Hey guys - time for the first of many short stories. This is based on a little fact with a lot of fiction thrown in. Enjoy!
It was the steepest track we’d come across. I’d been watching it for miles. I had hoped it was one of those mountains that looked closer than it was. You know; those massive ones that are practically in the clouds and no matter how many hours you walk, you’re not going to reach them any time soon. But here it was, right in front of us. Daisy and Natalie looked thrilled, of course. They’d been pretty much gung-ho about everything out here. Kate looked a little less sure, but then her feet were rotting and I reckon had that not been the case she would have looked just as smitten as the other two. I didn’t dare turn around to look at everyone behind me, mainly because I had a feeling my features had fixed into one of immense satisfaction that I’d managed to stay at the front all morning. I didn’t want anyone thinking I thought I was better than them. I really didn’t, in fact I knew it was pretty much the opposite. The reason I was at the front was because today I’d been assigned the dreaded role of ‘setting the pace’; the role nobody wanted because it was a sure sign that you were pretty much the crappiest of the whole group. But still, I had made it. I’d walked for five hours without so much as a pee break and I was kind of proud of myself. No one would have thought, two days ago, that I could lead us on an eleven hour trek. Least of all me.
Daisy turned to me and motioned for me to help her take off her pack. I grabbed the straps and she heaved herself away from the god-awful contraption. I braced myself for the weight, and briefly noted the dark sweat strap marks left on her t-shirt before realising I hadn’t braced enough and the pack plummeted to the ground, taking me with it.
‘Jesus Dais! What the hell do you have in here?’ I was lying on my own pack, arms and legs flailing in the air, trying desperately to flip onto my front. A few people gathered round as I wriggled, giggling and looking at each other.
‘Mostly your stuff Lyds, remember?’ She smirked down at me and I would have felt a little bad if I wasn’t stuck to the ground with a group of teenage girls laughing at me.
‘Right, right, my stuff. I’m sorry I almost died. Please, give it back, I promise I won’t do it again.’
‘Don’t be an idiot. Here.’ She grabbed a hand and yanked me masterly back to my feet, then turned me round and took my pack off my back, placing it gently on the cracked muddy ground beside her own. Hers was propped up against a massive root curving out of the earth; vines with little rounded leaves and delicious looking bright red berries were wrapped around this root, twisting up to the base of the trunk of the tree, then disappearing around and behind, creeping down the roots on the other side.
‘How are you feeling anyway?’ She asked without a glint of sarcasm and I sighed a little and looked away from the no doubt poisonous berries.
‘Oh, I’m ok. I made it this far. I feel a little light-headed but that’s nothing new. I just need to eat something I think, then we can carry on our merry way.’
She gave me the five prescribed prunes and a handful of nuts. I had developed a new culinary delight the day before and I set about slitting the prunes open and pushing the almonds inside. It was spectacular the difference it made to the same morning snack we’d been eating for three weeks now. Good for the bowels, good for energy. What more could you possibly need? In fact, when I got home I was going to make my Mum buy me only prunes and an assortment of nuts. Couldn’t get enough of the stuff.
The break gave us all a chance to take in our surroundings. We’d walked the first few hours along the beach, heavy boots disappearing into the sand, our packs pushing us down so that every step felt like walking uphill. To our right was the sea, and this morning it was calm and never-ending. Occasionally little waves would break and the grey/blue was broken up, but for the most part it was still, serene almost. When the sun hit its mid-morning romp, and I’d just about melted into my boots, Alex decided we should retreat to the blissful coolness of the rainforest. So up the beach we trudged until our feet hit firmer ground and the huge tropical leaves of the trees kept out a little of the heat. A family of lemurs had crossed our path almost as soon as we’d been folded back into the jungle and I’d grumbled to myself, wondering why we hadn’t walked here the whole time. But soon Daisy’s rendition of the medley from Moulin Rouge had me in brighter spirits and we virtually bounced along those last few kilometres, the lemurs long since scared away by our noises, and with that mountain creeping ever nearer.
Now, as I stood and relaxed and looked around in this clearing in the middle of the Costa Rican rainforest, I was again reminded of the lush thickness of the jungle. Everywhere you looked there were greens and browns and purples so rich that you felt you could drink them in, make them a part of you. Out here I felt rich and deep and completely natural. Never mind I had on sweat soaked boots and my Dad’s pink fishing vest; for all the jungle knew I was a part of it. I lived and breathed with it. We were one and the same, the jungle and I. It’d just been here for a hell of a lot longer than I had.
