Waiting

The boy couldn’t have been older than eighteen when he woke up by the sea, with nothing but a knife and the clothes he was wearing.

So he ventured inland.

He pushed his way through thick bushes and stumbled up steep hills, all the while hearing birds mock him.  He couldn’t see them, though.  His vision was blurred, perhaps with exhaustion, and he could barely see a metre in front of him.

He just know that he could not stop, even when hunger clawed at his stomach and each step sent agony shooting through his whole body.

After stumbling through the jungle for two days, he fell into a freshwater lake and could not drink quickly enough.  Water - that delicious, life-giving liquid that he would never take for granted again - spilled out of his hands and ran down the already sodden rags that were the remains of his shirt.

The boy couldn’t remember what colour it was, but he remembered it being nice.  He remembered liking the shirt, too, but couldn’t imagine why.  It was rough, and torn, and undoubtedly caked with filth.

The birds were quiet now, thank God.  He recognised the cry that replaced them, vaguely.  Gripping his knife tightly - the blade was rough, too, he noted.  Rust, most likely - he crept up on the unsuspecting creature.

He flinched when he slipped on the wet ground and fell with a noticeable thud, but the creature didn’t seem frightened by the foreign sound.  He was less than a metre from it now, could almost hear its heart thudding against its chest.  Maybe it was his own.  Uttering silent thanks to the unidentified creature, he struck.  Plunging the knife into its chest, he felt sizzling liquid spray out, forcing its way past his clenched fist.

Ugh.  Now his shirt was caked with filth and blood.  Not that it was the creature’s fault.  He was thankful; of course he was.

He noticed the creature still struggling, and cringed.  Holding it down until it fell still (he had to use his whole body - the thing was only a quarter-metre tall, but surprisingly strong) took so much more energy than he was willing to expend, but he had to eat.  His instinct to survive was stronger than his will to not kill.

Ripping the knife out, he expected another spray of blood, but there wasn’t.  He shrugged slightly, plunging his teeth into the still warm flesh.  He almost gagged at the combination of fur and slick muscle, but forced himself to swallow.  Surely it was no worse than eating raw fish.

Still, it could do with being cooked.  He might not have much choice for food, but eating slimy muscle and fur was not high on his to-do list.

Years passed; the boy - man, now - built a place to call home, made a ‘portable pool’ out of a painstakingly carved wooden bucket waterproofed with vine sap and even found a cat.

Or perhaps the cat found him.

With his pool in front of him and cat beside him, he waited.

She walked, her owl companion resting on her head.  She did not know how long she had been walking for, or why she was wasting her life trekking through a curiously empty jungle, but she continued to walk until she saw something.

A shack, if the term was used loosely.

It was ugly, made from dirt and rotting oak, but clumps of grass grew on it and it had some strange kind or charm.

There must have once been three or four signs, judging from the somewhat straight sticks jutting out around the shelter, but only one remained.  She had to squint to decipher the chicken scratch poking the occasional hole in the plank as it dug too deeply.

10 diamonds or friendship.

Leaning against the shack was an old, old man with his cat.  He was smiling peacefully, as if he was dreaming a good dream.