Ndura. Son Of The Forest. Javier Salazar Calle

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СКАЧАТЬ was left with the knife, which gave me an urge to vomit, it was disgusting. Then, I skinned it. When it was ready, I suddenly thought of a problem. I couldn’t make a fire to roast it because they would discover my existence and my location, so I would have to eat it raw. I looked at the bloody meat reluctantly. I cut a big chunk and I put it in my mouth. If animals ate it raw I could do it as well. I chewed a couple of times then I spat it all out. It was revolting! It had the consistency of plastic, as if I was trying to eat one of my sisters' dolls or a half worn out cartilage. I had always liked my meat to be well done, I could never eat it rare and, as it happens, even less if it is completely raw. What had always repulsed me the most were things with the consistency of that meat: barely cooked chicken skin, bacon, tripe...

      I took the remains of the snake and those of my food and I buried them, feeling completely disappointed. Then I threw some leaves on the hole to better disguise it. What good is it to find food if I cannot eat it? Risk getting bitten and killed by a snake, for what? On top of that, there was the problem of water. I had to find something because I couldn't quench my terrible thirst and I only had two sodas left. I dropped to the ground, sweating abundantly because of the effort made to capture the snake. Defeated, I drank one of the two sodas and I threw the can away. Let them discover me, after all it is better to die riddled with bullets than to die of hunger, its faster. Anyway, I had scattered the guts of the snake all around in a six foot diameter. Farewell to the winner, farewell to the born survivor, all hail the failure who was going to die in a wild garden. I deserved it, so I couldn't complain. I had killed my two best friends. Anyway I knew that I had seen something on the television about water in the forest, I remember them saying that it was easy to obtain in one place, in a particular way, but I couldn't remember where.

      I was there, for I don’t know how long, seated on the ground, with my arms on my knees, head down, my mind completely blank, letting myself go. Resignation, conformism, abandonment, giving up on life. The plane crash with the death of Alex, to see how they riddled Juan with bullets, the euphoria after the snake situation and the ensuing deception, the fatigue, the sleepiness... too many things in practically twenty-four hours, too many intense emotions. Why did Juan have to be so stupid and start running that way? Why did he leave me alone? At least we would have both been here and everything would have been different; but no, he had to try to flee that way, so... so... I wanted to return home, to close my eyes and when I opened them I'd be in my bed and all of this would have been one big realistic nightmare, more realistic even than they usually are, a bad dream like any other, an anecdote to tell in the evening when I meet with my fiancée and my friends. I started crying, but there were almost no tears falling from my eyes.

      Lost, discouraged, disillusioned and feeling faint, fatigued and sleepy. I did not know what to do. In the end by a simple act of automatism I buried the can that I had thrown away and I stood up to keep walking, although now at a much slower pace, letting myself go, almost dragging my feet. I was walking and stopping intermittently until eight o'clock at night. My breaks were longer every time I stopped, and so the walking distances became shorter. I used the stick that I had used with the snake for support, that way I unloaded some pressure from my injured knee, although at that time I already couldn't feel my legs. To walk for the sake of it, without at least trying to set a proper course, after all, I didn't know how to do it with certainty and I could almost say that I didn't care. Why did I have to convince them to come here, why? I never listened to anybody, I always had to have it all my way. Look where my desire to control everything, to command, had landed me. Juan, you're an idiot. Why did you start running that way, committing suicide? That was all your fault, I had nothing to do with that. Your fault. Yours.

      When I couldn’t resist anymore, I ate one of the boxes of quince, entirely, and I drank the last soda that was left, hiding away all the rest, including one of the two blankets I had left. What did I want two for? The less weight I carried the better. In addition, they gave out too much heat and when I carried the backpack, I had the feeling that my back was roasting, since my t-shirt was permanently stuck to my body from the sweat, which produced an uncomfortable sensation. I also started to feel a constant sensation of dizziness, possibly because I was dehydrated from the lack of water. It didn't surprise me, I knew that refreshments seemed to quench your thirst at the moment you drank them but they did not hydrate much. The yoyo effect a companion of mine from school called it, because of the sugar it has he said.

      As it was growing dark and I didn't feel like sleeping so uncomfortably in a tree I looked for a sheltered place, where the ground was dry, I made a meager mattress from leaves and green branches, I curled up covered with the small blanket and with the backpack for a pillow, I fell asleep. I had spent my first whole day in the forest and I was already more than sick of it, I was very tired and I hoped that this would end in any way possible.

      DAY 3

      HOW MY SUFFERINGS BEGAN

      Something was attacking me, my whole body was itching. I jumped up immediately, shouting, my head totally cleared out. I looked at my hands and they were covered with red ants with big heads, my body was coated in them. They stung me everywhere, repeatedly. I took off my clothes, almost ripping them off, and I started swatting my body with my hands, jumping, moving and squirming around like the tail of a lizard, shouting and moaning from pain. Some went into my mouth, forcing me to spit over and over again, others went into my nose, my ears, everywhere. It was like an entire swarm of bees had decided to attack me at the same time. Little by little I was able to get rid of the ants, but it took me about ten minutes to realize that there were no ants left on my body. An endless column of ants^[9] crossed the area where I had slept. My entire body was red from the beating I had given myself to get the ants off me and it was full of red dots even redder than the bites those damn insects had inflicted on my body. It all itched so much that I didn't even know where to start scratching. Although there were no ants left on me anymore, from time to time I felt like something scampered on my body and again, I would start shaking convulsively.

      When I dominated my rage and my frustration a little, I took my backpack and I also shook all the ants off of it, I did the same with the blanket and the clothes I had scattered around on the ground. I only put my sneakers on and I packed the rest in my backpack. I took some stones and branches and I threw them on the neat column of ants with fury while I insulted them. For a little while I lost control, anger took me over, yes, ants were guilty of everything, I had to end the ants, they put me in this stupid situation and they were going to pay for it. I stepped on them over and over again, furious, frenetic, as if I was possessed by an unstoppable destructive fervor. Some climbed on my legs, biting me again, but I no longer felt a thing, the pain had ceased to exist for a moment. I only had one thought in my head: kill the ants. I stomped on and kicked the ones that were on the ground and with hard slaps, I squashed those that were on my body, crushing them against my legs, my arms or my chest. For a few minutes, that was my only war, my only world: stomping, slapping with my hand, shouting with anger, frustration, bottled in for too long. A furious Gulliver destroying the world of Lilliput. Then I moved away a few steps, I crumbled on the ground and I stayed there for a while, gone, totally surrendering to my fate, blind to what was happening around me, oblivious of any other thing that was not nothingness and inner emptiness. I finally came back to my senses. At night I thought I had heard the murmur of a nearby stream, so I went looking for it, naked, careless, shaking, and my entire body itching, the stick in my hand and my backpack on my shoulder. Leaving behind me a myriad СКАЧАТЬ