Good Friday Morning. After my initial panic yesterday I realized I was far more ahead than I thought i was. I thought I had a project I needed to pull together before Monday and was worried because I thought I forgot pieces, but it turns out the deadlines were pushed back and I am just waiting for someone else to do their bit. So no freak out was needed. So today started with a sense of relief. And coffee. I used the pause and pour function to sneak a cup before sitting down. I’m still looking forward to a second cup as there was little sleep late night so let’s get rolling with the morning prompt. Ready, set, write! Write like your second cup of coffee depends on it!
Okay, that was worth a second cup of coffee. I don’t know why Colin is in the jungle but i really want to find out.
Friday, April 29th: The line held.
The line held. Colin tugged on it and realized that it was the next part that was the hardest. Figuring out that he needed to get a line across the chasm was the easy bit. That just required logic. Getting the line across required a combination of luck and skill. Getting it to hold once over seemed like an act of god.
‘Now I have to cross,’ he told himself.
Although his hands gripped the line firmly, his feet wouldn’t budge. They were securely placed on the rock where he stood and that is where they wanted to stay. They had no intention of letting him swing out into the nothingness supported by a rope he made himself from jungle vines, shot across by a make shift bow and hooked onto the other side but what amounted to a stick thrust on the other side of two boulders with the rope running between. He tugged again on the rope.
“It is holding,” he told his traitorous feet. They didn’t want to listen.
“It isn’t that far across,” he told himself.
“But it is a long way down,” the back of his brain reminded him.
There was no arguing with that. The river below, wide and raging looked like a thin blue line sparkling in the sunlight but a slender and delicate line nonetheless.
Behind him Colin heard rustling in the undergrowth. There was a squeal and the tromping of hoofs. He guessed it to be a wild pig. He tried tracking it for his supper last night but was unsuccessful. It was a wily pig.
‘But it is running from something,’ The thought trumped his feet’s desire to stay planted on stone. Anything chasing that pig was just as likely to attack him, more so even if the pig managed to evade capture. He had seen no other human for over a week. He doubted there was one chasing the pig now. The thought galvanized him into motion and before he could think about it he was sliding across his makeshift rope. The line sagged a little as it took his full weight and it creaked, but it held.
His feet were left to dangle as his arms performed the Herculean task of getting him to the other side. He tried to control his swinging and didn’t think about anything but what was on the other side. He kept his sights focused on the two boulders in front of him and the line running between. His toes brushed the ground and he looked down. His swinging foot managed to connect with the edge of earth. He kept going until his feet were on the ground again. He daren’t let go of the rope this close to the edge though in case the edge of the ravine crumbled under his weight. He let the ground take more of his weight though and felt the vine rope nearly sigh with relief.
The sounds grew louder behind him and Colin knew the pig was indeed fleeing for its life. He wished the pig well as he shifted on hand to grip the boulder in front of him. He hauled himself forward letting go of the rope to sag against the rocks. Sweat dripped down his face and as he leaned back to catch his breath, he wiped his face with his shirt sleeve. The buttons on the cuff had long since disappeared into the jungle floor and the cloth itself was grayish now from sweat and dirt.
Ten til Midnight 