Survival

The sun was setting over Moon Lake, casting its fiery glow through the trees and off the water.  He didn’t know why he had chosen this night to watch the sunset.  But he was glad he had.  Many things had been bothering him that day.  Work wasn’t going well.  His publishers wanted him to turn out stories faster than he could think of ideas.  He just wasn’t in the writing mood.

His love life was even worse.  She wanted a commitment but there was no way he could follow through on one.  It was strange.  She was all he had ever wanted; beautiful and intelligent, with a good personality and a sense of humor.  Why couldn’t he commit? Was it the love of his freedom?  Or  the fear of marriage and responsibility?  He didn’t know.  But it didn’t matter.  The majesty of the sunset on the lake and the reddish orange sky made him feel at peace with himself.
He would have liked to stop the moment where it was.  But he knew that for impossible.  Live must continue.

That’s why he had gone to his mountain hideaway, to find out where or more specifically how he wanted his life to continue.  He walked backed up the path to his cabin pausing only briefly to take one last look at what he was sure was the perfect sunset.

He sat on the porch and pulled out his pipe.  After filling it with his favorite tobacco he lit it and leaned back and stared off into space.

Where would his life go from here, he thought.  He was already a successful writer; at the top of his field.  He had a beautiful woman in love with him and not a care in  the world.  Where else could life go but down?

Confident with his conclusions he decided to turn in for the night.  The month he had spent up here already had conditioned him to the old adage “early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”  Ever since his liquor supply ran out he was definitely healthier.  He supposed he was still collecting royalties from his books so he was wealthier.  But wise?  He wasn’t too sure on that count.

The morning came early as it did in that part of the mountains.  After collecting some water and some fresh berries for his cereal he decided to take a walk around the north side of the lake and look for some food for the rest of the day.  Not being a big hunter, his meals usually consisted of fish or some of the stored goods from his panty.

Those goods were running out now so he took his .22 rifle in hopes of finding a rabbit or a squirrel or two.  He doubted very much if he could ever shoot an animal, but just in case he brought the rifle along.

The woods thinned to a small clearing where a doe and her fawn were grazing.  Venison, he thought, what a meal that would be.  All he had to do was raise his gun and fire.  But as he started to pull the trigger the fawn, almost knowingly, raised its head and looked at him.

The innocence of youth flowed from the deer’s eyes.  Being only the late spring it still had its spots.  Life so new, only just begun.  It was a shame to destroy such youthful innocence.

He lowered his gun with a nod to the little fawn.  He couldn’t do it.  The fawn almost seemed to smile and nod as if in thanks.  The deer then bolted off into the woods opposite him.  His first and probably last chance at a good dinner gone.

But he didn’t seem to sadden by the loss of food.  That fawn reminded him of something.  Something he had thought long lost in the memories of his childhood.  The fawn had restored in him some faith in the future.  True beauty still did exist, not just the manufactured cosmetic beauty of high society.

Content in this revelation he continued his walk to the north shore.  The wind was from the East that day; the fishing would not be good.  He would have to find some animal or roots and berries if he hoped to have a full meal that night.
After taking a couple of pot shots at some squirrels he settled down to eat his last granola bar.  All that was left in his pantry was some pancake mix and dried fruit.  He was sick of pancakes, especially without syrup or jam.  He was getting desperate for food.  How would he last another week on two days worth of supplies?  If only they would come and get him a couple of days early.

But no, he knew they wouldn’t.  He had left strict orders on when he desired to be picked up and that there was to be no contact until that day.  How was he supposed to know, that he didn’t have enough food to last that long.  He was really roughing it now.

As he sat on the shore finishing his lunch he remembered some of the old poems and stories he had read as a child.  Those authors who had written so well and become his idols, Frost, Poe, Asimov, Clarke, Hemmingway and Hawthorne.  What a combination of writers, he thought.  How could he ever get it straight which style to write in?
That had been his key, his threshold to the top.  He didn’t follow any style but his own.  It was his individual attention to details at the right moments and his ignorance of them at other moments that gave him the edge over his contemporaries.  Individuality, was that the key to it all?

