We were moving West now, four children stumbling through the ceaseless tundra. Fatty was lagging behind as usual. His ragged breaths forming enough mist to blot out the sun. But his mass had lost most of its majesty lately. We would have to think of a new name for him soon. Potty’s vote was for Stretch Mark, but that broke rule #1 that all names should consist of a single word only. That was Jumpy’s fault. If he hadn’t had the bright idea of christening himself Atom Bomb Supreme God Strongman, and insisted we call him by his full chosen name every single time, we wouldn’t have had to pass the motion restricting ourselves to one word names.
As it was, the four of us chose names for each other, monikers that were hard to argue with.
Fatty, when I first saw him, was a shimmering, quivering globe of lard. He had on him a fur jacket that he stole from a sleeping soldier’s bag (but which he claimed was gifted to him by his mother), a pair of threadbare pants, and one shoe. The other foot, already dangerously purple with cold, was tied up in multiple layers of rags. He had been forced to give up that shoe to Jumpy. He was our Supply Train, in charge of bringing up the rear of the squadron, carrying the vast majority of our insignificant loot.
Potty had dysentery. When I met her, she boasted a rugged pair of denims of stunning quality, leather sandals and a coat that had seen better generations draped close over her bare chest. She had traded away her jeans, much to our bewilderment, for a flimsy pair of pyjamas and a pair of gloves. This, I was later to learn, was because she found pyjamas easier to manoeuvre with her cold, numbed fingers when her bowels demanded a quick release. She was our Scout, charged with deciding on our way forward and scoping out any possible dangers on our path. The real reason she was a Scout, however, was to allow ourselves some reprieve from the fecal stench that permeated her clothes.
Jumpy had severe shell shock from watching his entire family die within a turbulent ten-second span to a raid from the Red Army. He saw the whole thing from a distance of a few meters and did not move for three days after. He was our Wife, in charge of the camp. He would collect the wood, set up the fire, collect the brush for our beds, melt the ice for water and roast the meat. He had on an overgrown trench coat that trailed behind him in the snow and a stolen towel for a loincloth, along with Fatty’s shoe.
And lastly, there was me: Breathless. I was the only one who had a hat, a sign of my seniority. I also wore a necklace, well blackened with soot to avoid the greedy eyes of passing adults, three shirts, the outermost of which was woollen, a pair of adult-sized pants tied to my waist by a frayed rope, and a pair of mismatched, but shockingly resilient sneakers over the only pair of socks amongst the four of us. The reason for this clothing classism was that I was the Predator. Being the only one who could use a gun and had any experience of hunting and survival techniques, everyone knew they needed me to survive.
The time for the dreaded decision was upon us.
“Whose turn is it to raid for ammunition?” I asked.
“Not mine,” replied three voices, instantly.
Here we go again.
“Jumpy, you haven't been raiding yet, have you?”
“And who will set up your camp?”
“Fatty can do it for today.”
“I will not! That is a task for a Wife, not a Supply Train.”
“And is it a Wife’s task to steal bullets from sleeping soldiers? Or perhaps your rich mother can buy some for us.”
“Why can’t Potty go?”
“I went the last time, it’s your turn now.”
And on and on it went, as we haggled, begged, insulted and cajoled each other into a stalemate.
“Halt!” came the order from behind.
I froze instantly. Of all the sounds in the world, the voice of an adult was the only one that struck fear into my heart.
I heard a whimper to my right and glanced at Jumpy long enough to see him quiver as a steaming pool of urine began to melt its way through the ice at his feet.
“Where are you boys off to?” asked the man.
I turned to face him and my heart sank. He held a rifle in his hands, loosely, comfortably, like two lovers well acquainted with each other’s bodies. Underneath his coat, I could see a soldier’s uniform, though I could not recognise which. Soldiers meant trouble.
The soldier had a gaunt face, his skin stretched tight over sharp cheekbones and a long, arching nose. His greasy hair clung to his forehead and stopped just short of his cold, empty eyes. His gaze, though intense, seemed hollow, like a bright light emanating from a fire that contained no heat.
