Acid Rain by R.D Rhodes (ebook reader txt) 📕

my mind and body and seeing how far I can go. All the shit I’d been thinking was non-existent. I kept looking back on the climbs I’d navigated. I had overcome, I was strong.

I imagined what would happen if I had died. But I felt safe enough and I didn’t want to stop. I got up to the top. The wind blew harder and I had to dig in my shoes to keep from blowing off.

I lay down near the summit and closed my eyes. I wanted to keep that feeling of being on top of the world, and have it forever. I dreamed of letting myself starve up there, and getting to die in a beautiful place, and happy. But I had to go down. It was going on two. There will be plenty more chances to climb, I thought.

When I got back to the village, I bought a little bottle of Irn Bru and sat on the wall drinking it and eating the cheese and bread. The temperature was warming up when the bus came in- Harry at the back with his hood up, reading a book. He came off carrying a bulging eco-bag in each hand.

“That’s a lot of stuff!” I said.  I looked in the carrier bags- a new stove and two thick sleeping bags. Some rice, some porridge.

“Courtesy of Tesco.” Harry said cheerily. He stashed away his book and we walked towards Affric again.

“Did you steal all of that?”

“Just some of it.” He walked with a determined swagger, his face stoic on the road ahead. “The bins were all fuckin’ locked. But anyway, how are you? What did you do?”

“I climbed those hills.” I pointed. “It was beautiful.”

“Those ones?”

“Yeah.”

“To the tops?!”

“Uh-huh.”

“Cool. What was it like?”

I told him about the climbing, and he told me about Inverness, and how good our four-season sleeping bags and butane stove seemed. He managed not to pay for one of the sleeping bags by going through the self-service tills. We chatted away as we passed the old cottage we’d slept in the night before. The blue patches in the sky were gradually covered with fat, grey clouds, and soon snow started to fall.

It felt adventurous. Heading out towards the middle of nowhere. We were both excited, even after the farce of the last night. But first we had to go past the bridges, and the hydroelectric dam, where a buzzing new generator was being set up. As the snow settled we watched the maintenance guys at work, standing out a mile in their orange boiler-suits.

We headed out past them all, and beyond the rows of spruce trees, and down the rolling roads, till we made it to the sign for Glen Affric Nature Reserve. Beyond the sign the land seemed to grow wilder with every hundred yards. The road cut through woods of birch and oak and cherry. Thick snowflakes swirled in front of our eyes. To our left, the river was getting louder and bigger while everything else fell silent. The white packed higher. It felt like it was snowing just for us.

About an hour later the light began to fade, and we headed into the trees to set up camp. The soft snow crunched harmoniously as we got well away from the road, and we found a good spot on level ground.

Working together it was easy, and we had the two-man tent up in barely five minutes. We zipped open the door, threw our rucksacks inside, laid the cheaper sleeping bags down, and rolled the new, thicker ones over on top. Harry tied the lamp to the string dangling from the ceiling, and we were ready.

He turned on the blue flame of the portable stove and cooked up a pack of chicken soup in the pot. We dipped bread into the soup. I wolfed my portion down and snuggled into my sleeping bag. I felt like I could explode with happiness.

Outside it was freezing. It was going to be a long, cold night. But we were so warm. There we were in our own owned home. Sheltered from the elements by nothing more than a strong, thin wall of tarp. I felt happy from such a simple thing, and happy that I could feel so happy from such a simple thing. I rolled and nestled and felt comfy all over. I was aware of myself grinning like the Cheshire cat. Harry was too. The delight didn’t falter as the steam from our second cups of soup flared up our nostrils and up through the air.

It soon got dark. Harry took out the book he’d been reading on the bus. He offered me another one, but I was content just to sit in the silence and take all the peace and comfort in. There was nobody around. No lights of towns and cities. Nobody to tell us what to do. No bad neighbors. We were alone for at least a couple of miles.

I felt independent. My muscles ached satisfactorily from their good workout on the mountain trek. I fell asleep and slept like a baby.

Chapter 41

“Mornin!”

I opened my eyes to the steaming cup and bright light pouring in through the canvas. I took the cup and sat up on my bum. Harry was smiling like a kid on Christmas. He sat up under the dome with his legs and feet shaking, his eyes blazing on me.

“You’re cheery this morning!” I laughed.

“Well, look at that?” He almost leapt across to the door and whipped it back to reveal a winter wonderland, “It’s beautiful!”

It really was. I sipped the tomato soup as a little red robin landed next to the door and weightlessly hopped along the layer of white. With a quick flutter it flew away again.

“Your scabs are almost all gone.” I said.

Harry’s hand jittered as he brought it