The Cliff in Mount Vernon

Chapter 22 - The bear and the hot spring

FALL OF 1993

I did what I was told. I followed the yellow flags down the path the Drunk Tailor had pointed, just right after I said my goodbyes and told them that I can drink no more. He offered a lodge for me, free of charge, despite the mumblings of the Matron, saying how she would have another room to clean the following day. This I politely refused, not only to spare the Matron of additional chores and the fellows her wave of grumpiness, but also I would like to spend the night alone, in the woods perhaps, despite the darkness, despite the stories about wild bears. It was the respite I was probably longing for for a long time, although I have to say that I did enjoy our little party inside their ale house; the sound of Paquito's accordion-playing still resonating inside my ear, swallowing me whole with the Violin Concerto in E Allegro. I would have stayed a little longer to have one more game, but I saw through the glass panes that the sun was starting to set and the darkness beginning to spread, and the Matron advised me to postpone my hunt for the hot spring once it gets dark along the way. Besides, all good things of folly and drunken merriness always come to an end. I hated to break our little celebration but that is just how the way things go. So I did what I was told, I ventured out into the wild again with my camp pack on my shoulders with the bottle of arrack inside it, and followed the yellow flags.

The Drunk Tailor said they will lead me to the hot spring. The trail went alongside it, and they said that I shall never look for what awaited at the end of the yellow flags, for nobody ever returned from those who tried. It fascinated me how there existed people in the forest who had stranger and more curious stories than I; it made me feel more normal. When the Drunk Tailor broke me this news I paused for a short while, smiled and said I would not. I just needed a nice clean bath. On who placed those yellow flags on trees, I did not ask. Maybe themselves. Or some kind explorer.

Despite the Matron's advice, I persisted in looking for the hot spring even after the sun had set in the horizon. I had my flashlight, no fuss, and the light that the broken glass plate exuded was enough to aid me along the way, tracking those yellow flags like the cookie crumbs of Hansel and Gretel. From one tree to another I would station myself, sometimes I would bring my head so close to the yellow flag, just to make sure it is the correct object and not some random leaf or an insect in camouflage.

Once in a while I would hear some scurrying and some flapping of wings, but the tandem made by the forest and the nightfall—such perfect breeding place for unknown forces—was no more than just an illusory monster trying to inhabit my head. True it is that I had all the reason to feel scared, for I could never tell what lurked beneath the wild; it could be a bear, a snake or whatever else that had teeth and venom. But one thought that randomly dominated my mind at that time was the uncertainty of life and the certainty of death; the morbidity of the idea oddly eased me more than disturbed me. It was a slap of the truth on my face, a sweet slap caked with peanut butter and jelly. I did not expect that young as I was, that was how I would embrace the face of death. That life is like hiking a mountain for the first time; you do not know how long it would take, you are even unsure if you will reach the summit. And whatever else tacky comparison you could think of.

There were a few steep slopes and climbs that the yellow flags had led me to, so I used the rope I had inside my pack as a grip. I could only imagine if Mo had gone with me, he had probably insisted to stay in the ale house for the night instead, drinking arrack and playing cards until the wee hours. But Mo was not there, neither anybody else to keep me company; the Drunk Tailor, Paquito, the Weary Waiter and the Matron were just icebreakers, to cool my ass down after the walk along the long winding road that I had taken. If only the ale house could move places, I would have carried it on my back. But as real as it was, I was alone in the forest, in a patch of autumn artwork somewhere in the islets of Mount Vernon, nobody to hear my call in case the circumstances necessitated me to. No parents, no brother, not one among my friends in the university, no Mo, not even the Russian girl.