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

And then with my brother, at his apartment. Don’t worry, I told them I was working as a KP in Glasgow. They don’t know about Sleepyhillock.”

“Good.” I said. “But did you not want to stay longer?”

“Nah. I stayed my welcome period. Any longer would have been awkward, and my brother and me don’t get on that great.”

“Ah, ok.” I said.

“What’s a KP?”

“Oh. Kitchen porter.” Harry replied. “Dishwasher.” He scratched his head. “But seeing them all, brought home a lot of stuff to me. I have a lot of stuff to work through. Personal things too, I guess.” He shrugged and forced a smile.

“What about your parents? You interested-

“Nah, fuck them.” He sipped his hot chocolate. Steam wafted up from his cup into the dome of the tent and evaporated through the ceiling. His frown straightened out and he sighed contentedly, looking into his cup, “Ah! This is bloody good. Just like the Mayans.” He took another loud slurp. “Oh! And I wrote letters!” his eyes widened, “To the care commission, the police, and the government,” he looked at me, “they’ll never know where I sent it from though. And I sent one to Sanders too, and I stuck a picture of me in the envelope, with a photoshopped desert island background, hahaha!”

I laughed too. “Imagine the look on her face!” Harry cried, holding the right side of his belly. “The picture was naked as well.”

I laughed even louder. “You sent her a nude?”

“Ahahaha. Nah, I’m joking, it wasn’t nude. But I would have loved to have seen her face anyway. Fuck. Haha.”

His joy calmed. “After that I checked online, to see if there’d been any reports about us, but nothing at all! Even in the Chemsford gazette, and the Exeter paper, no mention of the hospital. I couldn’t find anything. On Nina either. So she must still be alive.”

“Why would they not put out anything, though?” I wondered.

“I dunno. Who cares! We’re safe!”

The light outside felt about four o’clock. Harry took the fishing rod out of the bag again. “She’s a beauty, isn’t she? What a cracker. Can’t wait to use this, harpoon some trout, or a Loch Affric monster. I saw one on the way back. Big bastard he was.”

 

Night came in and the rain got heavier, so we stayed inside the tent instead of having a fire. Throughout, I felt a calling to go out and talk to the trees, but instead, as we lay aside each other in the pitch black, I closed my eyes and went to them in my mind.

The morning sky was grey, again. The wind pushed the clouds across, and a dreich rain held in the air.

“What’s this? Pine needles?” Harry asked, looking into the cup I’d poured hot water into, which had turned light green.

“Yup. Drink it. It’s good for you.”

“I know. They’ve got loads of vitamin C, and are anti-septic, and anti-inflam-

“Yes, Bear Grylls. I know.” I joked. “I thought we might drink our piss later too.”

Harry laughed. “I’m Ray Mears, actually. You know, I didn’t ever hear about the native Americans needing to backflip out of a helicopter for survival. Or drink their own pee. Or semen.”

“Yeah, they did. They drank gallons of it. That was their main source of protein.”

“Haha, he should do that. It’s all for good entertainment.”

“…He is cool, though.” I said. “Great climber. I’ve climbed quite a few trees myself this week, and mountains. There’s a really cool big oak I climbed, on the way to the glen. I’ll show you it.”

Harry shuffled on the stone and observed the firepit’s wet black ashes. “Looks like you’ve had that fire lit a few times. Why did you move it here?”

“There was too much wind before. I needed to. Yeah, I’ve had it lit a few times. I’ve cracked it. But we need to build a shelter to dry out the wood. Then we’ll be sorted.”

“Instead of putting it in the tent all the time. Good idea. We can use the saw I got.”

“Or your hot air?” I said.

Harry stuck up his middle finger.

Chapter 60

W e trudged through the sludgy ground, down to the bridge, and up the rivers side, passing the canyon’s drop and going on towards the waterfall and whirlpool.

“So, do the trees run away, when nobody is watching them? Like the toys in Toy Story?” Harry grinned.

“Or like the Lord of The Rings,” I laughed. “Maybe they do. One of them told me that, occasionally, on the few times when Scotland is too hot, they all get up and go for a swim in the loch.”

“Oh! Really? Is that why you sometimes see trees floating down the river? It’s because they can’t swim?”

“Ha-ha”…”But seriously, though,” I said, “it felt like they have a sense of humour. Sometimes they were laughing at me, in a nice way.”

“I want to try and get into meditating too.” Harry said. Then five seconds later asked “Do I have to get naked to communicate with them?”

“They don’t wanna see that, Harry.”

“Maybe they do. I’ll ask them. Maybe that’s why that branch wouldn’t let me hang myself? I wasn’t naked.”

“Sarcastic bastard. You’re crackin’ the jokes today.”

The rain fizzled out and the sun replaced it, breaking light through the sky. Shortly after, a rainbow materialized. And then a second, lighter-coloured rainbow propped up its side.

“Woah!” I said, awe-struck. “It’s so beautiful. That’s the first one I’ve seen here.”

“It won’t be the last.” Harry said.

We walked on up along the ridge, looking down to our left at the waterfall.

“I bought a newspaper,” Harry said, “a few days ago. Just because I haven’t read one in so long,” he excused himself, “There was this boy. Got charged. I think he was nineteen. For going into an old people’s home-