l a p s e

the cherry-trees

The botanist returned the next morning. He didn't tell us where he'd been, and none of us asked. Instead, we silently packed up, changed back into our original clothes, and snuffed out the dregs of the fire.

Walking was becoming so dull. It seemed like all we did was walk. The whole journey was filled with the lawyer's whooping cough and the botanist's confident shouts of "we'll turn left in a hundred paces!"

I tried to talk to you, but both of us were breathing too heavily. The botanist had promised us food once we got into the forest again, and I presumed he'd gone in there last night to find something edible. My stomach was thankful for the idea of a meal, growling its assent loudly and painfully. I hadn't had water in a while either.

At last we crossed the treeline that I'd seen from the other end of the clearing. It was frightening and dangerous to be plunged into the darkness of the forest again, but I simply pretended that it was the Nutcracker's pine forest, and that you were my Nutcracker Prince who'd never let me fall, and my heart calmed again.

We sat, panting, on the branch-ridden ground. The botanist left and returned with a full coin-box of blackberries, and this we shared, staining our mouths the same shade of red.

My stomach protested the intrusion, and so I ate slowly, forcing the berries bite by bite down my gullet. As a result of this the rest of the group – particularly the professor - emptied the coin-box rather quickly, but to my utter relief you had salvaged the last four, and these you handed to me because your own stomach roiled too much.

We rested for a while after we'd finished. My stomach creaked and groaned, and I rolled onto it, letting the front of my freshly-washed shirt grow dingy with mud once more. When we all felt well enough to stand, we filed back into our line and wound through the forest again, sinuous and unbroken. Utterly silent.

Again, I was enchanted by the thrum of the forest. The sound could only be described as life itself. I remembered that in the beginning, immediately after the crash, the sound had waned around us and started up again when we passed. Now it continued as we walked. The woods had accepted us, and I felt appropriately honored.

This I told to you, and together we stopped under the wide boughs of a spruce. You gripped my hands. "You're right," you said breathlessly, and looked down at me, your expression one of wonder. I grinned back at you and squeezed your hand, and together we leapt forward, light-footed, to close the gap between us and the rest of the line.

I didn't let go of your hand for a while. I rather liked the feel of it, warm and solid, between my fingers. You didn't seem to mind either, and I was grateful, for more reasons than just the one. We only let go when the lawyer, who was in front of us, turned around and stared pointedly.

There was scurrying in the bushes – rabbits, we realized. Two of them. Their brown-and-grey coats blended into the underbrush, but when the botanist hurled down a heavy rock, it pinned one of the rabbits down into the soil. I hid my eyes as he bashed its skull in with unwarranted force.

We ate the rabbit, roasted over a fire – the matches ran even lower – with nettles and wild garlic that the botanist pulled from beneath some tree. Without him, we would all starve. The rest of us could get by from eating only the animals that were abundant here, but we'd grow frail from malnourishment, as none of us could identify what plants were useful.

When we cooked the rabbit, the sounds of the forest went silent, as if in mourning. I went silent, too, closing my eyes and sending out a quick apology to the woods around me. Guilt was all I tasted when I tore into my portion.

In the late afternoon, we came upon wild cherry trees. They were plentiful and lushly fruiting, overgrown; but I could tell that they had once been planted deliberately in a line. We yanked the fruit from their stems and pulled the pits out with our tongues, the fruit so jaw-puckeringly sweet and sour and fresh that we ate them until we were sore.

The final rays of sunlight were filtering through the trees when we came upon the house. It was ramshackle and worn, adorned with the mindless curls of creepers and ivy. Several roof shingles lay in shards around it. A well crowned with a swarm of gnats stood five paces from the building.

The entire house listed to one side. One of the windows had cracked, but the walls were in good shape and the door was unlocked. I kicked it in and it swung open languidly.

Inside, the furniture seemed to be in the right places. There were three wicker chairs and a folding table across from a log fireplace. Three umbrellas, worn and sad-looking, were splayed on the parquet floor near the back door.

But the room that held our interest was the kitchen. Despite the fact we'd just ate our biggest meal since the crash, we tore into the pantry and grabbed for the rows and rows of canned food that lined the shelves. Green beans, tuna, peaches. We filled our arms and the bottoms of our shirts and retreated to the living room with our bounty.

The house stank faintly of mold, but we soon grew accustomed to the odor. I dragged my load of cans and digestive biscuits up the stairs. The first room I found was large and occupied only by a large four-poster bed and an antique dresser. I arranged the cans on the latter and, after stripping off all my soiled clothes, threw myself onto the bed. I had learnt how to sleep on the forest floor, but the sheets, however old and musty, were the softest things I'd ever felt. My legs relaxed and I let out a huff of breath.

I was asleep in seconds.