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

enough for today, go and have think about it, child. Enjoy your walk. Don’t be too careless on your way back.

The impression of humour was there again, but I also felt love. A paternal love. Was that what it meant by child? Why did you call me child?

Well, you are. You’re just a human. And a child of the forest.

I lit up. I stood up straighter. Yes, that’s what I want to be. A child of the forest.

That grandfatherly love again. The feeling of that chuckling laughter. The feeling that the face was looking at me. Well, keep working. And thanks for showing us respect. Go on, now. Process this. Enjoy your day.

I wanted to stay and talk more, but I felt propelled to go back up the mountain and to the tent. Plus, it was getting dark, and I had to navigate the cliffs on the other side.

I thought about staying there and sleeping out wild, but the tree was right, best to head back. I looked beyond it then back at the face.

I just want to stay here and learn everything you have to teach. Can I?

Patience. There’s only so much you can give and take at once. Go away and process it, my child.

I accepted it. Okay, thank you. Thank you so much for your time. I’m so grateful.

I’m glad you’re grateful. My time is nothing. Bye for now.

Thanks. I love you.

I love you too, now on your way.

I bowed down with my hands clasped and my eyes closed, then I headed back up the hill.

I found an easier route down the other side and came back down onto the boggy ground, walking over to the waterfall source then following the river. I came back to the rowan, just before the oak, and stopped to pick a bunch of the mushrooms I’d seen before.

Talking to trees, I thought, as I headed along the gorge’s cliff. Have I gone crazy? What the hell? But a lot of what it said, seemed to make a lot of sense. But maybe you’ve just read too much Thoreau, your head’s in the clouds. Well, that’s true, but then like Harry quoted Emerson- In every work of genius a man recognises his own rejected thoughts, and is forced to have them come back at him? So why deny it?

It said that every being is tied up in this thing you call “mass consciousness”. And we are from the thing you call God, and we return to the thing you call God. Or that’s what I heard, or what I thought myself. What does that mean? Are we all a part of this mass consciousness? If we are, then it confirms what I already know and have seen- that we all have souls. I saw one in the hospital! And we are all created and return to the thing we call God? Well, that means God created us, which is obvious to me. Some higher being, some greater entity, created spirit and poured it into matter, and then we all just return to Him? But why? For his enjoyment, his pleasure? Are we just his playthings? You have to work it out for yourself. You and everyone else in this mass consciousness. If we have to learn it for ourselves, is that why we are here? To learn and to grow? So then, life is to be experienced.

We are alive. The trees are alive. Does that mean the grass and rocks are too? And they suckle up our negative thoughts. Why though? Because they love us?

I passed the whirlpool and the chasm, and was almost at the bridge when I found some nettles. They looked old, and the edibles book said they are best picked in Spring, not November, but I was starving and wanted some different flavor. I wanted the nutrition of some greens. I picked a bunch, getting stung in the process, and before I was back at the tent I also stocked up on a load of blackberries.

Chapter 52

I really was famished by the time I got back, and my body felt weak and my feet sore from all the tramping. I turned on the stove straight away and pulled off my boots and boiled some tea. I had a little rest inside the tent, then went out with a few pieces of charcoal I’d kept. I managed to get the fire lit.

I poured out the rice, there was only a third of the bag left, then I added some of the nettles, mushrooms and blackberries with the water. When it was ready, the stewed nettles looked just like spinach. Their green goodness. The nutty, warm mushrooms. And the sweet juiciness of the berries. I devoured it all under the stars and licked the bowl clean. I felt pretty full. I put out the fire and went inside and stretched out in my bag.

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I woke in pitch darkness. I doubled over in agony. The acids in my stomach were churning like a washing machine. I twisted and squirmed and was trying to get comfortable, when a great surge shot up my throat. I swallowed it back, and a fusty, lumpy concoction lingered behind my tonsils. I groaned and stuck my feet in my unlaced boots and ran outside, collapsing onto my knees, clutching to the nearest tree, and waited for the next round to come. I didn’t have long. My belly rumbled loudly then a yellow plume shot up and out my throat, landing in the moss.

For ages it kept coming, vomit after vomit. I thought it must be over, then I was sick again. My stomach muscles ached. Was it the mushrooms, the nettles, or both? I wondered, between bouts. My throat kept retching, my windpipe working autonomously as my body tried to get the last of it out.

There was nothing more. I