After carefully surveying the surrounding area, to satisfy himself there were no wild animals, or giant birds, waiting to pounce on him, Pol slowly edged out from his new hidey-hole and studied it from the outside.
‘Yep. This’ll do for the time being.’
For the time being!
Ugh…
Chapter 39
Because there were plenty of rocks, of all shapes and sizes, scattered around the vicinity it would be easy enough for him to construct a simple wall of sorts around the front entrance, and also fill in the second, rear entrance. Something about shoulder-height, maybe a couple of feet thick ought to suffice. If he were to leave a bit of a low opening, to enable him to crawl in and out on his hands and knees, with a simple gate or door made of wood, he reasoned he should be safe enough. A roof over the top of this wall, using some of the larger flat stones would give him a bit of extra security.
But,
‘Easier said than done.’
First off, although Pol was no weakling by any means, he was by far the strongest of people. Knew he would have to be careful when lifting and carrying some of the bigger rocks. If he were to injure himself now he had be at the mercy of the first hungry beast to come across his dehydrated body!
Any wall which he built would need to be quite substantial, strong enough to keep out elephants, rhinos, and the like, and it would need to be at least two or three feet thick. Small stones and pebbles were not going to be much good at all. Would need to use quite big rocks. Heavy rocks. Lots of them. More than he had anticipated using.
Pol knew for a fact he would be sweating his dubries off whilst he was building such a wall. More so in this energy-draining heat. In which case, he would need access to plenty of drinking water.
Problem.
The nearest water was the river.
“Bum.”
Thinking about the river made him realize just how thirsty he was already. He needed a drink—now.
Pol squinted at his watch. Six thirty. It would be getting dark some time around ten o’clock, by his reckoning. He needed to get a bit of a shift on if he was going to get all the way down to the river and back, plus build his wall, before it got too dark to work. His perceived wooden gate would have to wait until tomorrow.
‘Tomorrow?’
He made surprised.
“What do you mean, tomorrow? I’m going home tomorrow. I am not staying here a moment longer than I have to.”
‘Yeah. Right.’
He looked around at the strange landscape as if he were seeing it for the first time.
“But, which is the way home?” he wondered.
An uneasy feeling of emptiness crept into the back of Pol’s mind. Waves of anxiety threatened to swamp his body.
To his consternation, his bowels made a low grumble and his stomach muscles contracted.
“This is not good. Not good at all,” he mumbled. Sniffed and flicked a bead of sweat from the end of his nose.
Lifted his head, with the intention of swearing at whichever stupid God was doing this to him. Stopped. Blinked in stunned surprise.
“What the...?”
Time paused as his mind tried to comprehend what he was seeing.
“Uh?”
Couldn’t quite take it in.
Stunned.
‘Shit.’
The sun was high in the sky, not low down, as he would expect it to be at this time of day. But, other than this, it was shining a bright yellow-red, or was it a red-yellow, instead of the normal yellow.
“That’s not my sun!” he cried. Made an uncomprehending shake of his head. “My sun’s yellow, not red.”
His sun.
His sun!
The sun. The Earth’s sun.
Pol instinctively checked his watch. Nope. He was right.
‘Bugger me. It ought to be lower than that at this time. If this is right, then this can’t be Earth.’
“So. Where the hell am I?”
He glanced around the sky. Yes. It was sort of ok. Blue, like the sky should be. Only thing was, it was a dark blue, not light blue, as was the sky back on Earth.
“Back on Earth...?”
Chapter 40
Pol made totally confused.
His voice almost broke when he tried to speak. The dryness in his throat made it difficult and it sounded more as if he was croaking like a frog. A fearful tremor ran through his body. His stomach muscles tightened considerably, threatened to cramp up on him, brought tears to his eyes.
“Back on Earth,” he repeated quietly.
Taking a step backwards, Pol leaned against the angled slab of rock, which formed the roof of his cave. Allowed his shoulders to slump and his arms to hang loosely by his side.
“Come on, Dopey Daisy, come on,” he urged his befuddled brain. “Sort this out, will you?”
He stared down at the ground. Tried to get his head round this new discovery.
“Wave your magic wand or your umbrella...”
Only the red sand and rocks filled his vision, not the green grass of home.
“...or whatever it was you use.”
Blink.
Nah!
Nothing had changed. No answers. No reasons. No solutions. No magic bolt from the blue to send him back to his own world.
He lifted his head and looked upwards.
The sun glared down at him.
Blink.
Seemed to fill the sky.
Then,
He looked down again but this time over to one side.
The long grass, way over to Pol’s left, disappeared down some kind of bank, with misty hills in the distance. Turned his head and looked to his front. Rocky ground sloped downhill to the river. On the opposite bank, a dense forest which appeared to stretch forever. A glance to his right revealed how the bare rock-strewn ground eventually merged with the trees of the forest on this side of the river.
He did not bother to look behind him. He already knew the high cliff must be at least a hundred feet in height. Perhaps more.
The river.
The forest.
The sky.
