Nothing comes easy in life

Some sort of action was needed.

But which? There was the obvious question of if I could get a fire started. Sadly in my depression that followed my failed attempt yesterday, I forgot to put the collected sticks in my shelter. Instead I left them on the already moist ground, only for them to be once again wettened by the dew that collected this morning.

Then I also had to slowly get something to eat. I was hungry, but not unbearably so. The more pressing matter for me was thirst. But I wouldn’t risk drinking the water directly from the stream. Knowing that I was in a different world I can’t know what kind of microbes are in the water, much less if my immune system was equipped to handle them. Or on the contrary my immune system goes into overdrive when finding the alien bacteria and it turns out I’d be allergic to the water.

The easiest solution to this would be to boil it, but that sadly fails at two points. Firstly, I don’t have fire. Secondly I didn’t have any container to boil the water in.

The first and more pressing issue needs to be addressed. Starting to move from the place I had laid down last night I made my way over to my shelter. As expected, it was too rickety to offer any resistance to the wind gently, but constantly blowing down from the mountain. I had collapsed, thankfully not covering the firewood I had collected. Talk about luck in a bad situation.

As I looked around the morning sky, I saw even fewer clouds than yesterday. It could be my chance to finally get a fire going. All I needed was an already dry place where the sun would hit to dry out what I have collected. Probably a flat rock would be best. And maybe I could find one that was some kind of use as a container, so I can at least get a bit of drinking water.

The river was probably the best place to look for rocks. Maybe some were transported by the water to me. However I once again had to make a decision. Do I walk up the river, to find bigger rocks, or down the river, as that was something I wanted to do earlier. Also should I try to keep some of the stuff I had collected, or just leave it and try somewhere else. It was not as if I had made much progress I’d be abandoning.

First, I made my way down to the stream to pick up another pebble to aid me in deciding again. And that’s where I saw it: Flint. Or at least something resembling it. A black, shining stone, smooth on one side, where it seemed intact, and on the other, where it was broken, a jagged edge gave it its identifying shape.

For the first time since coming here I felt something like hope. While the biology might have been different to earth, the underlying physical and chemical principles appeared to be the same. I could’ve guessed as much, what with the foliage also being green. But seeing the same, or similar, minerals as those at home means that I have a little bit of an idea of what I can do here.

My eyes once again teared up, thankfully not out of despair again. The stress of the days before left me in an emotionally unstable state. In school, during the time my mother had cancer, I never felt strongly one way or the other. I just accepted life as it happened. After life threw me one curveball with the ultimatum and then another with being transported to this place, my emotions abruptly changed. I guess it would be much for anyone, but for some reason it hit me especially hard.

Wiping away the tears, I reached down to pick up the rock. As I did, a small critter resembling an arthropod scurried away from underneath it. “This world’s crayfish, I guess.” The flint had a nice weight and shape to it, making it useful as a tool, for whatever I decide to do with it later.

Weighing it in my hand, many ideas of what to do with it filled my mind. The primary one allowed me to solve the dilemma I faced before coming down to the water. I could use it to scrape off the spines covering the vine I had found yesterday, leaving me to use the resulting fiber as makeshift rope. With that rope I could keep the wood I had collected yesterday, while moving to another place.

I quickly made my way back to my shelter, in my excitement forgetting to check where I can touch the vine and once again pricking myself. “No worries, I’ve got the right tool to deal with you.” This time I could fight back. I started to run the jagged edge along the vine.

Nothing comes easy in life. That was the lesson I learned today. While the flintstone seemed similar to the mineral I had back on earth, its strength was comparable more to gypsum as the usual quartz. It started to flake off almost immediately after starting to use it. There was more to the laws of chemistry here than it seemed.

However, I was not beset by despair. It could not be used like the stone-age tools, but it still allowed me to make some progress in de-spining the plant. Even the flakes could be used to scrape some bits off, although they didn’t last long until they were too small to effectively use. The fact that I was making some sort of progress, unlike last night, gave me the motivation to carry on my work, even if it was painstaking. The ecstasy I felt down at the water was still reigning of the despair in the back of my mind

Slowly but surely I made my way down the plant. The amount of stone allowed me to scrape down a second vine, which I then twisted and tied to the first one, giving it more strength. In the end I was left with a rudimentary rope, which allowed me to at least carry some of the wood, by tying it to one end of the bundle, running the rope lengthwise across the wood to the other end and tying it there as well. The end product looked a bit like a handbag or sportsbag. Only that it was made of wood. Not the most fashionable thing, but for such a quickly cobbled together accessory it was quite nice.

The only thing left for me to do, was to decide where to go, now that I had my little bundle. I specifically saved one piece of the soft-flint, so I could make a coin toss again. I felt like the rock deserved to make one decision for me, given my extensive use and the fact that it allowed me to take the little belongings I had in this world with me. So once again I tossed the stone into the air, watching it as it turned around, once again landing in the grass with a muted thud: I was going up the mountain.

I still needed to figure out how much time I could be spending on going upstream, and how much I needed to dry out my kindling, that I haphazardly stuffed between my bundle of sticks. I slung the bundle over my shoulder and went out into the meadow, trying to see how far the sun had risen over the horizon. I didn’t need to walk far, as the sun was already nearing the zenith. So it was around midday. I had spent quite some time making sure my rope was spine free and held my little bundle.

It was time for me to take off.