by Dan Edmund
Chapter 28 - The Wilderness Begins
Early next morning, Big George and his wife joined our expedition. From here onwards, there were no longer any villages to embrace us with their brotherly love. We were now canoeing up the mighty Wilderness River, in a beautiful valley filled with trees, with a backdrop of majestic mountains growing ever higher as we penetrated ever deeper into this seemingly primordial, yet benign wilderness. Here there were no infestations of mosquitoes, dangerous rapids, scorching sun nor icy cold winds; only nature at its very best: a mild sun, a refreshing breeze, gently rustling leaves, chirping birds, and the tranquil sound of flowing water. We were going upstream, yet amazingly it did not seem to matter. We traveled slower, yet our bodies were such that we could easily endure the added strain of paddling against a strong current. By midday we had reached the mountains, and the Wilderness proper. Massive forested peaks that instilled reverential awe now surrounded us. They were the highest mountains I had seen in Paradise.
By late afternoon, the river valley had narrowed so significantly that it had become a gorge. Here, near the river's bank, was our home for the night. It was a simple log cabin, similar in style to the ones built during the old American pioneering days. The walls were formed of rough logs laid horizontally, jointed at the corners, and chinked with mud and moss. The roof was slanted and made of roughly hewn flat slabs of timber. Inside were just the bare essentials: a large wooden table with a set of six matching chairs, a long box-like cupboard with some metal plates and cups, an old-fashioned cast-iron oven, some small wooden buckets, and six beds.
I asked Carlos who had made the cabin and its furniture. He only shrugged and chuckled. "Perhaps God!" Whether he was joking, I could not tell. However, after unloading our supplies from the canoes, I stood and stared at the majestic scenery that surrounded us. The river here was also narrow and swift, and looked as wild as the country surrounding it. A moment later Dad and George were standing beside me, equally awed by the spectacle.
"Beautiful, isn't it, son?"
"Yes, very, and apart from those deer in that inlet where the water seems so still and calm, it all seems so lonesome too," I added.
"Yeah, right on! But that's what also makes it special!" George said. "Here you can somehow feel close to God, you know, in a different sort of way."
Being always an outdoorsman, my father heartily agreed. However, I had always been a city person. Although I had been a couple of times to the Cascades, and even read Henry David Thoreau's Walden, and a couple of Ralf Waldo Emerson's essays in college, it was only now that I understood how a wilderness could inspire such transcendental emotions.
"I can't understand why you haven't been here before, Dad. Why is that?"
My father shrugged. "I don't exactly know. I suppose it's partly because of your ma. She don't care much for the wilderness. Never did. And me, well, I suppose I was just too happy around Deer Park, going canoeing there, as well hiking through the local hills and forests. That was enough for me." He chuckled. "Even if I couldn't go fishing!"
"So, you like fishing?" George asked.
"Yeah, I used to love it as a kid, and even as a young man!"
"Yeah, is that so?" George gave a hearty laugh. "So how about we do some fishing right now?"
Dad responded with his own laugh, equally as loud. "Yeah, sure. I'll get my fishing gear from the canoe."
"No, seriously, brother. Here you can get all the fish you want. And without killing them either!"
My father looked puzzled. "I don't get it! What do you mean?"
George pointed to some silvery, fish-shaped object floating just under the surface near the shore. "See that? That's a 'fish fruit.' It's only found here in the Wilderness. It tastes like smoked salmon. Wait on, I'll get some for you." George stepped into the water, plucked it out with his massive hands, then handed it to my father.
Dad only stared at it. "So what's this?"
"I told ya, it's like salmon."
My father took a bite and immediately spat it out. "Ah, it tastes more like raw fish!" he bellowed.
George roared with laughter. "Of course, it's not like roast leaf. It needs to be cooked first."
Attracted by all the uproar and laughter, my mother, Flo and Carlos came over to join us. My father, in between fits of laughter, explained to them what happened, and we all laughed along with him.