“Just looking for some food,” I replied.
“Food? Here? How’s that going?”
“It’s all right.”
While we stood still, the soldier had marched past Fatty and stood between Jumpy and me.
“Have you been hunting with that gun?” he asked, nodding at the rifle slung across my back.
I nodded.
“You know it is illegal to hunt in these parts without a permit.”
“We don’t want no trouble,” I said, my voice reeking of desperation despite my best efforts to appear calm.
“No trouble, no trouble,” he said, dismissively, “but we must have order, yes? We can’t just go about doing whatever we want, can we?”
I shook my head.
“Good. I like law abiding citizens, myself,” he continued. “No good comes of anarchy. Rough business.”
He smiled at us. His eyes did not smile.
There was a pause as we sized each other up. The moment stretched into a yawning eternity. When he finally spoke, it was almost a relief. Almost.
“What’s that smell?” he barked.
No one moved.
He looked around until he spotted Jumpy’s predicament.
“Did you piss yourself, boy?”
“Y-Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”
The soldier turned his back to me and began to approach Jumpy. If I wanted to, this offered me a chance to set my rifle upon him and get us out of this situation. I did not move.
Standing in front of Jumpy, the soldier stared at him. Jumpy refused to look up, staring resolutely at his soaked boots.
“Show me,” he rasped at Jumpy.
I saw Jumpy’s breath catch in his throat.
What the fuck.
“I want to see you pissing yourself.”
The tundra lay barren and silent, unaffected by the surreal events happening upon it. I felt a dream-like detachment from the events unfolding before me, as if I were a few realities removed. At no point did my body or mind give any indication that it wished to be more than a spectator.
The soldier brought his rifle up to Jumpy’s chest. Jumpy’s tears were trickling down his nose in a fierce, incessant flow. The muzzle of the rifle inched its way forward, between the folds of Jumpy’s trench-coat and began to pull it aside. Jumpy finally clutched at the coat and pulled it closed again, still refusing to look up.
The soldier grabbed him by the hair, and unleashed a stream of the vilest abuses his long years in the trenches had taught him. Jumpy was screaming, struggling against the grip the man held him in.
Ignoring him, the soldier tugged Jumpy’s loincloth off and took a step back, taking the sight in.
My heart began pumping furiously, drowning out all external sounds with its frantic beat. My vision blurred as tears began to stream down my face. I looked ahead at Potty, hoping for her to do something, wishing that it was not incumbent on me to act.
Potty did not move. She had her back to the scene the entire time and intended to keep it that way.
The soldier pointed his rifle at me.
“I’m just gonna borrow this lad for a moment. Don’t let me keep you. He’ll catch up with you in no time. Off you go. Don’t try anything stupid.”
The three of us remained unmoved, out of fear rather than defiance. The soldier, recognizing this, grabbed Jumpy by his coat and began tugging him back the way we had come, moving past Fatty, who averted his eyes.
Jumpy, who had never stopped crying, looked straight at me with expectant eyes. I thought of saying something, offering a few empty words at least, but my impotence silenced me and soon Jumpy was out of sight, though we could still hear the occasional gruff command shouted at him by the soldier.
It was more than an hour before any of us moved. Potty, sniffling, began to set up camp. I finally moved to help her. Fatty, nudged into action by this flurry of activity, extricated a bottle of vodka from his bag and took a swig from it.
Immediately, he sputtered and began to cough, his eyes watering.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Drinking,” he replied, simply.
“We were gonna trade that,” I said, annoyed.
Fatty gave me a curious look. There was a hardness to it. I had not encountered this particular look before, and it was a while before I could decipher it. It was contempt.
He did not reply, but merely took another swig, grimacing as he got used to the taste.
Potty and I set the four straw beds in a square, equidistant from the fire.
Fatty, watching us, interjected, “Who’s the fourth one for?”
