CHAPTER 2 - PART II

It’s almost night-time proper when I finally make it to the main road and take the bend that looks out over the waterfall and stepped fields carved into the mountainside. It’s comforting having the rush of water to guide me back to the house, even if it gets difficult to see.

It might have been worth keeping my phone on me for the torch if I really got stuck, but the battery is getting so low it might die as soon as it loads.

Just keep the river on my right and I’ll be fine.

Then take the fourt-

Secon-

Thir-

Which left was it?!.

Third?

Third!

Definitely third!

God I hope it was the third…

I cannot afford to get lost out here. Not with this little light. I’ve got nothing I can use as a torch if anything happens either.

Picking up the pace by breaking into a jog, channelling my mild panic and uncertainty over the route back to the house, into chasing the final refracted rays over the peaks ahead.

A little bit of arbitrary competitiveness goes a long way. Like picking an object in the distance and counting down from ten, to see if you can make it at a reasonable speed, instead of breaking into a sprint. Of course, sometimes that becomes a slow count or you leap at the last moment to make it past in time.

That’s just being childishness, isn’t it.

Thankfully, the few remaining embers of the dying day keep the landscape enough aglow that I can recognise the odd tree or rock from my way into town.

The brook, babbling below, my companion.

Other than the moment of forgetfulness around the way back, the rest of the trek uphill is uneventful. Too late and now cool for the mosquitoes, I’m not pecked at continually while taking the long bowed path up to the house.

By the time I’m sliding the front door shut behind me, I’m dead on my feet and barely have the energy to put my shoes away.

I stumble upstairs and flop onto the bed I first woke up in.

After an unreasonable amount of time, trying and failing to fall asleep, I sit up. My skin is itching, clothes sticky from sweat, crusted with dirt… and I stink.

Dragging my reluctant protesting body downstairs, out of the back doors, and into the night filled garden, I head for the well.

Pulling the bucket up has me exhausted almost to the point of collapse, but I wrestle it over the lip all the same. I dip my cupped hands into the water and splash some on my face.

It’s freezing.

I know it’s actually just ambient ground temperature, but I’m not scrubbing myself down with that.

Thankfully, I’m at least a lot more awake now.

Brain in gear, I formulate a plan.

Grabbing a mix of kindling from the woodshed, I spend the next few minutes getting a fire going under the raised cauldron.

Ya boy is having a a goddamn bath!

Exhilarated at setting a fire in record time - I am a pro now after all - I go about hauling pails of water across the yard.

Each bucket sets the temperature back a little bit, but the fire keeps increasing in intensity, so the overall heat of the bath rises noticeably every time I return to the giant clay pot.

It takes dozens of trips to fill the bath, and the best part of - I assume - an hour to get it up to temperature.

However, the small furnace underneath is churning out so much heat, the entire base of the bath is glowing red, and it just keeps getting hotter.

Not wanting to boil myself alive, I pull out most of the still smouldering logs, letting them turn to embers on the stone flagging. Should make it a bit warmer for when I out of the water too.

I scoop a bucket’s worth of the simmering water out, peal my top off, and squat down to scrub it with the soap.

In the glow of the low fire, the near blackness of the bucket somehow still turns a darker shade, as clouds of filth billow out of the fabric.

I’ve been wearing that!

I would gag, but the I think I’ve become inoculated to the smell. Though little whiffs of stench keep coming off me whenever I move too strenuously. Olfactory reminders that once my clothes are done, I need to be cleaned as thoroughly.

Once my top has been soaped several time and there doesn’t seem to be much grime left in the fibres, i splay it out on the stone floor near the coals. As the residual heat helps dry it out, I dump the befouled bucket into the latrine, and fetch a fresh load from the bath.

Stripping off my pants feels weird out in the open, but I know there aren’t any neighbours to spy on me, so I try to shrug it off. I’ve got work to do here, no time for shame.

I hastily repeat the process with my jeans, lay them out to dry next to my top, then rinse and repeat with my unmentionables.

The bath water, thankfully having reduced in temperature to just about bearable, is honestly divine by the time my laundry is done.

I pull out another bucket load to wash myself from crown to ground. Soap suds covering my body like I’m made of bubbles.

I dump a couple of pails over my head and limbs to get rid of every last one, then slip into the pot to make soup of myself.

Even in another world, a long soak in a hot bath at the end of a rough day, is absolute heaven.

God I sound like an old man…

Dad would love this…

Mom too…

…

I choke.

