The Cliff in Mount Vernon

Chapter 23 - Painter

FALL OF 1993

The following day, the first thing I realized was how sweaty I was, being sandwiched between the buns of my sleeping bag. Second to this, I discovered that I had left my earphones on last night as I drifted into the land of my dreams. Plugged into my ears, it was exactly like how a cork would seal a wine bottle. However, I stirred up without hearing anything from the audio system, one side of the cassette tape had reeled into its end, very well at the moment my brain had gone to its unconscious state. I did not bother switching it to the other side and turning it back on. I removed it and tossed it away. Drowsy still, I only unzipped the sleeping bag halfway and turned towards my left shoulder, right leg bent and locked, hoping to catch more rest. I closed my eyes and my brain seemed to do a mental recalculation of events, what had transpired in the last few hours. Ran through my mind were a chain of scenes: my breakfast at Mo's, the bus ride to Ashbrooke, the rickshaw twins, the autumn canopies of Mount Vernon, the ale house and the people inside it, the hot spring, and ending up towards the campsite. I heaved a sigh and rubbed my toes together, warding off the queasiness, and stole a few more minutes. For who knew how long, I fell into unconsciousness again. It is really amazing how our body temporarily shuts off like that.

The next moment that I opened my eyes, it was still dark. I was unsure how long it was since my first waking although it felt like no more than half an hour. This is why I hate breaking my watch. On the contrary, what bothered me this time was the cold seeping through the nylon mesh of the tent, and I found myself rubbing my toes together more aggressively. I reached for the corner of the sleeping bag and fumbled with the zipper to zip it up once more. Let us say that I did this a few more times, alternately every ten minutes or so for the next half hour. By the time I could tell I was fully awake, dark still lurked outside like smoke rising from the candle's wick even after you extinguished the flame. It might be three or four in the morning, even five or six—I could not tell. Just an approximation, with the rich velvety blackness that painted the sky when I peered through a dot hole of the tent. With my repeated zipping of the sleeping bag, I should say it was not very much a satisfying sleep, although it was not a bad one either. Fair enough, says a man of unrest whose sleep pattern was as crappy as politicians on LSD within the last four years.

What had urged me to finally get up was, again, my bladder. Carefully, I shed the sleeping bag off myself and undid the door of the tent. Peering from left to right, I scanned the environment for any motion, any suspicious movement that would indicate that it was unsafe to venture out, and holding my urge would mean having my life spared from a bear's molars and claws. But the dimness of the star-specked sky was all there was; it was as still as an open casket of a dead person, except that the wind was there to rustle the leaves and sing the boughs a lullaby, rocking them back and forth as if in a cradle. I had the feeling I was hearing some chirping of cicadas, too, although I was dubious with this kind of sound. White noises as these are in perpetuity. Like the static noise of a radio transistor or the television. When you get to hike a mountain and spend a night there, some of your senses become clouded, shitty to distinguish the fact. The only sounds that felt real to me were my own breathing and the oh so soft flicker of my heartbeat. I ventured out in the wild when the stillness had become so convincing—it felt like I was an unreal fiction character.

I did not go that far. Maybe a few meters west to my camp, where a lucky tree or a clump of bushes stood, destined to be pissed at. Still I was convinced that there is nothing wrong with peeing in the wild, human waste is earth food anyway, and I was alone. The hell to those who say that I might offend a forest nymph or a tree sprite and get myself punished. Human race have been offending them long time ago since they decided to build cities. And we get what we deserved for those actions: the ozone layer got thinner, sea levels rose, ice in the Arctic region melted down, calamities became a frequent visitor and yeah, we lost our dear Dodo bird. Who knows by 2050, the earth would be a ginormous pool of human crap. Neubark City might not even see the sun because of those skyscrapers. I only hope Mars takes human waste as its food.