‘Ok guys, for those of you who want to know, we’re going up that way.’
I closed my eyes and sighed. So it was to be the hill. Mountain. Great big steep thing. I had done five hours, please tell me he wasn’t going to put me at the front again. It wasn’t so much the shame – I think collapsing in front of everyone had pretty much liberated any lasting pride I may still have had; what I hated was the little sighs I was subjected to all along the way. Sarah and her freakish need to go ever faster, biting on my heels and taking the footsteps I had just left behind. She was driving me crazy. It’s bad enough being the leper of the group (I didn’t even want to think about the fact that Kate, with her rotting feet, should have rightfully had this role, and yet I was lucky enough to hold the title. What did that make me anyway? Worse than footrot?), without having sodding Sarah yapping at me and trodding on my heels.
‘Yeah?’ Not good. Do not say it.
‘You stay at the front ok? Keep up the pace. You’re doing great.’
Fantastic. I’m doing great. Onwards and upwards. I found a little path mapped out by other trekkers, or maybe even the nearest community around here, and started walking. There was a crunch and I stumbled a little. I turned around and Sarah slitted her eyes into an interpretation of an apologetic smile. I turned back. Fantastic. I’m doing great.
The next few hours pretty much passed me by in a blur of one foot in front of the other. I was aware of the greenness all around me, of people singing and laughing a little way behind me, of psycho Sarah dribbling and foaming practically on me, but mostly I saw my feet carrying me forwards over the scorched, crispy muddy ground. I kept telling myself, just one more step and maybe you’ll get a break, just one more step and you can have your lunch, just one more step and you’ll be there and you can put up your tent and go to sleep. I was really looking forward to sleep. Sleep had come to mean a lot of things to me since being in Costa Rica, things that I had only ever taken for granted back home. It meant rest and relaxation, it meant taking off my boots and my soaking clothes, it meant covering myself in the terracotta cream that stopped my many millions of bites from stinging quite so much, but most of all, it meant not walking. And not walking had become a favourite hobby of mine. Furthermore, after the next sleep we had only a few hours left of said walking. Tomorrow was the last day of this five day trek marathon. Supposedly we would come across a little hut which would indicate the beginning of a little town and from there taxis would be waiting to take us to an actual campsite, not just a clearing in the jungle. Imagine; an actual campsite with signs and other people and toilets.
So I was concentrating on sleep, or the idea that sleep was somewhere close by, and trying to ignore the definite spreading of the rash on my chafed red-raw thighs, when I came across a dead end. Suddenly I was looking at dirt and roots at face level. I stopped and Sarah smacked into me. She grabbed out to stop herself from falling and punched me in the back of the head.
‘Sarah! For Christ’s sake! What are you doing?’
‘Oh, sorry Lydia, I fell. You stopped really suddenly.’
‘There is nowhere to go Sarah. I stopped because there is nowhere to go.’ I could feel my nostrils flaring and Sarah’s stupid little smug expression was not helping matters. ‘Why are you walking so close to me anyway? If you stood further away maybe you’d have seen me stop and then you could have stopped yourself.’
‘Yeah but I’m just walking at my normal pace, it’s not my fault if you can’t keep up.’ She opened her eyes wide. I was going to punch her.
‘I should not have to ‘keep up’, Sarah. The whole point of me being at the front is that I set the pace, not you. You’re supposed to walk at the same speed as me. Or slower. Really anything but faster. That’s the point.’
‘Well, I don’t see why I should have to suffer just because you can’t, like, walk.’
Ok, that was it; I really was going to punch her. I had never punched anyone in my life but I had three brothers and I was taller than her and I reckoned I could do it. Then Daisy stepped in front of me.
‘Sarah, you’re a twat.’ Sarah’s mouth opened into a little ‘o’. ‘Lydia is ill. Do you remember the other day when she collapsed in front of everyone and we all thought she was going to die? Do you remember she went all white and she couldn’t feel her legs and her eyes rolled back in her head? Do you remember we thought we’d have to get her airlifted out of the rainforest because she was completely helpless? Do you even care? What is your problem? Do you have any feelings at all?’