Some how he didn’t think so.  Many a time he had thought of quitting, getting a real job somewhere.  Anything, anything but a writer.  Their life was so insecure.  It all depended on the populace and what they wanted to read.  One minute you could be a best selling author and the next broke and scraping for money.

Why did he do it when life could be so easy?  Except for the minor inconveniences of the past month, he had been living an easy life.  He only had to please himself.

He packed his pipe with the last of the tobacco and sat staring off across the lake.  He had gone half way around it; he might as well continue around the other half.  During the past month he had taken several such trips and knew the trails well.  Maybe the fishing would be good on the West shore, he thought.

The fishing proved to be acceptable off the West shore.  He caught a couple small perch and a bluegill, enough to feed a good distance to travel to get to his cabin.  He thought of spending the night outdoors but quickly dismissed that as some clouds came rolling in.  He had to hurry while he still had enough light to see the path.

In his haste he didn’t notice a tree root sticking out from the side of the hill.  Catching the root with his right foot the side of the hill.  Catching the root with his right foot he tripped and went rolling down that bank toward the water.  When he finally came to a stop, he was all covered with brush and fishing line from his now broken pole.  Slowly he tried to untangle himself but found to his horror that any movement was impossible.  Even if he could free himself, he wouldn’t get far.  His leg was definitely broken, probably in two or more places.

He let loose a terrific scream of pain and despair.  His mind was running wild thinking of all of the ways he could die.  Bears, wolves, starvation, his list was endless.  “Fear of danger is ten thousand times more terrifying than danger itself.”  Wasn’t that what Daniel DeFoe wrote in Robinson Crusoe.  DeFoe was right.  He was extremely terrified and could do nothing but panic.

His panic led to submission. He became so tired that he finally gave up and fell asleep or more precisely, passed out.  When he awoke, it was morning and he was still entangled and soaking wet from the night’s rain.  Sleeping the way he did stiffened all of his muscles to the point of extreme pain at any attempt at movement.

He had to think.  He was intelligent; he could get out of this predicament.  While he was trying to figure out what to do, his thoughts wandered to the fawn he had seen the previous day.  So innocent, so free.  The fawn didn’t have a care as long as its mother was still around.

There was something about that innocence that reminded him of something.  But what he couldn’t quite remember.  It was more meaningful that just true beauty.  It seemed to be the whole essence of life itself.

The fawn had a certain air of happiness and self-satisfaction.  Its life was complete.  Food, shelter and energy were provided for.  That was it – energy.  The total summation of life itself was energy.  That’s what it all boiled down to.  The energy to drive you to success, to meet your needs, to enjoy what life has to offer.

He had to get out now; he once again had a reason to live.  There was so much still not done.  So much he wanted to do, so much he wanted to write.  He struggled and twisted against the pain and finally go himself free.  Splinting his leg as best he could and using his rifle as a cane he hobbled down the path.  It took him many excruciating hours to return to his cabin.

Once back he found his tape recorder and began to recite his experiences and ideas.  He was determined to remember and learn from this outing.  Intermittently he would rebandage his leg and a cut he had on his arm.

The cabin had an air of hominess about it then.  The dank, musty and broken down cot seemed like a fine brass feather bed.  The splintered table looked like the finest mahogany with the priceless china and silver place settings.  He even saw his last batch of pancakes as the most exquisite plate of crepes.  And his chair was a lush recliner.

The fireplace was burning brightly.  The wood crackling with sparks leaping wildly up the chimney.  The crickets began to serenade him with the birds and bull frogs joining the chorus.  The sun was setting again; its blaze coming in the west window as it slipped into eternity between two august peaks.  The rays glistening off the snow gave the illusion of an immortal rainbow.  The wind suddenly howled its shallow scream.  It was going to be a frigid night.  The sunset was beginning to be overshadowed with ominously foreboding clouds.  The day was going to end as an eerie euphemism of the future.  He didn’t care;  his mind and battered body were at peace.  Life was finally calm in his eyes.

When they finally came to pick him up, they found a storm ravaged cabin.  The windows looked as if they had been shattered by Mother Nature, herself.  Inside the table and cot were overturned.  The fire was just a pile of cold ashes.  The only thing intact was the chair which contained a bruised and battered body clutching a tape recorder.  He was quite dead.

Spring 1987(?)

Twitter It!