I sighed and looked away towards the horizon over which the soldier had taken Jumpy, hoping to see his nervous frame making its way towards us. Everything seemed off now, and I felt that if he would just return, we could resume our former dynamic and forget this day ever happened.
“Well? Who is it for?”
Fatty’s face was flushed and his behaviour was becoming increasingly belligerent. I did not much fancy handling a drunk kid on an empty stomach.
“You’re drunk, Fatty. Go to sleep.”
“You don’t tell me what to do anymore, Predator,” he sneered at me, stuffing every ounce of hatred he possessed into that last word. “You owe me a shoe.”
“What?”
“My shoe. You made me give it to Jumpy, and now he’s gone. You owe me a shoe.”
“That’s what you’re worried about? Your shoe?”
“Well, what else do I worry about? Jumpy’s dead.”
Suddenly, a rock flew from somewhere behind me and struck Fatty on his face. His screams filled the night as I turned to see Potty fuming.
“Jumpy is not dead,” she said, speaking slowly. She held another rock at the ready just in case Fatty was inclined to share any more insights.
Fatty’s bravado seemed to recede at this prospect and he simmered down, tending to his broken nose.
The rest of the night passed mostly without incident. Our empty stomachs gnawed at our insides, demanding food. We shared a packet of biscuits between us, but that did not help much. Eventually, we gave up waiting on Jumpy and decided to go to sleep, hoping he would find the camp during the night and be there when we woke up.
I slept fitfully, waking up from time to time to take a peek at Jumpy’s bed, checking if he had returned. I caught Potty doing the same. Fatty’s sleep was unbroken.
At some point during the night, while in the midst of a confused dream, a single gunshot rang through the night. Potty and I immediately sat up in our beds, looking at each other. Nothing needed to be said.
Fatty woke up, too. Realizing what had happened, he began to chuckle at our expressions and turned over in his bed and went back to sleep.
We woke up feeling unrefreshed. Hunger and grief intermingled within us to make an irritable and short-tempered trio. Jumpy’s loss meant more weight for all of us. But it also meant we needed less food to sustain us.
I decided our first priority was finding some food. Potty and I would scour the woods for game, while Fatty guarded the camp.
After spending the entire morning in this futile search, Potty and I stopped for some rest in a clearing. We were both out of breath, and the fatigue and hunger began to take its toll upon us. Potty’s symptoms had gotten worse over the past couple of days, and she was beginning to look pale and sickly. Every movement seemed to demand a monumental effort on her part.
“Should we go back?” I asked.
She nodded, weakly.
Fatty sat with his unclad foot held to the fire. As we approached the camp, I noticed he had been crying. He looked around at us, searching for any food we may have brought. Seeing nothing, he cast another contemptuous glance my way and turned back to the fire.
A foul smell hung in the air, and I glanced at Potty to see if she had had an accident. But her curious expression and crinkled nose told me that she did not know the source of the stench either.
A shuddering sob from Fatty brought my attention to its source. His foot had shifted from its formerly purplish hue to a fiendish black. A couple of toes were oozing a brownish pus and the onset of rot left little to the imagination.
“I need my shoe,” he sobbed. There was no anger in his voice anymore. Just a plea.
We sat around the fire in silence for a long time before we slept, on an empty stomach once again.
The next morning, I picked up my rifle and set out for another hunt. Potty began to get up to come with me, but I told her not to bother. Both of them needed to rest. And I needed to hunt.
I set off down a different path this time, with quick, determined steps. The sky was beginning to darken with menacing clouds, and our position was becoming more and more desperate. The only thing that gave us a chance at survival was my ability to bring back food. Anything would do, at this point.
I found that fatigue and hunger were affecting my ability to move silently, and I kept clumsily crashing through thickets and undergrowth. Any animal with half a brain would be far away by now. But I kept plodding on, not even bothering to keep track of the direction I was headed.
Minutes blurred into hours and I found myself walking aimlessly, no longer looking for or caring about hunting. I had no destination in mind, no purpose. And yet, at no point did I consider taking a break or returning to camp.
