About Rock Bottom

by Julia Talbot
35 pages / 10400 words
ISBN: 978-1-60370-085-6, 1-60370-085-4
Available file types - html, lit, pdf, prc

Mitch figures he’s hit rock bottom. He’s lost his job, his boyfriend Gus, and very nearly his life hiking in the canyons of eastern Utah. Between floods, fights, and collapsing tourists, Mitch decides that he can’t get much lower.

Knowing he’s brought most of his trouble on himself, Mitch sets out to clean up his life. He finds a new job, saves his butt from Mother Nature, and tries to get Gus to take him back. Can Mitch climb his way  out of the hole he’s dug for himself and repair what may be damaged beyond help?

Sample

Arches National Park was a sucktastic place to get lost.

Well, not lost, really. Mitch knew exactly where he was. He was just north of Broken Arch, in Clover Canyon. Now, that? Was just off the map enough to get away from the tourists, and he’d climbed just enough rock to get away from the canyon floor, and now he was stuck.

The irony of it all was that, for once, it wasn’t his fault. That older lady passing out from dehydration on his last hike? His fault. Gus kicking him out when he lost yet another job? His fault.

Torrential downpours and a flash flood that left him scrambling up a scree of sandstone to stay alive? So not his fault. He’d checked the weather, the Doppler, and the wind before he’d started out.

Sighing, Mitch curled up in his slicker, watching the water rise from the notch of rock he’d squeezed into, and patted his pockets, hoping for that granola bar. He could eat half of it while he thought about how he’d managed to hit rock bottom so damned fast.