Three days later, I had made it out of the Omosede Forest. A wide expanse of lush grasslands now lay ahead of me, and I could see the sky clearly for the first time in weeks; now unveiled by the high canopy of trees. Silver stars twinkled down at me from a deep black obscurity, and the great moon shed its tranquil luminosity across the land; its soft light reaching and highlighting every surface. The jade colored grasses ruffled against a strong southern wind, and the long blue-green stems of Tuffula weeds swayed back and forth rhythmically. Amidst the clear, crisp air a few distinct sounds could be heard; the quiet, clicking chip of crickets, the distant hoot of an owl, and the faint whisper of wind traveling through long fields of grass.
I traveled on for hours in the calmness of the night. Before long I saw the first rays of the morning sun emerge from the horizon; magnificent hues of soft peach and yellow. It was a beautiful sight to behold; however, as the morning sun rose, so did the temperature.
I slung my rucksack over my shoulder, beads of sweat already forming on my brow. I wiped them away in one movement with the back of my hand and trudged on.
As the sun climbed higher into the sky, it felt as though things were beginning to come to life. A red bumblebee whizzed past me, scavenging the ground for brightly colored clusters of golden and amethyst wildflowers. A brown rabbit pounced out of a hole in the ground, wriggled its nose, and pranced around the countryside in search of clover. A flock of jovial birds guided their graciously feathered black wings along the striking azure sky above me, chirping carefree tunes.
The disposition of nature this morning was incredibly and undeniably beautiful. In all theory, my mood should have been lifted by this miracle of life. In fact, it was just the opposite.
After my son died, every moment was agony. I longed for him. I was being consumed a febrile fire within me; a secret inferno that had recently been forced to the surface. It has always existed within me, as a small flame; containable, controllable; but it had never been a part of me. Now, my soul was alight with it. The flame had found it’s own personal kerosene, my son’s blood, which fueled my anger and my wrath. Now that all his blood was spent, I doubted anything on this planet could extinguish this raging fire.
I began to feel exhaustion washing over me like a tidal wave. I had been on the move for hours, and I felt utterly spent, even though the day had barely even started yet. I hobbled a few more steps, and then curled up in a patch of tall grass and fell asleep.
I awoke about three hours later, drenched with sweat, and squinting in the presence of the blazing sun. I laboriously pushed myself off the ground, and stretched my aching limbs. My legs seemed even sorer than they had felt before I took a nap. I grimaced when I stretched out my arms and felt a sharp pain rocket through my right shoulder. That was the muscle I had been using to carry my rucksack with. I decided to use the left shoulder for today.
I plugged on until nightfall, making no objection to the sweltering heat, which continued relentlessly until it was finally forced beneath the horizon. I lied down to rest, but found myself unable to sleep for the second night in a row. I got up and decided to continue walking, using the luminescent light of the moon to guide my path.
The same pattern continued for the next two days; I journeyed during the nights, and found a few hours worth of sleep during sunlit hours. There wasn’t much variation in my travels, and the days seemed to blend together.
During all this time I felt a wide range of strange, raw emotions that I had never experienced before. At times I would be overcome by an intense sensation of anger and wrath, which would unexpectedly slide into a sickening sadness. During a few points on my journey, this had caused me to collapse on the ground in pain, convulsing in my own despair.
However, the most dominating emotion I experienced happened to be utter confusion. I would wake up forgetting where I was headed, or I would panic when I would realize my child was missing. And then with a stabbing, horrifying realization, I would reflect back on that nightmarish memory in the woods, play the scene over and over again in my head, and wonder what the hell happened. We left no tracks. I hadn’t heard them coming. It didn’t make any sense. I couldn’t wrap my head around any sense of logic that helped me to understand the situation.
These days were undeniably the worst days of my life, and nothing short of my own personal hell.