As evening approached, I made my way over a steep incline and was confronted by a stunning vista. I saw the forest thin out gradually as it approached a sprawling glacier that wound its way through snow-laden mountains that formed the backdrop. The mountain tops were shrouded in clouds, furiously smiting their face with lightning and lashes of rain. The same hellish canopy extended towards me. The unmistakable heaviness in the air told me that a Biblical night lay before me.
As the first, oversized droplets began to patter around me, a fearlessness took hold of me and I made my way onto the glacier, away from the cover of the forest. I stood straight and unmoving, right in the centre, my face upturned, gazing at the Gods making battle upon the mountains.
Memories of more innocent days flooded before my eyes, memories of days spent huddled with my mother under a hastily erected shelter in the middle of the forest as a thunderstorm raged above. I remembered her scent, the scent of safety, and her look of exhilaration in the face of Nature’s fury. I remembered the absolute confidence she inspired in me, which allowed me to experience all kinds of adventures without knowing the meaning of fear.
The thunderstorm began in earnest and the freezing rain began slapping at my face, and sneaking its slimy tentacles into my clothes. In no time, my sneakers were squelchy and my socks were soaked through. My hat began to weigh heavy on my head and I cast it off, revelling in the cold that smote my head. I stood, chilled to the bone, with a fierce euphoria etched into my face as I felt the storm wash away my guilt and drown my shame.
Here, I was not a failed hunter. Here, I was not a cowardly leader. Here, I was not powerless. Here, I was witness to the Gods.
The hours melted away and Time held no meaning. It was only at the break of dawn that the torrent faltered, sputtering away into silence as the sun drove the clouds before it.
With the first gentle caress of light, I collapsed onto the ice as my body was wracked by fits of pain. I began to shiver uncontrollably as every inch of my skin felt as if it were on fire. Eventually, my willpower gave way to the torment, and I allowed darkness to engulf me.
I awoke to warm water being poured down my throat as I gazed into the weather-worn face of an old man. I was naked and under a pile of blankets, and in some sort of closed carriage.
“You’re okay now,” he croaked, his face breaking into a million kindly wrinkles as he smiled, “Where were you headed?”
I shrugged, unable to muster up the energy to speak.
“Are you alone?” he asked.
I stared up at him as he handed me a steaming bowl of soup.
“Yes.”
As it was, the four of us chose names for each other, monikers that were hard to argue with.
Fatty, when I first saw him, was a shimmering, quivering globe of lard. He had on him a fur jacket that he stole from a sleeping soldier’s bag (but which he claimed was gifted to him by his mother), a pair of threadbare pants, and one shoe. The other foot, already dangerously purple with cold, was tied up in multiple layers of rags. He had been forced to give up that shoe to Jumpy. He was our Supply Train, in charge of bringing up the rear of the squadron, carrying the vast majority of our insignificant loot.
Potty had dysentery. When I met her, she boasted a rugged pair of denims of stunning quality, leather sandals and a coat that had seen better generations draped close over her bare chest. She had traded away her jeans, much to our bewilderment, for a flimsy pair of pyjamas and a pair of gloves. This, I was later to learn, was because she found pyjamas easier to manoeuvre with her cold, numbed fingers when her bowels demanded a quick release. She was our Scout, charged with deciding on our way forward and scoping out any possible dangers on our path. The real reason she was a Scout, however, was to allow ourselves some reprieve from the fecal stench that permeated her clothes.
Jumpy had severe shell shock from watching his entire family die within a turbulent ten-second span to a raid from the Red Army. He saw the whole thing from a distance of a few meters and did not move for three days after. He was our Wife, in charge of the camp. He would collect the wood, set up the fire, collect the brush for our beds, melt the ice for water and roast the meat. He had on an overgrown trench coat that trailed behind him in the snow and a stolen towel for a loincloth, along with Fatty’s shoe.
