGraph; chart.XAxis.Title.Text = "Categories"; chart.YAxis.Title.Text = "Values"; // Save the modified workbook excelPackage.Save(); // Open the saved file Process.Start(filePath); } } else { System.Windows.MessageBox.Show("Please select all required options.", "Error", MessageBoxButton.OK, MessageBoxImage.Error); } }