Time is different in the forest. Slow petals falling record seconds. Bird calls signal the hour. We walked through quiet day with nothing but homeward on our mind. Twice lucky to have survived near disastrous experiences. Not to take our current situation of agonizing forward motion and complete lack of any options or food insignificantly.
Withdrawal from caffeine caused pulsing headaches. Little thunder booms inside my skull. A blur of emotion and erupting hunger as we trail blazed through the forest dragging along all our belongings and bones.
In the afternoon we reached a clearing. A runway through the woods. Massive buzzing power lines loomed overhead like an eternally long pair of spider silk. We followed beneath the crackling and hum of electricity. Through shin deep grass down the thirty foot wide path we headed northwest traveling mostly in silence. Speaking only when a decision was needed. A democratic process of choosing the right direction. Every step calculated by the growing blisters and slow banal travel of intangible thoughts. Drudgery surpassing pain and bliss. Inescapable suffering.
After miles and hours we encountered a farmer’s field with bright yellow cobs of corn. Feeder corn, not intended for humans, but harvested to feed livestock. Firm, raw, and a little juicy. We fed like animals. Small chunks of substance to quiet the monsters in our stomachs.
An erupting scream of an engine came racing at us. A car hummed by on the other side of the grass. We had found the road! The first sign of civilization in days. We rushed to the edge and collapsed on a long pile of logs all stacked parallel. We weren’t going to die in the woods. We had our path home: the long black paved river. Miles amplified by miles to our final destination.
“Hey! You two!” A loud voice shook the silence we relished in and jolted us from the small bit of needed rest.
“Get the hell off my property! You can’t be here!” An aged blonde-haired lady came running at us from across a field. “Get the hell off my property or I’m calling the police.”
“Holy shit. She’s pissed.”
“Yeah. What the fuck.”
“Get out off my property! I’ll get the shot gun.”
“Ok, ok. We’re going. Chill lady. We’re just taking a rest.”
We collected our heavy empty bags of nothing and continued down the blister heeled county road. Occasionally a car whizzed past as our feet dragged through the small bits of gravel along side the road. Thoughts tempted to hold out my thumb for a chance ride.
We crossed over our river again. We would have been carried all the way here if only I would have been able to hang on to the log shivering for an extra hour or two. Nearby a short waterfall swirled in bubbles and drunk college students laughing in the August sun. I filtered water into our bottles. A frog jumped near my feet. With my pocket knife I jabbed at it. Each time missing it being slow and weak, until finally sinking the blade between the shoulder blades. The little green creature fought, twitched, and kicked until laying motionless.
“What the fuck dude.”
“I’m hungry.” I said.
“I am not eating that.”
“Ok.”
I made a small fire borrowing a kids lighter and stuck a stick down the frog’s throat. Over the open flames I rotated it until crispy. Its small little body shrinking as it cooked.
“Here.” I handed Jason one of the tiny back legs. “Tastes like chicken.” It tasted better than chicken.
He pulled the little bits of meat with his front teeth. “Hey, that’s not bad.”
“Right,” and sleep took us on the sun-baked slab of rock along the swirling shores. Waves of Nirvana and waterfall dreams washing over us. I read a passage out of the “Tao Te Ching.” It all made perfect sense in the moment.
**
Carrying on with our heavy self-indulgent burden, miles moving in hours of slow thoughts and time. Each step an expenditure of limited energy desperate to find the shortest path between two points, one static, the other moving. We had reached our internal goal and now suffer through our external destination best lived in fast forward. Lonesome county highway, an eternal counting of dotted lines that inched beneath our feet. We walked into sunsets.
“Dude. I’m tired.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