Before the tears can even reach my chin, I dunk my head underwater. Holding my breath and myself under. I let out a scream. Let it be drowned by the warm waters.

For a moment I thrash out of frustration, anger, and misery at the situation… but feel the great whole bath shift the tiniest bit. The momentum of water and my body enough to make it rock momentarily. I use the panic to calm my passions from rising up further.

As the last bit of breath leaves my lungs I begrudgingly breech the surface.

“phuuuuuuuuuuuuuu…”

I flick my fringe back away from my forehead - because I’m worth it - let out a sardonic laugh to myself, and stare up at the starry summer sky.

The deep dark, the vastness, the clarity of every glittering speck… a truly alien sky.

“I’m going to get home!”

I stand up in the bath, a little too enthusiastically, fist clenched in determination, and have to balance myself in case sloshing the water causes it to wobble again. Thankfully, I wasn’t as violent as my little temper tantrum before, but my head swoons slightly from the heat and rapid ascension.

I steady myself on the brim, letting the static fill and dissipate from my eyes.

I don’t have a towel.

Carefully pulling my legs over the high sided stone vat, I decide on running upstairs to the small bedroom and using the inside of the sheets to dry myself. They’re already mucky on the outside from my trying to sleep earlier. What’s a little wet on top of that?

I can wash them tomorrow and use some spares from the linen closet in the meantime.

What a little domestic goddess I am!

Mum would really be proud.

I’ll have to help out more when I’m home to make up for being such a bum.

I take a moment to shake myself off like a wet dog, minus the smell, and stand in the still considerable heat from the fire.

I want to dance about like a cast away, or the first ape to walk upright and master tools, but I refrain. Even though the impulse to worship the fire god is strong.

It’s a pretty singular experience air drying in the dark… in the nude…

Embarrassed as all hell from my realization, I sprint into the house, vault the stairs, and make short work of drying off.

Without any spare clothes, I wrap myself in the bedding from the other single room.

It’s pleasantly cosy, despite the warmth of a summer night. Not too stifling or humid today it would seem.

Now I’m talking about the weather… ugh!

To be fair, without my phone I am paying more attention to everything.

My senses heightened; my superhero arc begins!

I swoosh the blanket around me like a cape and leap down to middle landing… oh yeah, real smooth!

It is actually pretty fun being home alone, messing about however I like without the need to worry about my parents walking in, or neighbours complaining about the noise.

I sidle back outside and check on my clothes. They’re still very wet, but the heat radiating through the stone flags has kept them warm.

I’ll have to find some rope to tie up a washing line or make a stand out of wood for them to air on.

Toddling over to the wood shed, I find nothing long enough to use, and no way to ensure whole logs would remain stable if stacked, nor any twine. I then check the bit with all the gardening tools.

There’s only a few things with long handles that might be useable: a rake, a shovel, and I think it’s called a hoe, but I have no idea what they’re used for.

Arms full, I drag all three out of the tool shed, and struggle my way back to the fire.

After a few failed configurations topple over without so much as a breeze touching them, I finally manage to erect a pretty stable three sided pyramid.

The shovel and hoe, pole ends propped against the brick base of the bath’s fire pit, end up balanced on top of the rake. Their tool heads weighing the structure down, while the teeth of the rake are wedged into a gap between some of the tiles, so there’s little wriggle.

I place my top on one side of the fire, pants on the other, and underwear on the far side. They’re smaller items so should dry quicker anyway, thus not needing as much heat.

I’m getting real good at this mountain man lifestyle!

I sit by the fire a little longer. Wrapped in bed sheets, only my hair still a bit damp.

Tiredness is creeping up on me properly - I think I could actually sleep now that I don’t stink - so I sluggishly stand and head back inside.

The fire - having died down to charcoals - is giving only a mild orange glow, dimming to dull reds, so I’m not worried about my clothes catching alight from the heat.

I mean, they’re still pretty saturated, so if they do somehow fall off and get into the embers, they’ll probably put them out.

I decide to sleep in the other room.

It’s not to avoid the first room, it’s just that this one is right in front of the stairs, and I am too tired to mess about.

I flop onto the bed.

It creaks sullenly.

With just enough energy and consciousness to manage, I pull the bedding all around me, and burrito up for the night.

My dreams are those of the contented.

Nothing reflective of the stressful day behind me.

No mischievous god coming to tell me the rules of this world.

No sage like voice activating hidden abilities.

No nightmares either.

Just warmth and motion.

Like when you fall asleep on the car ride home and your parents carry you up to bed.