Ndura. Son Of The Forest. Javier Salazar Calle

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СКАЧАТЬ I walked with a sinking heart thinking that if they were following me, it would be very easy to locate me.

      At night, there was incessant noise coming from everywhere, it wasn't the same noise, but I heard insects humming, strange bird songs in the treetops, some screams that I supposed came from monkeys or something similar. At least the disquieting roars were not heard, they must have come from some nocturnal hunter, or at least that's what I wanted to believe. I didn't exactly see many animals, but I could feel them all.

      I checked the time on my watch. It was ten in the morning. I had been walking for an hour and I couldn't walk any longer. My knee had already started to send warning signals, I noticed that it was a little swollen. On many occasions I felt as if my ligaments had moved from their place and I had to put them back again, massaging them smoothly but firmly. I sat down on the ground to rest a little, leaning on a trunk of an extra tall tree and I rubbed it with my hands. The heat was a little comforting for my knee. I was in a rather clear area. I had been sitting for a while when I saw a bird that looked like a parrot on the branch of a tree. It had matt bluish plumage, whose only difference of color was its red tail, the white halos around the eyes, and its black beak that emitted almost human screams^[7]. It practically turned its head in all directions without moving the rest of its body, which reminded me of the girl from The Exorcist. It swayed its way to a tree fruit and began to peck it. The fruit was reddish-orange, as large as a hand and in the shape of a pumpkin.

      "Surely you know where you are," I said to myself, "of course you do."

      I rested for almost half an hour and then I started walking again. Whenever I skirted a clearing and had to retake the supposedly correct direction I was even more convinced that I could be spinning in circles for years without ever knowing. It all looked the same to me and the sun was no longer helpful. I checked its position in the sky, I verified it with the time on my watch and reached the conclusion that I had no idea what I was doing. I maintained the same pace all morning; I walked an hour and then rested awhile. During my breaks, I read the book of Swahili sentences or the travel guide to keep my mind busy with something, maybe it could be of some help being able to communicate with somebody in a hypothetical encounter. With each stop, it became harder to stand up and keep going, my knee made me limp and around 2 p.m. I was worn-out.

      I was to blame for everything, I was the one who had dragged my friends to this infernal place, it is my fault they had died. If I had done as they had suggested, we would now be on our way back from Italy with a lot of pictures of Venice and some postcards from Tuscany. My fault, it was all my fault.

      I was thirsty and my stomach wouldn't stop growling. I was facing a dilemma: Should I eat well to recuperate or save it, given the food shortage I suffered and risk having something happen to me? I expected it would be easy to find food and water in a forest, or at least that's what I thought at the time, and I was very hungry, so I chose to drink one of the soft drinks and to eat the already bitten cookies, blowing at the ants to chase them away, and the sandwich. It alleviated my tenacious appetite a little. I kept the quince thinking that it would last a bit more time before going bad. Then, I fell asleep because I was worn out and because I couldn't sleep the previous night.

      When I woke up I heard a hissing sound close by. There must have been a snake nearby. I remained completely silent trying to sharpen my hearing to discover where the sound came from. Fear tied my stomach in knots and it became harder for me to breathe. I once saw a documentary on snakes that was called "The Two Step Snakes" because when they bit you, you could only walk two steps before falling dead. Given the situation, this didn't feel like such an awful idea, but what if I got bit by one that would make me agonize for hours, losing control bit by bit, before getting to the paroxysm of madness... I was so scared of suffering, and I panicked at the thought of pain. If I had to die, I wanted it to be fast. I almost wished for it, so I could free myself from the situation I was in. I deserved it. I felt the hissing sound was getting closer by the second, I could also hear the leaves crackling under its weight, it was coming my way, I was sure of it. I could almost feel it creeping over my body, sliding on my leg in the direction of my neck, it was almost there, and it was going to bite me. I closed my eyes for a second and I took a deep breath trying to calm myself down. Then, I opened my eyes again and without moving, not even an inch, I rolled my eyes in all directions trying to locate it. I finally saw it. It was still, coiled on a branch ten feet away to my right, about six feet up from the ground. It moved only its head from side to side, as if it was watching over something. It was green with a slight bluish touch, a bit yellow on the sides, with a long tail, a little over 3 feet tall, and a thin body, as if it was laterally compacted, almost invisible between the leaves^[8]. When it slid on the branch I could see that it had an off-white belly.

      I stayed there awhile longer, not moving and listening, until I was convinced that it was this one that I had heard and that the rest was all in my head. I rose slowly and carefully scrutinized the ground in search of another snake, but the one I saw was the only one. At least the only one I had found. At first, I thought about making a detour and distancing myself from it, but then I remembered that people always said that snake meat tasted like chicken, that it was very good. Or at least that's what grandparents told as jokes about the Civil War and the hunger they endured. It seemed like a good opportunity to obtain food and, if on top of that it tasted good, then that was even better. I looked for a long wooden stick with a "V" shaped tip to try to hold its head. I also took out the knife from my pocket, I opened it and stuck it around my waist, against my long shorts. I found a suitable fallen branch and I gave it the shape that I wanted, trimming one of the ends in a "V" shape and without ever losing sight of the snake. The preparation process seemed endless and it exhausted me, although in fact it didn’t require that much physical effort.

      When I was ready, I stealthily walked toward the snake. It didn't seem to notice my presence or it was ignoring me, anyway, it didn't pay any attention to me. When I was about 2 feet away from it, I raised the stick and I hit it in the head with all my strength. With the first blow, it was still half hanging so I gave it two more blows until it fell to the ground. Then, I hooked the head with the tip of the stick and squeezed it firmly against the ground. The snake was shaking convulsively, it didn't stop hissing, and I was terrified. If I loosened my grip so I could hit it from a distance with the stick, it could attack me, the other option was to get closer and to nail it with the knife. I gathered my courage, I came closer to it and I forcefully stepped on the tail, crushing it against the ground in an attempt to keep it still. I crouched down and I nailed the knife right under the head of the reptile, glued to the stick, keeping it thrust into the ground. Even like that, it wouldn't stop shaking, so, I un-nailed the knife and I sawed the neck until the head was cut from the rest of the body. Then, I took a step back, ignorantly afraid that it might still be able to attack me. The tail wouldn't stop moving, spitting blood from where the head previously hung. I hit it a couple of times with the stick, but it didn't change a thing, so I decided to leave it awhile. In a matter of seconds, it gradually stopped moving until it remained completely still. I touched it a couple of times with the stick but it didn't move. It was definitively dead. I was finally able to breathe calmly again.

      My first triumph in the forest. The man had dominated the beast. I felt totally euphoric, for a moment, all my problems dissolved like sugar in a glass of hot milk. Now I knew that I would survive and that I would leave this place. I was an authentic adventurer, a born survivor. Now, nothing could keep me from finding the exit in this green labyrinth and returning to my house, my home. Mother Nature had challenged me and I had demonstrated my worth, my capacity for adjustment and survival. Now, I knew I was the winner of this unequal combat against myself and the hostile elements.

      I grabbed the snake and opened it in half with the knife, removing as much of the guts as I could, not without feeling quite disgusted. For that reason, I took it by one end and I spun around in circles at full speed, making fast laps, the guts flying off all over the place. But then I thought that this went against my plan of being discreet and not drawing attention, but there were already snake remains everywhere and I really didn't feel like gathering them. I finished cleaning СКАЧАТЬ