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

ferocious waterfall. At its side, the current had gotten stuck between the curve of two rocks, and a black whirlpool churned away. We stopped and dangled in our bare legs, the jacuzzi-like current massaging my calves while we watched the stunning fall tumbling down and sending its own thin mist up into the air. We held onto the rocky sides and lowered in for a bath. I laughed at Harry’s increased cautiousness. I just did the same thing as before- controlling my breathing, telling myself it wasn’t cold. It was a lot easier this time. The warming sun above the trees helped. I washed myself all over and dipped my head and we got out and threw on our clothes.

“Aw, it feels amazing!” Harry shrieked, “I can’t remember ever feeling so free. Look at those vines!”

I raised my eyes to the green, rope-like ivy dangling thirty feet above us. Harry yanked on a piece and it snapped off. He tossed it into the river and it writhed like a snake. We climbed back up the cliff and slow-jogged down the hill. “Aw, man, everyone should do that!” I shouted. “It’s free. It’s fun. They should recommend that on the NHS!”

“Ah, but the economy would suffer! Unless the pharmaceutical industry could buy all the water supplies.” Harry morphed into a Southern English news announcer, “Disaster as GlaxoSmithKleine see their hundreds of millions pill income lost overnight, as people realise, What the fuck are we doing? We can make ourselves happy!”

I laughed. “Is that how much it is, in only a year?!” I said.

“Yeah. In America it’s worse. It’s billions a year there. They wiped out the highlanders and lowlanders here, the Indians in America. All for PROGRESS! and a BETTER WAY OF LIFE!” he raised his voice again in that posh, clipped English accent. He sounded a bit like Sanders, “JOIN PROGRESSION! JOIN CIVILIZATION! NEVER MIND THAT HALF OF THE POPULATION ARE ON HAPPY PILLS TO KEEP THEMSELVES SANE!”

We jogged, embraced by our happiness, slipping in the snow and rolling and landing on our asses as we went down the slope. Back at the bridge, I looked both ways on the road and there were still no other footprints but ours. The other side of the loch was empty too. As we treaded the road, I thought how we looked at the start of our journey, compared to now, - Harry’s long brown curls gone, my red hair dyed. I thought back on having to steal those clothes from that washing line, then sleeping in the stick shelter we made, and being woken up by the fat landowner. The night at the park with the drunk kids, sleeping amongst the gorse bushes. Then Gary’s in Glasgow, and the stone cottage, and now, here. We had done bloody well. And now we were free. It was highly unlikely we would get caught. A couple more weeks and we’d maybe even be forgotten.

The loch splashed, and a bird flew out into the trees, a little fish in its beak. Maybe I can try making a fishing rod? I thought.

I was lost in my imagination, thinking about what the Picts would have used, when a flock of about a hundred geese swarmed across the sky, their triangle pattern pointing the direction they were going. Their low-pitched honks trailed the air till they disappeared above the tree line.

“They’re going to the warmth. We went to the cold.” Harry said.

Back at the tent, we still had no luck with the fire. We spent the night outside, watching the stars and playing different games.

Next day we went out walking again. We climbed a little hill. Skimmed stones on the loch. The day after we did much the same things. And for the next three days too.

But Harry was acting differently. His feet were bouncing all the time in the tent. He kept clawing and scratching his hair and fiddling with his hands. He was unable to stay either inside or outside the tent. His eyes looked pained and anxious. On our eighth day in the glen, he said he had too much energy and went for a run. Two hours later he was doing press-ups and sit-ups, but that night he was as restless as I’d seen him.

I kept asking if he was okay, and he fended it off and said he was fine. But we were sitting outside the tent, when he suddenly announced that he needed to go to Inverness.

“What do you mean, you need to go to Inverness? You went last week.”

He looked away, at the grey, saturated landscape. His pupils were tormented and desperate. “We don’t have enough food to last us. I want to get enough to keep us going. And I want to get a fishing rod as well, like you said, to be self-sufficient. And more books, I’ve read all of mine.”

It was true we were running out of food already. We’d been eating bigger portions, to keep ourselves warm. His pain-struck eyes looked out to the loch then lifted to the mountains then went down to the ground. He rubbed his face with both his hands. “What is it?” I asked. “You’re anxious. Are you getting bored here?”

“No, no, I’m fine. I’m just,-Well, yeah, I’m anxious about running out of food. And-…”

“And what?” I asked.

“And, I just have a feeling, I should go now. There’s something pulling me.”

He inhaled deeply. Wrapped up in his hat and scarf and numerous padded layers, he looked frail. He glanced up momentarily to gauge my reaction, then looked away again.

“Well, I’m coming too then.” I said.

He squirmed. His right hand grabbed some of the grass we were sitting on and twisted it around. “I don’t feel comfortable with that. They will still be looking for the two of us together. And I might have to sleep rough, which I can