And lastly, there was me: Breathless. I was the only one who had a hat, a sign of my seniority. I also wore a necklace, well blackened with soot to avoid the greedy eyes of passing adults, three shirts, the outermost of which was woollen, a pair of adult-sized pants tied to my waist by a frayed rope, and a pair of mismatched, but shockingly resilient sneakers over the only pair of socks amongst the four of us. The reason for this clothing classism was that I was the Predator. Being the only one who could use a gun and had any experience of hunting and survival techniques, everyone knew they needed me to survive.
The time for the dreaded decision was upon us.
“Whose turn is it to raid for ammunition?” I asked.
“Not mine,” replied three voices, instantly.
Here we go again.
“Jumpy, you haven't been raiding yet, have you?”
“And who will set up your camp?”
“Fatty can do it for today.”
“I will not! That is a task for a Wife, not a Supply Train.”
“And is it a Wife’s task to steal bullets from sleeping soldiers? Or perhaps your rich mother can buy some for us.”
“Why can’t Potty go?”
“I went the last time, it’s your turn now.”
And on and on it went, as we haggled, begged, insulted and cajoled each other into a stalemate.
“Halt!” came the order from behind.
I froze instantly. Of all the sounds in the world, the voice of an adult was the only one that struck fear into my heart.
I heard a whimper to my right and glanced at Jumpy long enough to see him quiver as a steaming pool of urine began to melt its way through the ice at his feet.
“Where are you boys off to?” asked the man.
I turned to face him and my heart sank. He held a rifle in his hands, loosely, comfortably, like two lovers well acquainted with each other’s bodies. Underneath his coat, I could see a soldier’s uniform, though I could not recognise which. Soldiers meant trouble.
The soldier had a gaunt face, his skin stretched tight over sharp cheekbones and a long, arching nose. His greasy hair clung to his forehead and stopped just short of his cold, empty eyes. His gaze, though intense, seemed hollow, like a bright light emanating from a fire that contained no heat.
“Just looking for some food,” I replied.
“Food? Here? How’s that going?”
“It’s all right.”
While we stood still, the soldier had marched past Fatty and stood between Jumpy and me.
“Have you been hunting with that gun?” he asked, nodding at the rifle slung across my back.
I nodded.
“You know it is illegal to hunt in these parts without a permit.”
“We don’t want no trouble,” I said, my voice reeking of desperation despite my best efforts to appear calm.
“No trouble, no trouble,” he said, dismissively, “but we must have order, yes? We can’t just go about doing whatever we want, can we?”
I shook my head.
“Good. I like law abiding citizens, myself,” he continued. “No good comes of anarchy. Rough business.”
He smiled at us. His eyes did not smile.
There was a pause as we sized each other up. The moment stretched into a yawning eternity. When he finally spoke, it was almost a relief. Almost.
“What’s that smell?” he barked.
No one moved.
He looked around until he spotted Jumpy’s predicament.
“Did you piss yourself, boy?”
“Y-Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”
The soldier turned his back to me and began to approach Jumpy. If I wanted to, this offered me a chance to set my rifle upon him and get us out of this situation. I did not move.
Standing in front of Jumpy, the soldier stared at him. Jumpy refused to look up, staring resolutely at his soaked boots.
“Show me,” he rasped at Jumpy.
I saw Jumpy’s breath catch in his throat.
What the fuck.
“I want to see you pissing yourself.”
The tundra lay barren and silent, unaffected by the surreal events happening upon it. I felt a dream-like detachment from the events unfolding before me, as if I were a few realities removed. At no point did my body or mind give any indication that it wished to be more than a spectator.
The soldier brought his rifle up to Jumpy’s chest. Jumpy’s tears were trickling down his nose in a fierce, incessant flow. The muzzle of the rifle inched its way forward, between the folds of Jumpy’s trench-coat and began to pull it aside. Jumpy finally clutched at the coat and pulled it closed again, still refusing to look up.
The soldier grabbed him by the hair, and unleashed a stream of the vilest abuses his long years in the trenches had taught him. Jumpy was screaming, struggling against the grip the man held him in.
Ignoring him, the soldier tugged Jumpy’s loincloth off and took a step back, taking the sight in.