Sarah had turned red and her eyes had gone as round as her mouth and filled with tears as Daisy was talking. ‘Look, of, of course I care. I was there wasn’t I? I helped. It’s just it was days ago and she looks fine to me.’
‘It was two days ago, Sarah; two days.’ Daisy shook her head, and finally I piped up. ‘I’m not fine. I’ve felt dizzy since then and sick and completely knackered and out of my depth. Do you think I like being at the front and setting the pace? Well, I don’t. But I have to and that’s all there is to it.’
Sarah opened and closed her mouth a few times, and when Daisy stepped towards her, ready for round two, she turned and walked off to join the rest of the group who were all sitting around on various roots and logs, looking at us.
‘Right gang!’ Alex piped up, and I looked at him. Some appointed leader he was. I thought he was supposed to stop us fighting and stuff like that. Fair enough he’d practically carried me for about 5km, and then made me dinner and generally looked after me all night after I’d collapsed, but a fat lot of good he’d been just then.
‘Now that that’s all sorted’, he winked at me, stupid man, ‘I’ve got a surprise for you.’ There was a simultaneous groan. We had learned over the weeks that Alex’s surprises were nothing to get excited about. The first he’d sprung on us on the plane, where he’d said we weren’t allowed, at any point on any of our treks, to not wear our boots. This had seemed fine at the time, but once we’d started walking and the sweat and rain and river crossings had really sunk in, there was nothing we had wanted more than to take off our sodden socks and boots and let our feet dry out and breathe in sandals; sandals that we had had to buy, as specified on our kit lists that Alex had given us. The worst bit was in the mornings when we’d crawl out of our tents and have to put soggy, heavy, dirty socks on our lovely dry feet, and then mould them to our skin when the boots were shoved on and tightly laced right to the ankle. Another surprise was that we weren’t allowed to leave anything in the jungle, and I mean anything. Food remains, ashes, vomit, things that should only ever be flushed away… nothing at all. We had to walk around, sometimes for days until we found a toilet or bin at a campsite, with bags of unmentionable things hanging off our packs. Needless to say, we were not looking forward to this surprise.
‘Lydia seems to think we’ve come to a dead end, but actually, we’re right on track.’
I had a very bad feeling about what he was going to say next.
‘That’s right ladies, we’re climbing up it!’ His manic grin did nothing to calm me.
I looked again to what I had supposed was the end of the line. It wasn’t vertical, I’d give him that, but it certainly wasn’t flat. It wasn’t even a steep gradient. It was the missing link between a cliff wall and a very very very steep mountain. It was muddy and greasy with rain. It was impossible, and I was going first.
I hung my head and sat wearily down on a vacant rock, a little apart from he rest of the group, ready to eat a delicious lunch of roast pork (spam), roast potatoes (flaky, disgusting, cement-themselves-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth tortillas), apple sauce (prunes), fresh vegetables (more prunes), and ice cold apple juice (river water and iodine with apple flavoured tang). The sky had darkened over the last hour or so, and as I took the first bite of spam, the rain started up. We ate in silence; by now we had learnt that the roar of the monsoon and the hammering of fat droplets hitting leaves and trunks and monkeys and soft, sodden, shaking ground was too much for our measly voices to contend with. We kept our heads down so as not to drown, and our food hidden inside our waterproof jackets so as not to become wholly inedible.
As I ate, I watched the hard cracks in the mud being swallowed up by the weather; completely disappearing in a matter of minutes. The jungle seemed to come truly alive with the rain; the branches, leaves, bushes, creatures and air beginning to move to an inexplicable but undeniable beat. The whole place pulsing all around you, not waking softly and sleepily, but roaring into life, threatening to fold you into its deafening heartbeat and keeping you forever.
I had eaten all that I could, and was contemplating taking my clothes off and just letting nature have me, when Daisy tapped me on the shoulder. I turned round to see the rest of the group on their feet, food cleared away, packs on their backs, waiting for me to take them up the mountain. Eyes were bright and eager. I felt trapped, wanting to turn and run away, or better still to give myself up to this luscious fervent rainforest; to let it have me like I knew it wanted. But I couldn’t let everybody down. I was the pace-setter. I was, Alex had whispered to me at the beginning of the day, the leader. I had rolled my eyes, told him to stop patronising me, told him I knew the reason I was at the front. But he hadn’t backed down, and all day he’d been looking to me for directions, asking me where I thought we should go. He’d even given me the map, and I reached for it now, a sharp laminated edge catching the end of my finger. I pulled it out and looked at it, nodded my head, and pushed it back into my pocket again. I had absolutely no idea where we were.
