We haven’t seen a good “What th-?” in a long while, and this has to be the first time it’s been prompted by a woman sticking her tongue in Mark’s mouth…  To quote faithful reader Dan P., “There’s nothing romantic about CPR…”  that is until Mark Trail tries to perform it, I guess…

Carina, you are an opportunist, an enchantress, and a hussy!  You staged the entire waterfall-fall/ would-be drowning just so you could get Mark in your arms…  Only to find out that Mark is a “Happily Married” man!  Oh the tragedy!

OK, time check.  They’ve been in the cave what- hours?  maybe a day? And we have suffered now for a total of 4 months?

Sort of like Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus… for “SCUBA.”

I wonder if Mark realizes that the latest CPR method doesn’t involve pressing lips/mouths together…  it’s just a series of rapid chest compressions, 100 per minute,  performed to the beat of the Bee Gees’ 1977 hit Stayin’ Alive…

But boy oh boy… if we didn’t know Mark Trail, we’d swear he was recreating that make love in the sand/surf scene in “From Here to Eternity…”  But Burt Lancaster I guess he’s not.

For those of you paying extra close attention, you will notice that I have been filing my recent entries under the category of “Arachnid Ho!”  Which of course makes no sense and bears little meaning when we consider that the current story arc is all about caves and (supposedly) bats suffering from a dread disease…  but considering how much we have heard about the bats, a category name like “To the Batcave, Robin” wouldn’t have made much sense either…

So in stumbling upon today’s Sunday paper educational  entry, I was amused to find an actual story about spiders, or at least a story about a spider that eats the young of an invasive species who seems to have no other natural predator… although one has to read 2/3 of the way through to get to anything regarding said spider (typical Jamesian style…) But recall here’s what caused me to name the category “Arachnid Ho,” similar to the reason I categorized a story “Crabby Octopus“when the story ended up being more about world domination and terrorism…  but at least with that story we had an actual villain, though he preferred to appear in name only and remain off camera…

In a life-imitating-art moment, there was a real-life disaster involving a cave, waterfalls and rushing water!!  Ha!

But Mark, take note!!  what did they do? (in the dark, thank you very much?)  They headed back (up!) the way they came in!  duh!!  There isn’t much that could coax me underground these days, I’ll tell you that much.

While Carina is looking like a soggy rag-doll with an octopus hugging her head, Mark is still on his game, looking to be the hero!!  Certainly appears that there is enough water to to have  softened their landing, but who knows?  Might have been a rock or something in Carina’s way.  <<yawn>> It’s early on a Saturday and let’s just say that it wasn’t Mark Trail that got me out of bed this morning…  There was a day, actually, where that was sort of the case…

So Mark, step on it.. get you and your Brylcreem-ed head over and save her! Or maybe it’s Vaseline Hair Tonic??   With Viratol®!  Which is Homogenized!  Well, it’s a lock that his cell phone is now ruined…

And, oh, by the way, thanks for tuning in.  Despite record breaking tedium, there are more of you taking longer looks at this nonsense.

Visitorship is climbing and it appears that people new to the Trail-verse are lingering and taking a good read!  Happy Memorial Day Weekend, all!

Well, we knew there wasn’t any way out of this for them, unless they channeled the Flying Wallendas and somehow swung themselves to a safe perch… So instead they fall without grace and land in what is hopefully enough water to cushion their fall.

So with Gravity winning out we are left with another series of “what next” questions.  No apparent direction here, just another trial in a series of obstacles that has no meaning, no direction, no seeming end…

That’s right… Marky-Mark’s wibs are sore!  After being hit around the head and neck by a column of gypsum…

Makes about as much sense as Mark and Carina forming the Human Centipede (ewww) and hanging by a mere pick-point…

If I am to die, I would just as soon do it with someone I have only known a week or so!  Knowing that Gabe the fearless will no doubt be able to eventually escape and tell our story!  Or not!

But what is happening in panel two?  Is Mark Trail channeling Peter Parker  (aka Spiderman?)  See the “Spidey Sense” tingles emanating from his head?

And for those of you wondering… we first saw Mark wield a rock pick (which of course ties us to today’s installment) in December of 2015… though it appears that he has it turned the wrong way this time, with nothing but air to stick it into, never mind that he has his body weight plus Carina’s to support…  I am sure that this will all work out just fine!!

Carina, you’re not looking too good, there, girl…  that near death experience seems to have put about 30 years on you!  And Mark- you crafty devil you- you’ve been holding out on us!  Although it’s not entirely clear what you plan to do with said pick… but I thought it was long gone by now!

So, let’s assume that Mark gets Carina out of this little brush with eternity, then what?  They are still in the cave and well, that’s where they have been for months now!  Days for them, but an eternity for us poor readers…

As Carina falls at 9.8 meters per second-squared, without Mark anywhere in sight, out of nowhere emerges his hand to grab a hold of Carina’s extremely large wrist and hand… Seriously- I can’t take my eyes off the middle panel- Mark’s hand is tiny and Carina’s freakishly large…

Well, now they both owe Mark a life…  Gabe for Mark’s Superman-like maneuver at the crumbling rock bridge and now Carina at the Waterfall…  Gabe might have repaid Mark a bit helping get that giant gypsum column off him, but who’s keeping track anyway??