My heart began pumping furiously, drowning out all external sounds with its frantic beat. My vision blurred as tears began to stream down my face. I looked ahead at Potty, hoping for her to do something, wishing that it was not incumbent on me to act.
Potty did not move. She had her back to the scene the entire time and intended to keep it that way.
The soldier pointed his rifle at me.
“I’m just gonna borrow this lad for a moment. Don’t let me keep you. He’ll catch up with you in no time. Off you go. Don’t try anything stupid.”
The three of us remained unmoved, out of fear rather than defiance. The soldier, recognizing this, grabbed Jumpy by his coat and began tugging him back the way we had come, moving past Fatty, who averted his eyes.
Jumpy, who had never stopped crying, looked straight at me with expectant eyes. I thought of saying something, offering a few empty words at least, but my impotence silenced me and soon Jumpy was out of sight, though we could still hear the occasional gruff command shouted at him by the soldier.
It was more than an hour before any of us moved. Potty, sniffling, began to set up camp. I finally moved to help her. Fatty, nudged into action by this flurry of activity, extricated a bottle of vodka from his bag and took a swig from it.
Immediately, he sputtered and began to cough, his eyes watering.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Drinking,” he replied, simply.
“We were gonna trade that,” I said, annoyed.
Fatty gave me a curious look. There was a hardness to it. I had not encountered this particular look before, and it was a while before I could decipher it. It was contempt.
He did not reply, but merely took another swig, grimacing as he got used to the taste.
Potty and I set the four straw beds in a square, equidistant from the fire.
Fatty, watching us, interjected, “Who’s the fourth one for?”
I sighed and looked away towards the horizon over which the soldier had taken Jumpy, hoping to see his nervous frame making its way towards us. Everything seemed off now, and I felt that if he would just return, we could resume our former dynamic and forget this day ever happened.
“Well? Who is it for?”
Fatty’s face was flushed and his behaviour was becoming increasingly belligerent. I did not much fancy handling a drunk kid on an empty stomach.
“You’re drunk, Fatty. Go to sleep.”
“You don’t tell me what to do anymore, Predator,” he sneered at me, stuffing every ounce of hatred he possessed into that last word. “You owe me a shoe.”
“What?”
“My shoe. You made me give it to Jumpy, and now he’s gone. You owe me a shoe.”
“That’s what you’re worried about? Your shoe?”
“Well, what else do I worry about? Jumpy’s dead.”
Suddenly, a rock flew from somewhere behind me and struck Fatty on his face. His screams filled the night as I turned to see Potty fuming.
“Jumpy is not dead,” she said, speaking slowly. She held another rock at the ready just in case Fatty was inclined to share any more insights.
Fatty’s bravado seemed to recede at this prospect and he simmered down, tending to his broken nose.
The rest of the night passed mostly without incident. Our empty stomachs gnawed at our insides, demanding food. We shared a packet of biscuits between us, but that did not help much. Eventually, we gave up waiting on Jumpy and decided to go to sleep, hoping he would find the camp during the night and be there when we woke up.
I slept fitfully, waking up from time to time to take a peek at Jumpy’s bed, checking if he had returned. I caught Potty doing the same. Fatty’s sleep was unbroken.
At some point during the night, while in the midst of a confused dream, a single gunshot rang through the night. Potty and I immediately sat up in our beds, looking at each other. Nothing needed to be said.
Fatty woke up, too. Realizing what had happened, he began to chuckle at our expressions and turned over in his bed and went back to sleep.
We woke up feeling unrefreshed. Hunger and grief intermingled within us to make an irritable and short-tempered trio. Jumpy’s loss meant more weight for all of us. But it also meant we needed less food to sustain us.
I decided our first priority was finding some food. Potty and I would scour the woods for game, while Fatty guarded the camp.
After spending the entire morning in this futile search, Potty and I stopped for some rest in a clearing. We were both out of breath, and the fatigue and hunger began to take its toll upon us. Potty’s symptoms had gotten worse over the past couple of days, and she was beginning to look pale and sickly. Every movement seemed to demand a monumental effort on her part.
