Ndura. Son Of The Forest. Javier Salazar Calle

I was walking in areas frequented by furtive hunters, surely not very friendly with strangers.

      I was very affected by everything that was happening. At a certain point, I finally felt a strong cramp in my calf of my right leg and it forced me to stop and stretch it while I squeezed my mouth shut from the pain and writhed on the ground. I had to stay seated for a while before I was able to move again and it kept bothering me non-stop for the rest of the day. Several times I thought the cramp was back and I had to stop to stretch my leg. When it started growing dark I was completely exhausted and I hadn't advanced a lot because I was forced to walk at a slow pace. My legs were especially exhausted from all the walking, my knee and calf were sore and my feet were almost numb. Looking at it from a positive point of view, if I ever left this place, I would have eliminated the incipient beer belly that was starting to show. It’s still something. I shouldn't lose my sense of humor that could perhaps save me. It was the only thing I had left, that and my desire to live. Elena, what would I give for one of your hugs right now, for a smile! Or for one of those tasty dishes that you prepared!

      I sat on top of a fallen trunk, I ate all the quince that I had left and I took a big sip of water. I only had around a fifth of the bottle left and no food. I would spend this third night in a tree, after the ants experience I didn't think I'd be able to sleep, since the ants are on both the ground and on the trees, but what I least wished for was to get captured asleep by the scoundrels who fired the shots . Like the first night, I looked for a suitable tree and when I found it, I climbed to the chosen branch with the help of a creeper. As soon as I put my hand on it, I had to take it off because I felt a sharp prick. The creeper had thorns. I rubbed my injured palm and I looked for another tree to climb on. When I found it I carefully climbed it and I prepared myself to spend another night in hell. I took my sneakers and socks off and I prayed they would be dry in the morning, although I highly doubted it, since the air was almost permanently humid. My feet were wrinkled and had a light brownish green color. I dried them as well as I could, but the uncomfortable sensation persisted anyway. I tried to get warm, but I couldn't, neither with the blanket nor by rubbing my body. The ants and mosquito bites incessantly bothered me, but there was nothing I could do about it. The only thing that relieved this discomfort, was when I rubbed the humid mud on my body to avoid the bites, at those moments the constant itching was replaced by a comforting sensation that I wouldn't know how to describe. I felt a constant pain in my legs that I couldn't pinpoint, and in my back too. My right arm was numb from exhaustion from giving imaginary machete blows with the stick all day long.

      I was so exhausted that I immediately fell asleep. My last thought was about hoping to wake up the next day to a breakfast with a huge glass of milk with honey and some toast covered in butter and strawberry or blackberry jam.