Finally, as the laughter settled, George rubbed his stomach and guffawed. "But wait till I'm through with cooking it. I guarantee, you've never tasted salmon like this before!"
"Oh boy, then let's get started!" my father exclaimed. "I'll make us a campfire!"
"No need for it, my man. I'll use the oven inside the cabin. And there's some firewood already stacked outside, at the back of the cabin. There always is!" George grinned and shook his head. "Now, I wonder who does all the chopping around here?" George chuckled then went over to the woodpile, grabbed an armful and stacked them into the oven. He then placed a heating stone inside, rubbed it a few times, and a fire was lit, the first true fire I had seen since my resurrection. George then laid the fish fruit on the grill. "There, that ought to do it," he said. "But it will take a while." George then suggested that we forage for some wild berries and nuts that were abundant around this area. Therefore, Carlos, my mother and I did exactly that. Meanwhile, Dad caught some more 'fish.'
Although this paradise wilderness was certainly not the harsh environment of the old world, I could see that to live off this land certainly required more work than the rest of Paradise, where ready-to-eat food was seemingly always within arm's reach. However, here in the Wilderness, apart from the fish fruit in the river, and the roast leaf that was found higher in the hills, I was told that nuts and berries had to be gathered in pretty much the same way as it had been in the mountainous forests of North America. So, we traveled up a steep incline, where about halfway up the gorge, on a broad and spacious ledge, we saw several clusters of blackberry bushes. I casually reached out to pluck a handful of the juiciest looking fruit.
"Ouch!" I yelped, more in surprise than in actual pain.
Mum was quickly by my side and stared down at my finger, then at the bush. "My goodness!" she gasped. "There are thorns on the stems!"
Carlos chuckled. "I'm sorry. I should've warned you. You see, plants in the Wilderness are much the same as they were in the old imperfect world." Then, still smiling, he asked, "May I have a look at your finger, my friend?" I lifted my right hand palm towards him and noticed a droplet of blood, which was also the first blood I had ever seen in Paradise. Carlos wiped it away and then examined my finger. "Ah, just as I thought. The wound has already healed!"
The wound, if you could call it that, had indeed completely healed. There was absolutely no trace of any skin rupture at all, nor the remotest sensation of any pain. I had completely healed in a matter of seconds. I had already known that injuries in Paradise were never painful, and that healing was almost instantaneous.
However, now that I had witnessed it firsthand, I was even more impressed. I looked up at Carlos and told him so, then asked, "Back in Deer Park, you mentioned you've been here a couple of times in the Wilderness, didn't you? Was it also for some mission, or just for fun?"
Grinning, he replied, "A long time ago, I was told to come here when I was in the Divine Light. Twice I came, and each time I spent a whole month here alone. The nights I spent right here in the cabin below, and during the day I would walk around, climb some hills and mountains, look at the scenery, pray, meditate, trying to get closer to God." He chuckled. "Of course, within the Divine Light, we all could get close to God, but not quite the same way it seems. Here, by myself, my friend, I discovered a different kind of closeness to God. That closeness has in some way remained with me ever since."
"And that's the reason why you've become the village's spiritual mentor?" I asked.
"Ah, it's only part of the reason." Then, as if to seemingly change the subject, he reminded us that we were up on this ledge to pick blackberrie
s, which we then proceeded to do. To my surprise, I noticed that not all the berries were ripe enough to pluck. We could only fill half our buckets, and thus we went to another nearby bush. However, to my even greater surprise, even astonishment, most of the berries were rotten. Never before had I seen rotten fruit in Paradise. And my mother was equally surprised. We both stared at Carlos for an explanation.
"Ah yes, plants do decay and die here in the Wilderness, just like they did in the old world."
"And what about animals?" I asked. "Surely they don't -"
"Die? No, no, my friend, only plants, because they're not conscious, at least not the way we humans, or even the animals are."
I smiled my approval and we resumed gathering blackberries. By the time we filled our buckets and returned to the cabin, there were six fish in the oven, cooked and ready to serve.