One small step for a man

It was time for me to take off.

Before I actually took off, I put some small bushels of kindling on the top side of my bundle, hoping they’d catch enough sun to dry. Of course there was the issue with them not being completely secure, but losing some dry kindling is better than having only sodden.

Now it was time for me to take off. First I followed the stream. I hoped its banks revealed some more secrets for me, like unknown minerals, animals or the kinds of stone I was looking for. “Once I get a fire going and a stone bowl to boil water in I’ll be set”, I thought to myself, the ray of hope that grazed me this morning kept me going, despite the growing feeling of thirst and exhaustion.

At first not much caught my interest. The murmuring of the stream over pebbles in its bed was pleasant, but none of the minerals seemed like anything special. There was the occasional soft-flint thrown in there, but none of the pieces struck me as worth picking up. The first one I found was unusually large, compared to the others in this course of the river. I thought that nothing came easy in life, or at least this one, but I may have been mistaken. The steps that discovery allowed me to make were leaps and bounds beyond whatever happened yesterday.

As the hours went on I made slow progress. The riverbank switched between muddy puddles and gravelly patches. The mud made it hard to move, because my feet were sinking in quite far, and the gravel was spiky enough to hurt my feet while moving over it. But soon enough the movement wasn’t my only issue. It was the heat. Not having drank anything in around 18 hours was starting to show its effects. As the sun passed the zenith, the air was still heating up considerably. My body was slowing down sweat production to hold on to the precious water. To help my body somewhat I moved from following the river to walking along the edge of the forest, trying my best to stay in the trees’ shadows.

Right now my will remained strong enough to not drink any of the potentially contaminated water. Thankfully I actually had water and wasn’t stranded in a desert. Still, the thought of unknown pathogens entering my body and wreaking havoc caused me significant distress, or at least enough to not want to risk it just yet.

Even though progress was slow, it did happen. My sense of time told me that it must have been about three hours, not that I had a way of actually checking that. It was an exhausting three hours. Walking barefoot, without a path, uphill and while slowly thirsting to death was not a pleasant experience. I seemed to make some headway towards my goal, as the rocks were getting bigger. None that fit my needs, but bigger nonetheless.

Not soon after another problem joined the pack. My forest ended. Up until now I had not spotted any suitable rocks, neither near the river or within the woods, so my quest was not over yet. There were groups of trees in the distance, so I wasn’t past the tree line yet. I had no choice but to continue on my way, even if I was at the end of my strength. I pressed on.

Another 2 hours passed with ever slowing progress. The thirst was unbearable. Hunger started to creep in. My feet hurt. This could not go on. I turned around, sat down in the grass and looked upon the valley I left behind me. I had to change something in my approach as what I was doing was certain to kill me. I touched my bundle. Warmth enveloped my hand. Not the wetness I expected. “This might work…” My plan with drying the kindling atop my sticks seemed to produce results. I once again scanned the valley. Thankfully a piece of the forest jutted out towards the river not far from where I was sitting. “This might work!”

Mustering the last of my energy, I made my way back down towards the point where the forest came closest to my water source. I went down to the stream and picked up a few rocks that laid strewn about the bank, placing them in a small circle to form a dry bed, elevated from the dew-wetted grass, on which to place my fire. I stuck some of the now dried kindling between the rocks, to make sure that the wind doesn’t blow it away. I plucked the sticks I tried to use yesterday evening and once again started rubbing them on each other. Turn, turn, turn, turn, turn… nothing. Turn, turn, turn, turn, turn… again nothing. My hand once again started to bleed from the pricks. Turn, turn, turn, turn, turn… Until… A bit of smoke appeared! Just like yesterday evening. Only this time I had a solar powered dryer, which worked wonders.

I carefully set down the smoking bottom stick on the kindling stuffed between the rocks. With the tiniest of breaths just barely grazing the starting ember… The smoke increased… And finally… A reddish glow appeared.

An incredible wave of relief washed over me, causing me to go limp at the knees and almost falling backwards into the water. I quickly caught myself, not letting my mind wander too far, as the fire was not stable yet. Gently I placed additional sun dried sticks from the top of my bundle atop the growing flame. Still breathing into the flame, making sure not to extinguish it. The fledgling fire was a sight to behold.

Now all of the doors that barred my way towards survival have been kicked open, as long as I can keep the flame going. It was one small step for a man, one giant leap for the chances of the same man surviving in this new world.