‘Right guys!’ I stood up. ‘It’s time!’ I said this dramatically, in the hope that no one would say out loud what everybody was thinking; that I was the last to get up and therefore they had all known it was time long before I had.
‘OK, there’s got to be a path here somewhere.’ And I wondered to the left, hoping beyond hope that something would appear, some sort of sign that humans (or animals – I wasn’t fussy) had been here before. Amazingly, I found something. There was a change in the mud, a darker, harder surface where tree roots served as a sort of ladder. Brilliant. I looked at Alex and he nodded, and, triumphant, I started to climb.
‘OK guys!’ I heard Alex call. ‘Lydia’s found the path. It’s not going to be easy but this is the hardest part of the whole month and I know you can all do it. Just take your time, pace yourself; don’t try and keep up with someone if they’re going too fast for you. Just do it in your own time.’
‘How long will it take?’ Someone asked.
‘It’s only about three quarters of a mile and then we reach the top, then it’s flat until we get to the clearing for camp.’
I was vaguely aware of these conversations going on below me, but mostly I was concentrating on keeping my balance and not stopping. I grabbed another root. I was determined not to stop. I wanted to do this without anyone helping me or spurring me on. My foot found a hold. I wanted to do it by myself. No more Lydia the fainter. I was going to do something good, something amazing, and I wasn’t going to make a big deal out of it at all. I hauled my body up with both hands. I’d just get to the top and sit down and learn to breathe again, and no one would even mention it. I just wanted to be incognito for the first time this whole expedition. I clasped a sturdy rock. One of the ones who could do it – no fuss, no questions asked.
So I climbed; I found roots; I carved out a path where it seemed like there wasn’t one at all. I didn’t stumble, no one passed me, and I was doing it! I felt completely alone but in a brilliant way. I was strong and I didn’t need anyone. I couldn’t hear anything except the pulse throbbing in my neck. I was winning! For the first time I was winning. This jungle wouldn’t beat me, I could do this. We were working together – the jungle and I. Whenever I couldn’t think of where to put my hand or foot next, suddenly a root or rock would appear and up, up I’d go. I didn’t turn around or look up; I concentrated ahead and conquered this, step by step.
The pulse in my neck was getting faster, and my hands were beginning to go a little numb, but I chose not to care. I was almost there, I could feel it. The ground was becoming less steep, and soon I was standing upright again. It didn’t feel too good being upright, but I figured that’s because I’d been chest to earth for so long. I could see a little clearing now, a few meters ahead of me. I had made it! I glanced behind me, things seemed to be moving in slow motion, and I could see no one, not even Sarah. I really had done it. I saw a rock and staggered towards it, my legs rippling like jelly. My feet had gone numb now too. I went to take my pack off, but my arms wouldn’t listen to me. They hung by my sides, lifeless. I sat down on the rock and leaned forwards so I didn’t fall. I was OK. I was OK. The rainforest was surprisingly silent. Gone were the bird calls and the howler monkey hoots. I couldn’t even hear the rain. It had lightened but I should be able to hear it. Come to think of it, I couldn’t hear anything. The wind was pushing through the waxy leaves, I knew because I could see it, strong enough to move the heavy huge foliage, but I heard nothing. I could feel my legs shaking and I reached out to stop them, but still my arms wouldn’t work. I began to realise something bad was happening.
I had lost all feeling apart from the pulse, now not just in my neck but pounding throughout my body. I looked to where I’d come from but still no one had appeared. I opened my mouth but no sound came out. I leaned backwards a little, trying to let my pack slither off my back, the weight of it was becoming unbearable; I could see huge bright leaves above my head, and beyond that some blue sky shone through.
Then the sky was gone and the world was black. I knew I was on the floor; I could taste dirt in my mouth. One of my arms was trapped under my pack and my legs were in the air, still on the rock. I blinked; I could feel tears on my face, but I could see nothing. My mouth was dry, and from the stillness of that mud on my lips, I knew I wasn’t breathing. At least I can still cry, I thought.
