Ndura. Son Of The Forest. Javier Salazar Calle

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 of squashed ants and many more scampering around in their particular dance of disorganized madness.

      Indeed, my hearing had not deceived me. A river of about sixteen feet wide made its way through the middle of the forest, before my eyes. My first intention was to take my shoes off and to throw myself in the water, but I remembered something about leeches, so first, I carefully inspected the water on the riverbank letting caution take over my desperation for a moment. The sheer thought of having one stuck on my body, hooked, absorbing my blood, made me shudder. When I touched the water with my hand I noticed that it wasn't too cold for me to be able to stand it for a while. I didn't see anything, except some precious small colorful fish, some more colorful than others, that were too small to eat and too pretty to kill. Their body was long and flattened, their tail divided in three parts, the middle one looked like a bird's feather, their eyes were proportionally big in comparison to their head, they had an iridescent blue color, but when the rays of sun reflected on their body, an incredible range of colors from blue to violet blurred on their scales^[10]. I looked for some other things like piranhas, crocodiles or something similar and I didn't find a thing. So I decided to soak a little after drinking a bit of water.

      I walked a little into the water, first making sure with the stick that the ground was steady. I kept my sneakers on, because I was afraid to get bitten by a bug or to have something nailed in my foot. The first contact gave me the chills because of the contrast between the temperature of the water and the outside temperature, although I immediately got used to it. Some dragonflies with vivid colors flew around me, with their long shape and their fast and confident way of flying. There were also a large number of insects, either flying or scampering on the surface of the water as if it were a skating rink.

      When the water reached my knees, I stopped and I got all my body wet with my hands. The refreshing effect of the water over the infinite number of ant bites and scratches on my swollen knee was an indescribable sensation of relief. Being in the water for a while, forgetting everything, enjoying every second, put me in a state of deep relaxation. I closed my eyes and I submerged my head in the water holding my breath as long as I could, feeling the coolness all over my skin, surrounding it and smoothly caressing it. For a brief moment all the problems, the preoccupations, just vanished. I also drank big gulps of water, until I felt completely satiated. When I got out of the water, determined to survive at all costs, my spirits were reinforced and my mind ready to fight.

      I heard a noise in a nearby tree and I quickly hid in the bushes. They had found me, naked and off guard, they were definitely going to kill me, to assassinate me without any mercy, to sacrifice me like a vile animal. I did not want to die, could I have thrown them off track? Didn't I deserve a little serenity? Hadn't I had enough with the ants?