I am writing while parked and sitting behind the wheel.

Breathing now requires attention. It must be done deliberately. The truth can exist here and will answer for an explanation of my non-compliance.

I’ll explain while I can and speak plainly. The barometer reads 30.2

I grew up at the edge of an empire where all seek expansion, however the land is settled and wealth is only extracted. As a child my family moved hovels often, always in humiliation. As a man chose nature’s wild spaces.

Living truly free is austere and I prefer it, not in stooping to beg of people who threaten my tolerance. I chose my own durable company and live where my being isn’t to be measured.

Now I have captured my home in the woods. A place almost no one knew existed. In the attic was left a box of applications and essays. These documents have proven their value and establish useful precedent. It taught me what should be relevant to this process.

I am industrious and motivated when I start each day in the wildflower foxglove meadow. I check the trails for trespassers and poachers of plants and animals. There is my home to improve and a garden to tend. Here I act with planetary authority that need not be justified. Good stewardship should speak for itself.

For many seasons there has been a weather station trailer on the highest peak it could be placed. It was recently complemented with an adequate lightning rod erected by the local college. It is here I must spend most of my time.

I learned the workings of its equipment, and it became my hub and the land’s new administrative central location. While it should be impossible, one day a weathered posting was placed on its door. It explained a gathering far above the timberline whose attendants would prefer to be the only ones drawing the local lightning. I haven’t had enough time to address this concern.

The notice explained that my trifling equipment invites the weather and that removing it all would be in the interest of my own safety before the next storm of consequence.

It advised me to be ready to explain why I’m not in compliance to avoid an injunction to change my zoning to uninhabitable.

After that day I mostly slept in the weather station and watched the forecasts. Here I wrote my lists and plans and charted my progress. I drafted a thick report dense with sound reasoning that should prove my good standing. I took pride in my stewardship and in accomplishing every goal I have since attempted to communicate. I visited every inch of these hills and asserted my good standing. I slept under the lightning rod.

Then the report of an ice storm and thunder heads reached me. I marked its occasion and enjoyed a smoked Wild Turkey in the darkness. I gave the rod a talisman of my bolo tie and waited, my claim staked firmly.

It was then a flashlight approached in the darkness. It seemed strangely wielded as by a child. An unacknowledged assumption that I was dreaming or intoxicated kept me brave and I went to interrogate the little torch-bearing visitor.

A metallic tapping gave away the trespasser’s exact location and I addressed it. I asked why they are present here. A small old voice issued me an admonishment from the dark.

‘Can’t have ya inviting the lightning here, this is gotta come down. this ain’t the place for your nonsense.’

It has been a long time since someone has addressed me. This visitor reminded me of the millwrights I knew while scrapping freight cars for a living. I could see metal glinting moonlit, and in his body language, that he was a man digging in his belt for tools.

I moved to seize this little person, and a sound rang and expanded exponentially. The next awareness I had was the cessation of my own screaming while I held my head alone in the quiet. I felt it colder now and the winds gained as a storm made its arrival.

When it was clear of hail at dawn I checked for damage. I stayed outside to observe the behavior of the weather. It was unprecedented.

Sound was being lost in the fog, the atmosphere was braided like a batter whose oil would not mix. While walking I would be in striated pockets of stillness with no sounds while I watched a storm rage. Without warning I would enter the next truncation containing howling and wind strong enough to unsteady me. The fog gathered in low places densely like dry ice and I would not trust it after wildlife was seen avoiding its entry. I had to keep moving or risk drowning where my life could not be supported.

A never-ending droning was as pond ripples, breaking on me between alternating silences. Lights flickered and the fog obstructed the view while I slept a few hours. The barometer is 24.9 in.

The barometer would not hold; it’s dropping quickly now. The needle’s small, corrective movements are constant and warn me that my rights here no longer apply. I tapped the glass once and stopped myself from doing it again. I began to leave and reached the truck while the sound returned in full.

Beyond the windshield the fog gathered in sections that did not agree with one another. Between the trees, lights appeared and disappeared, small and deliberate, like flashlights handled by people who were acting with coordination. They gained in number and made progress in the demolition of the weather station.

The whistling resumed from several directions at once. It crowded my awareness and obscured reality. When I lowered the window to listen, the sound entered without bringing air. I raised it again.

I attempted to drive. The truck was halted when it came into contact with the dense fog. The headlights shortened ahead of me, ending cleanly, as if the space beyond them no longer accepted illumination. The small light bearers in the woods continued their work. The sound was everywhere and growing, never resolving into a single source.

I shut off the engine and will remain.

The documents of those who came before me were all stamped and their acceptance was duly indicated.

The flashlights in the woods are many now and gather around me, the drone’s intensity is growing, it fills my mind completely.

It is my contention that my commitment should have been enough.

It had always been enough before and now it will not allow my presence.

I regret not being able to finish this application.

The barometer is 18.8 in.