Soliloquy of an Old Survivor
Sometimes I wonder if people talk about me. I think about it every now and then, during the still times. I wonder if my name ever comes up in conversations that begin with, “Do you remember that girl…” or , “Do you think she still exists?” I, of course, know for a fact that I still exist. I'm looking at my gnarled hands and fingers right now. I'm clenching them and waving them in front of my face. They're bony and bent and maybe even arthritic. They still work fine though. Now I'm looking at my reflection in my kettle. I don't have a mirror. The reflection I see is inaccurate and unflattering because the kettle is round, so I look all bendy, but the essence of my appearance is still there, trying to stare back at me in its misshapen-ness. My nose is insignificantly lengthed with a bump above the left nostril. My lips are thin, and there are a few wispy whiskers above. I can see my lips, I can't see my whiskers, but I can feel them if I try. My eyebrows are grey and thick, and my eyes are brown like my hair, which is long and too tangled to be comfortable. I'll brush it sometime. It's not a priority. When I'm looking down at my feet, which I see poking out below my smock, I see they're a bit gnarled and worn too but they fit well in my brown sandals. My toenails are cracked and unattractive. There's a red scar on my right foot that was caused by an axe accident.
When I scan the interior of my little one-room house, maybe I should call it a shack, or even a hovel, that's probably more accurate, I see a perfectly good house for me. There's a bed on the left with a wooden frame and a mattress made of moss and a pillow also stuffed with moss. It's comfortable, and I sleep well. I have a table and a chair and a cooking area with a stone fireplace that keeps me warm and is big enough to roast a small animal. I wash my few utensils in one bucket and rinse them in another bucket. I wash my clothes in the river. It's gently flowing and only a short walk away. I have a rain bucket too. It's outside, of course. All the buckets are made of wood. My one window is just a hole covered by shutters, which I open in the good weather and close and insulate with moss in the bad weather. My roof is thatched. It rarely leaks. I'm sometimes visited by mice, and that's fine. They're usually quite placid and, if I talk to them with the right tone of voice, they sit and listen.
Outside is my favourite place. I don't really have a front yard or a back yard because, since I live deep in the forest, the whole world is my yard. But, if we are talking about what is specifically nearby, I have a little three-sided shelter with a fire pit and a stack of chopped wood piled nicely and a large toolbox containing the aforementioned axe among other items. There is also a garden where I grow tomatoes and carrots and lettuce and potatoes. A short walk from here is a patch of berry bushes and the river I mentioned earlier where I can find snails and frogs and fish in abundance.
So, all this to say that, yes, I exist, and I exist well and properly.
I can't, however, be critical of those who doubt, of those who may still be asking, "I wonder if..." No one has seen me for many years, and they would be right to assume that I had died a long time ago. It would be logical. My real age is probably ridiculously improbable. I'm not even sure how old I am. I stopped counting when it no longer mattered. When I look at my reflection in my kettle, I can vouch for the fact that I'm not aging in a typical way though, that's the truth. I may be old and wrinkled, but I've been old and wrinkled for longer than I can remember. My stamina isn't waning, my strength is good, and I'm rarely ever sick. I have all my teeth, and my hearing and eyesight are perfect.
I think the most important thing, the reason for my longevity, is this. Nothing bothers me.
The scar on my foot that I mentioned, for example. The incident that caused it would have severely bothered a more usual human, if I can use that phrase. This is what happened. I was chopping wood on a clear and cool autumn day, and my axe bounced off the log unexpectedly and redirected itself to my right foot where it penetrated in a somewhat violent, although glancing, manner. I calmly dropped the axe, hopped to the river, cleansed the wound in the cool water and then rubbed it with the leaf of a tree that I knew had medicinal properties. Then I hopped back home, still bleeding, and retrieved a needle and thread from my toolbox. The needle I had formed out of a bone from a most-delicious rabbit that I had trapped earlier. The thread was from a blouse that had fallen apart due to overwearing. I sewed myself back up and bandaged the wound with some cloth. No need for anesthetic, my pain tolerance is ridiculously high. It was an event that happened and that I had to address, and it represents my philosophy of life. Deal with what comes and don't stress. Don't be bothered. I will either survive or I won't, and both are fine.
To be clear, I don't want to give the impression that I've always done everything myself. On rare occasions in the early days, I did make the long trek back into civilization when I needed provisions that I couldn't create through my own efforts, but that hasn't been necessary for a very long time now. My visits were always in the dead of night and always when the moon was hidden by clouds. Yes, I went to town to steal, I admit it, I broke the Commandment, but only when it was absolutely vital. There were rules, though, right from the beginning. I never took food, I never took anything belonging to a child and I only stole from the houses of the affluent, never anyone whose means were limited or in distress. I stole the axe. I've stolen clothes, and I stole tools and pots and boxes of matches. I never felt that I was risking being discovered because I have an innate ability to be surreptitious. There are no trails leading from my house through the forest in any direction because my steps are so light that they don't leave a trace. I did leave subtle trails in the early days, but I have learned over time how to be invisible. I don't even make tracks in the snow anymore.
When I first decided, or perhaps I should say was encouraged by circumstance, to enter this style of life, my abilities were basically non-existent, and I had no choice but to learn and adapt quickly. I began as a primitive, sleeping in a hole and covering myself with moss and a stolen tarpaulin, and I foraged for food and planted a little garden with stolen seeds. Then, over time and with improved skills, as I ventured deeper and deeper into nature, I learned, trial and error, how to chop down trees and fashion the trunks into posts and beams for a simple shelter. I gathered grasses and moss and bundled them together for the roof. I learned that the inner bark of a tree can be pulled apart like celery string, and I used it to tie whatever needed tying and I still do. I gathered stones and rocks from the river to fashion a fire pit. And I taught myself how to catch animals, and I taught myself to fish with a trap that I made from woven vines. It looks like an oversized cone. The fish swim in but they can't swim back out. It really is ingenious. I also wove a net. It complements the trap. I eat with utensils that I've fashioned out of wood and bone, and I've sharpened stones so they can be used as knives. I still have the stolen cutlery, but I don't really need it. I guess it's antique by now. But there's really nothing that nature can't provide. It just takes imagination and persistence.
Once upon a time, I really was a member of society. But I chose to vanish. Too much trauma.
There's probably a final question. If I live alone and have been completely reclusive for decades, then who am I talking to right now? Honestly, I'm not quite sure. The forest? The universe? Myself? Every now and then I get reflective, and I think about life and how I exist, and I discuss it. The audience isn't the point. Sometimes it's good to get the thoughts out of my head and to hear them with my own ears before they turn around and fill me up again.
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