AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I watched them go by, big smiles, each carrying a pack — hers was smaller. They held hands.
They were sharing the load, as they could, like a team.
My chin trembled and tears slid down my cheeks. I cried the whole time I packed up my tent, while I put out the fire, and even though my back felt tweaked as hell, I managed to get the pack up and myself righted — I wove for a moment, dangerously, but then I straightened up.
I began to trudge.
One foot and another.
Just one foot — another. That’s all we have to do. We being, of course, me and my pack.
One foot and another.
It became my mantra, easy, but the trouble was there was a second mantra in the background as if one were the blessing and the other the curse... one foot and another — why? — one foot, that’s all we have to do — why are we doing this? — just one foot — what the fuck are we doing this for?
That grimace from the day before that had begun halfway through the first mile and stuck for the rest of the day...? Today it arrived about a hundred steps in and remained.
I walked from about 9:30 am to 11:30 am and then I couldn’t walk anymore.
Not at all, not one bit.
I had made it to a designated campsite and I slumped down against a tree with my feet splayed out in front of me. I just sat, staring out over a patch of trees, not a pretty patch, a gnarly patch of trees, not an epic vista, but a forlorn patch of stunted, dry trees and yet — I might never get up. I might never see anything else ever again.
Fucking shite place to die.
Then I burst into tears.
I cried as the sky changed, the temperature cooled, the wind picked up, and somehow without at all noticing — it began to rain.
The rain went from a few drops to a torrent so fast I had to scramble to my feet.
I unzipped my pack and dug out my raincoat, but I was already cold and drenched through. I wasn’t very practiced assembling my tent, it took about ten minutes, then I dove in and dragged my sopping wet pack in after me.
The afternoon was dark, and the rain stayed, steady and torrential. I unzipped the door and stared out at the blankness, because there was no visibility beyond a few feet away.
* * *
A while later a man and woman came squealing up the trail, “Hey! Sorry to camp so close, we need a flat place!”
“No worries!” I called back, and tucked into my tent listening to the sounds of rain and their voices as they built their tent together about twenty feet away. They were laughing in the downpour, then their tent door zipped closed, and it was quiet while I ate something for lunch.
Then from the direction of their tent the sound of them having sex, her moans and groans and—
I started giggling. Middle of nowhere, surrounded by nature, two strangers in the tent next to me going at it like... I listened.... cats in heat.
Great.
The rain continued all afternoon, through the night, and continued the next day.
* * *
The next morning, I woke up, got my rain gear on, and stepped out of my tent and immediately slipped and fell on my ass in a puddle of mud. It grimed up the back of my pants pretty good. My tent was wrecked. I needed to pack it up while wet, but I would need to put it out in the sun to dry.
This was all so freaking hard.
The rain eased into a shower. I was covered in mud, wrestling with a tent pole. I don’t think I had ever been this dirty before. It looked like I had been in a good ol’ fashioned pig wallow. Whatever that was.
The couple next to me came out of their tent in their non-muddy rain clothes and chit-chatted with me as they packed up their tent and gear like professionals. They were on their 8th day of hiking.
