Stuck

Nearing a particularly enticing spring, Sarah jumped across a section and landed on the other side, and landed, and landed, and landed--until she realized she had not ever quite landed, but was sinking fast in the green mud surrounding the spring ahead (which was, in fact, quicksand, by definition--a colloid hydrogel consisting of fine granular matter such as silt, combined with clay and salt water. The word quicksand is actually a misnomer--it doesn't have to be sand, and the word quick is derived from its meaning "alive" rather than "fast"--in other words, it doesn't necessarily swallow you up instantaneously like in the cartoons). She knew (as Bear Grylls had illustrated in the Sahara last week--hotel cable) that the crucial imperative was not to panic. Frozen except for her upper body, Sarah handed Jim the bag she was carrying and her camera. She reached down toward her boots slowly to test her stuckness, which was as stuck as stuck gets. To steady herself, she threw her hands forward to the ground, and they, too, began to sink to the forearms. She pulled them out quickly, losing her gloves to the mud, straightened up, and froze again. She started to sink further, and noticed a warm sensation on the soles of both feet (she was underground near a volcano, after all), then came the even warmer appreciation of water seeping over the edge of her left boot and inside. This increased water weight caused her foot to begin to sink further and further, now to her knee. After a few moments of motionless thoughtfulness, Jim threw everything down and pulled first one leg (which he later noted sounded very much like an amplified version of someone removing a well-suctioned set of dentures from their mouth), then the other (against an astounding amount of pressure), out of the mud. But before saving her life, he took a picture.