The rain had stopped, the rainforest was stilled. A quieted jungle, barely breathing itself, watching me as I lay dying. I knew that I was. I had trekked too hard and too fast, maybe I was even in the wrong place, and they would never get to me in time. I tried for a time to force myself to breathe, tried concentrating as hard as I could to feel a wisp pass through my lips, but there was nothing left in me. I had simply run out of air. This did not scare me. It seemed, to me, perfectly reasonable. I had put everything I had into that climb, so it stood to reason that it should take every breath in my body. I felt calmer than I had the whole time we’d been in Costa Rica. I wasn’t thinking of my family or friends, I didn’t fear I was about to leave this world; all I could focus on was the voice in my head, berating me over and over for failing the one thing I had tried so hard to achieve: invisibility. Lying face down on top of the missing link between a cliff wall and a very very very steep mountain, on a school expedition to Costa Rica, was not the most discreet thing to do. Especially when not breathing and consequently dying.
You’re an idiot, I said to myself, over and over in the darkness and deafening silence, the thunder of my pulse now also gone; You’re an idiot You’re an idiot You’re an idiot.
Then there is a hand on my face, over my mouth. My pack is stripped off me, and I remember Daisy placing my bag on the ground with such ease, only a few hours before. The hand is taken away and I am rolled onto my back. Two spots of light appear, and I think of the underground in London, just before the tube comes. The tube in an earthquake and the whole world is rocking, shaking. My body is tumbling, falling, rolling over and over. The lights from the tube get bigger and brighter until blues and greens appear, and suddenly I realise I am looking at those leaves, that sky. Someone is shaking me. There is a clamp tightly wound on my wrist, but I can’t, don’t, won’t move my head to see what it is. Then Alex’s face rises into view and I try a smile at him, happy to see his little boy chubby cheeks. He has worried eyes and his mouth moves up and down. I blink; he is saying something to me. Lydia, his mouth says, Lydia a oo eer ee. I shake my head (I moved it!), I don’t understand. Lydia, his lips keep moving, Lydia aah oo eeing? It is a question. Lydia. Ly-
‘dia!’ I hear that! I nod my head. There is a bird right above me and he is singing. He has purple wings and he is singing and I can hear him singing.
‘Lydia, are you breathing?’ I focus back to chubby cheeks and shake my head, and now my lip starts to tremble. Not breathing suddenly doesn’t sound so logical.
‘Ok, you’re alright. We’re all here now. Focus on my face ok? Look at me Lydia.’ I look at him. There is a thud and something hits my chest and I can feel air rising from within me and out of every part of my being. It hits my throat, my mouth, the dirt on my lips, and I rise with it and let it out. My body gasps and I can hear it and feel it. I lie on the ground, staring at Alex, who has not once looked anywhere but my eyes since he told me to look at him. He is smiling and I am smiling and I dare to look around and I see everyone standing, staring at me, mostly crying and holding each other, but all smiling. I see Daisy and she walks towards me, cautious for once, and I smile wider at her to let her know I’m ok now. I’m alive again. She kneels on the ground the other side of Alex.
‘So.’ She said, and then her words fail her and she stops. So much. So little. So scary. So calm. So still. So everything and nothing; life and death. So happy to be alive. So, indeed.
The bird above me still sings, its wings a little purpler than before. It is big and impressively beaked, not the kind of bird you’d ever see anywhere but in the rainforest. He is singing for life, for my life, and for the life of this jungle. We have almost died together, been still together, and now we are alive together. I am positioned against the rock, so that I can lean on it, and I lift my newly working arm and touch a giant leaf beside my head. I don’t feel reborn, I just feel alive. Finally I see I am part of this giant moist fecund throbbing land. The rainforest is alive, and I am merely living off it. I don’t just owe this life to this place, but my whole life, my whole being, my whole me.
We make it to camp in surprisingly few hours, with others carrying my pack and other others carrying me. I am put to bed with soup and promises that I’ll feel better in the morning. I lie open eyed, not willing to close them and be plunged into that darkness again. The others go to bed one by one and in the early hours of the morning the rain wakes and pours over us once more. I have been still for as long as I can be, and when I’m sure everyone is asleep, I slip out of my tent. I take off my t-shirt, then my underwear, and leave them under the overhang to dry. I walk towards the edge of the clearing and just before the trees I stop. The rain hitting the leaves makes them plunge and rock, dancing with each other, and I start to dance with them; never more alive than in this moment, before or since.