The sun.
The cave.
No hedges.
No lane.
No Tinker.
No home.
And, no shit!
No matter how Pol tried to fit all of this into a kind of coherent picture, the pieces refused to gel and churned aimlessly around in his mind. His confused brain refused to accept what he was seeing.
To Pol, it all seemed so unreal. As if he were watching one of those sci-fi films where a person’s mind is represented by a host of swirling colors and flashing lights plus a few screams and some of that stupidly annoying electronic music shrieking in the background.
He made a little strangled, cough.
“Bugger.”
Tried to shake himself out of his stupor.
“I can’t do this,” he muttered.
The after effect of a sudden shock caused Pol’s breathing to get shallower and quicker, until he was almost gasping for breath. His heart pounded wildly in his chest, his head began to hurt, and his vision made blurred. Fearing he might be on the verge of passing out, Pol unsteadily staggered the few steps to his right, towards a large boulder. Gingerly sat on the boulder with his hands on his knees and greedily gulped in the dry air.
Eventually, Pol managed to control his breathing and slowly shook his head from side to side as he softly moaned, “I can’t do this. Can’t...”
Chapter 41
When Pol woke up, he couldn’t remember where he was to start with. Tried to comprehend why he should be lying, face down, on the ground. He stared blankly at the red sandy soil his face was resting on.
‘What?’
Perplexed, he raised his head a few inches off the ground and winced as a sharp pain shot between his eyes. Lowered his head and rested his right cheek on the warm sand.
‘Gnnnh.’
With his eyes tightly closed, he took a few deep b
reaths, pressed the fingers of his right hand to his forehead, and slowly counted up to ten. When he opened his eyes, the pain had eased slightly, was almost bearable as long as he slitted his eyes against the bright light of day.
‘So groggy.’
He carefully eased himself up, until he was sitting with his legs stretched out before him, and rested his back against a large rock, the very rock he had been sitting on.
Rubbing his forehead with the palm of his right hand, he made relieved. The wetness he felt was only sweat, not blood, as he feared it might have been.
Through squinting eyes, he peered around him.
“Aw shit,” he moaned deflated. “It wasn’t a dream. I’m still here. Sod it!”
With eyes tightly screwed, he lightly thumped at his temples with clenched fists, and growled like an angry animal. It did nothing to relieve his frustration.
Pol had no option but to reluctantly accept the reality of his situation. His shoulders slumped and he made a sick face. No, he had not been dreaming. All of this was real. The strange place still surrounded him, just as it had done before he passed out.
Suddenly remembering the strange bird, Pol fearfully glanced around the sky, worried in case it should return, and bemoaned the stupidity of his situation.
Blink.
‘I could have been ripped to shreds and been eaten before I knew anything about it!’
Made a nervous shudder.
“Fancy lying out in the open like that with no protection.”
Pol nervously licked his lips, tasted the salt on them.
‘Must have fainted.’
His lips were dry. So was his throat.
Hot and bothered, light-headed, confused, and thoroughly pissed-off.
‘I’m dehydrated. I really need a drink.’
“If I don’t get some water soon, I’ll pass out again.”
‘Next time, I might not wake up.’
The open space, which lay between him and the river, was daunting in his weak state. He judged the distance to be more than three hundred yards, give-or-take. May as well be a mile. If he were to be attacked on his way down there, or on the way back, especially by some hungry, four-legged creature, he knew he would not stand a chance. His pathetic little pointed stick would be totally useless.
Apart from the odd boulder lying here and there, plus thousands of smaller rocks, there was only the bare, sandy surface; no long grass through which he might have been able to crawl unseen.
‘I’ve got to find something better than this silly stick with which to defend myself.’
But,
He could see nothing else he might be able to use as a weapon. He had no option but to rely on his silly pointed stick.
‘I’ll just have to pray nothing too big will want to eat me and that bloody bird doesn’t come a calling.’
Once he had collected his pointed stick, Pol psyched himself up and made ready. Counted to three under his breath. Stood up and started to run towards the river dashing from boulder to boulder, as if he was trying to dodge a host of imaginary bullets. Paused for a moment behind each boulder, just to make sure it was safe before proceeding to the next. Tried to select those boulders, which were large enough to provide him with half-decent cover.
All the time he was on the move, Pol kept glancing about him. Made very wary, the way terrified people might do if they were afraid of being caught and eaten by some drooling monster from the depths of Hell...
Chapter 42
It took Pol more than five minutes to reach the relative safety of a cluster of umbrella trees on the bank of the river. He thankfully crawled beneath one of the thickest of the trees and half-lay, half sat against its trunk. As he rested on one elbow, he greedily gulped in great gasps of air as he tried to get his breath back.
‘Whoo.’ he puffed. ‘Phew.’
Trembling and sweating profusely from a mixture of fear and excitement, Pol silently chastised himself as sweat beaded his face and seeped from every pore in his body.
‘That’ll teach you to skip games at school, fatty.’