“Should we go back?” I asked.
She nodded, weakly.
Fatty sat with his unclad foot held to the fire. As we approached the camp, I noticed he had been crying. He looked around at us, searching for any food we may have brought. Seeing nothing, he cast another contemptuous glance my way and turned back to the fire.
A foul smell hung in the air, and I glanced at Potty to see if she had had an accident. But her curious expression and crinkled nose told me that she did not know the source of the stench either.
A shuddering sob from Fatty brought my attention to its source. His foot had shifted from its formerly purplish hue to a fiendish black. A couple of toes were oozing a brownish pus and the onset of rot left little to the imagination.
“I need my shoe,” he sobbed. There was no anger in his voice anymore. Just a plea.
We sat around the fire in silence for a long time before we slept, on an empty stomach once again.
The next morning, I picked up my rifle and set out for another hunt. Potty began to get up to come with me, but I told her not to bother. Both of them needed to rest. And I needed to hunt.
I set off down a different path this time, with quick, determined steps. The sky was beginning to darken with menacing clouds, and our position was becoming more and more desperate. The only thing that gave us a chance at survival was my ability to bring back food. Anything would do, at this point.
I found that fatigue and hunger were affecting my ability to move silently, and I kept clumsily crashing through thickets and undergrowth. Any animal with half a brain would be far away by now. But I kept plodding on, not even bothering to keep track of the direction I was headed.
Minutes blurred into hours and I found myself walking aimlessly, no longer looking for or caring about hunting. I had no destination in mind, no purpose. And yet, at no point did I consider taking a break or returning to camp.
As evening approached, I made my way over a steep incline and was confronted by a stunning vista. I saw the forest thin out gradually as it approached a sprawling glacier that wound its way through snow-laden mountains that formed the backdrop. The mountain tops were shrouded in clouds, furiously smiting their face with lightning and lashes of rain. The same hellish canopy extended towards me. The unmistakable heaviness in the air told me that a Biblical night lay before me.
As the first, oversized droplets began to patter around me, a fearlessness took hold of me and I made my way onto the glacier, away from the cover of the forest. I stood straight and unmoving, right in the centre, my face upturned, gazing at the Gods making battle upon the mountains.
Memories of more innocent days flooded before my eyes, memories of days spent huddled with my mother under a hastily erected shelter in the middle of the forest as a thunderstorm raged above. I remembered her scent, the scent of safety, and her look of exhilaration in the face of Nature’s fury. I remembered the absolute confidence she inspired in me, which allowed me to experience all kinds of adventures without knowing the meaning of fear.
The thunderstorm began in earnest and the freezing rain began slapping at my face, and sneaking its slimy tentacles into my clothes. In no time, my sneakers were squelchy and my socks were soaked through. My hat began to weigh heavy on my head and I cast it off, revelling in the cold that smote my head. I stood, chilled to the bone, with a fierce euphoria etched into my face as I felt the storm wash away my guilt and drown my shame.
Here, I was not a failed hunter. Here, I was not a cowardly leader. Here, I was not powerless. Here, I was witness to the Gods.
The hours melted away and Time held no meaning. It was only at the break of dawn that the torrent faltered, sputtering away into silence as the sun drove the clouds before it.
With the first gentle caress of light, I collapsed onto the ice as my body was wracked by fits of pain. I began to shiver uncontrollably as every inch of my skin felt as if it were on fire. Eventually, my willpower gave way to the torment, and I allowed darkness to engulf me.
I awoke to warm water being poured down my throat as I gazed into the weather-worn face of an old man. I was naked and under a pile of blankets, and in some sort of closed carriage.
“You’re okay now,” he croaked, his face breaking into a million kindly wrinkles as he smiled, “Where were you headed?”
I shrugged, unable to muster up the energy to speak.
“Are you alone?” he asked.
I stared up at him as he handed me a steaming bowl of soup.
“Yes.”
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