Patted his belly and thought about the four slices of toast and jam he had eaten for breakfast earlier in the day, before he had taken Tinker out for his walk. He was not fat by any means. Not even slightly overweight. Some would say he was about right for his five feet eight inches in height, at one hundred and thirty six pounds, which was, slightly less than ten stones. He was quite fit, in his opinion. Walking his dog, Tinker, twice or three times a day helped to keep him in relatively good shape. His only problem might be running, running for his life especially. Yep. Running would always let him down. Be out of breath before he had covered twenty yards. Even a tortoise would be able to outrun him, never mind a hare.
Once his breathing was under control and his heart rate had slowed down, Pol became aware of something different around him. Sure. The umbrella tree appeared to be similar to the one he had taken refuge under previously but there was something else. Scattered around the ground, in clumps, were what appeared to be balls of coarse black fur. The balls were of irregular size, ranging from tennis ball to almost football size.
A soft carpet of dead leaves and thorns covered the ground to a depth of almost two inches in Pol’s estimation. Luckily, as before, the thorns being dead were mainly soft and pliable, almost comfortable to lie on, as opposed to those still living on the tree, which were rigid and very, very sharp.
Curiosity overcame any apprehension Pol might have had and he reached out to the nearest ball of fur. Carefully fingered it. Rubbed it between finger and thumb. Yes. It was as coarse and rough as it appeared to be. Did not appear to be contrived or woven, the strands being intermingled in haphazard fashion.
‘What’s been and left all this stuff here?’
“Ah!”
Now he saw the truth. Long strands of the same hair, fur, whatever, were caught up in the tree’s lower branches. Hooked up on the thorns. Some areas, the strands had been blown around by wind, and were clumped in small groups. Pol assessed this to be the cause of the balls lying on the ground.
‘Could be right. Wind’s blown it free and rolled it up. Easy.’
“Black as coal. Probably shed by some animal creeping under the branches for a bit of shelter, hiding from one of those big birds no doubt.”
‘Of course, it might just have been using the tree to groom itself. Like a big comb.’
“Clever.”
Made him shiver at the thought such an animal may be dangerous. Conjured up visions of hairy creatures with horns and large teeth. Lots of teeth. Hungry, as well.
‘Gulp.’
“Funny.”
‘Looks like it’s clean though.’
He rubbed his fingers through the ball of fur and peered closely at it in the dim light.
‘Can’t see any little beasties or worms in it.’
“Perhaps it’s sterile.”
A picture of his grandmother knitting one of her famous woolly pullovers crept into Pol’s mind and he made a little laugh,
“Ha!”
‘Pity I can’t knit.’
Until another thought entered his mind,
‘Shouldn’t be too difficult to weave something out of this stuff though. Perhaps I could make a nice blanket for me to use in the cave.’
He carefully stripped out a single strand of hair from the ball and stretched it out using both hands. Had to be at least three feet in length. Another three samples proved to be just as long.
‘Mmmm. I can carry a huge pile of this back to the cave. It’s not the least bit heavy. Quite light actually.’
“Hope I’m not allergic to the stuff.”
Pulling sharply on a length of the hair, he winced when it refused to break and tightened around his fingers.
“Ow. You shit!”
He released the strand, allowed it to fall across his legs, and flexed his fingers.
“Tough stuff. No damage done though.”
In less than a minute Pol had g
athered quite a heap of the stuff. Used a few single strands to tie it into a manageable bale. Once he had finished, he sat back against the trunk of the tree and admired his handiwork.
“Hmmm. Not bad. Eh?”
That’s when thirst came knocking at the roof of his mouth.
‘Got to get a drink.’
Pol crawled forward and peered out from beneath the tree. Made sure there were no fierce monsters waiting to grab him before he cautiously crawled out from his cover and edged nearer to the riverbank. Continually glanced around as he did so.
The river was flowing slowly, meandering along at a leisurely pace, and the water level was no more than a foot below the top of the bank.
Reaching down with his right hand Pol scooped up some of the cool water, raised it to his lips, and took a wary sip. He had no intention of simply, gulping the water down; as far as he was aware, it might contain any number of diseases. He had no idea how many animals and fish might have pissed or shit in it, further upstream.
Making a face, Pol curled his top lid, and spat the water out after briefly rolling it around his mouth, a bit like one of those wine connoisseurs might do.
‘Mmmm. Well, it tastes ok. But, you never know.’
The water looked clean enough to his untrained eye, clear enough for him to see a number of large fish swimming aimlessly around. As with trees, he was not much good at identifying different types of fish, one fish being much like another in his mind. But what would one of these fish taste like?
Just then, his choice was simple; he could stay thirsty or trust in fate and drink straight from the river. He had no means of carrying water back to the cave so assumed he would have to keep running backwards and forwards to the river every time he was in need of a drink. But, for the moment, he had to come up with some way of ensuring any water he did drink was safe.
‘Not too much. Just enough to keep me going until I can find a way to carry some back up the hill with me.’
Appollinaire: (The Other Side of Nowhere) Page 11