“A journey of a thousand miles
begins with a single step.”
Lao-Tze
“Yeah, keep your eyes on the road, your hand upon the wheel!” Jim, old man, you knew what you were singing about. You knew “a million ways to spend your time” and did it insatiably, but you could never have imagined that your music would be heard somewhere far out in Siberia in a dilapidated bus painted a flashy orange, the very same bus that had just spat me out of its squeaky automatic doors at a bus stop in the middle of nowhere, overgrown with faded pine trees and larches.
The wooden booth at the bus stop wasn’t well-kept either. A thick layer of graffiti along the lines of “so and so were here in the summer of 19…” and “Tolek iz ediot” decorated its inner walls. Outside, its wooden corners had been heavily shredded by an unknown force, which might have been animal fangs, or, who knows, even the teeth of starving tourists.
I stood near the booth for a while without any particular reason and thought about the locals on the bus. I wondered how easily we appear and disappear in each other’s lives. We had spent almost two hours together, being jolted over the countless road bumps, breathing in gasoline fumes that had leaked into the cabin, saying nothing to each other. For them, I was just another stranger in their land who had come to “enjoy the wildness” and leave some litter among the trees.
In a few years, I would be a doctor, and those people would come from afar and complain in a low, respectful voice, “Doctor, I have pains.” And I would be very worried about that and act promptly, because those people never complained. They would live through the discomfort and pain, clenching their teeth, until it became absolutely unbearable and, sometimes, too late.
They were not as simple as they might have seemed, those women and men. For only in rich countries can mere idiots survive. Darwin’s law had never been just a school topic for these people. The hardships of life had taught their minds to be flexible, to be quick and decisive when danger was around, or sleep, hibernate, and not pay attention if they had to accept the inevitable — like the boredom on that bus.
They had never read Shakespeare, had probably never even known about his mere existence, but Shakespearean passions were not alien to them. Yes, those people never smiled. For them, a smile was too intimate a gesture to share with a stranger. In their parts, a smile given to an unknown person might mean something very different: deception, madness or a hidden threat. And if they did grace you with their true smile, it meant “Welcome to my circle, good man.”
With all that, if you are going to travel across the Siberian taiga and want to return home safe and sound, you can afford to not be that sociable, but you must be in possession of some survival skills. You have to be able to build a fire in foul weather, plot your route, navigate by the stars, know the local flora and fauna, and, in particular, be familiar with the local predators and poisonous plants — all those things about which I had a very faint idea.
As I said, I knew a lot of stuff from lectures and books, but my previous experience had been limited to a few outings in suburban castrated forests, mainly with my class, with heavy backpacks full of food, kettles, pots and frying pans, playing cards, and other useless things. Strangely, we could survive without alcohol or cigarettes, and as for charming girls in reasonably tight sports pants — well, they accompanied us only for the sake of inspiration. The central idea of those trips was to cook a lavish dinner, eat it, play guitar badly, and return home with red cheeks, cut fingers and heroic smiles, exuding the smell of burnt chicken and other kinds of Viking odors.
Jack London wrote about people like us very clearly (paraphrased): “There are certain kinds of people who confuse their urban sentimentality and overactive imagination with the true sense of adventure. Those people make overambitious plans, buy expensive equipment, and deliberately ignore every single piece of advice given to them by experienced travelers.” So, being a weekend camper and reckless couch climber, I possessed all those flaws except, maybe, only one: I had listened carefully to experienced hikers.
I had to go down a dirt road a quarter of a mile or so and then turn left into a shallow valley and stick to a beaten path. The view on both sides of the road wasn’t particularly exciting: two almost parallel rows of uneven sloping hills overgrown with dusty clusters of pine trees. It was mid-spring, and the forest was dull in appearance and sparse in color. Grey, brown, ashen tones prevailed in the landscape with islets of new foliage, looking like outbursts of green rash. It would take some time before the pines and other plants got their brand-new robes, and brightly colored wildflowers flooded the forest glades.
You can find a surprisingly wide variety of flowering plants in the taiga forests, especially in late spring, with the one true king of Siberian blossoms called “bagulnik.” Its scrubby bushes, dotted with countless tiny flowers and rosemary-like leaves are distant relatives of heather and are quite common in boreal forests. Whole fields of it, as well as solitary bushes, can be found in almost every corner of Siberia. In mid-early spring when the forest, bleak and hungry, wakes up from its slumber, the bagulnik bushes paint entire cliffs and forest valleys a bright pink color. I dare say that this unique spectacle is in no way less fascinating than the famous Japanese cherry blossoms. As for the smell — ask Dorothy and the Lion about that dizzy scent. But even without the bagulnik’s intoxicating odor, my head became heavy and fuzzy as I advanced along the valley.
I went mile after mile, turn after turn, submerging gradually into something that I would call a humming silence. It wasn’t Jack London’s “white silence” — the absolute stillness of the vast snowfields above the Polar Circle that would scare inexperienced travelers, no. That particular condition was no puzzle to me. I knew the humming was coming from inside my mind, like a medley of music from a small radio deserted on the beach would have buzzed through the thickness of the sea till it reached the ears of dolphins. It was a permanent internal buzz that I, like any other city dweller, was doomed to live with, just in order to neutralize the external urban noise. My steps on the gravel scattered sparingly along the path sounded ridiculously loud, but the cacophony in my head was even louder. It didn’t bother me much, however. I was concerned about something else. I walked on, surrounded by that washed-out landscape, afraid of admitting this to myself: the timing for the prodigal son’s return had been wrong — I was bored.
Being stuck on the bus, looking randomly at my fellow travelers’ drowsy faces, I had had to occupy my mind with something. The atmosphere hadn’t been quite comfortable enough for looking through my pre-exam materials, so I started to sketch a story for my triumphant return. There was not much in it yet, for the adventure had just begun, but I did prepare some pre-cooked phrases, something along the lines of “the beast was so close that I could pluck some fur from its bobbed tail,” or “I marched across that wild river; water at times gushed upon my chest, as cold as a glacier from the Ice Age,” and so forth. But now, after hours of monotonous walking, I saw nothing to put into those vacant frames, apart from endless brown-grey hills spiked with emaciated firs.
I stopped and slowly turned around, taking small wobbly steps, looking as far as I could. Nothing? You show me nothing? I pulled out my flask and guzzled cold water as if I wanted to get drunk on it. My throat was dry, and I drained the whole flask in one go. Please, I want to see something: a Bigfoot, a giant robin, the husband of a ladybird. Forest, please, show me something. Yes, I’m a new man here, but isn’t it a nice excuse to treat me to something extraordinary? Nothing. A weak gust of wind ruffled the tips of the tall trees over the hills. Then, even that faint movement was gone. The air was still, and the landscape around seemed like a gallery of black-and-white etchings. Suddenly, I felt a sharp, pulsing pain in my temples.
I had been strongly warned by my experienced mentors not to talk to the forest spirits, or to the forest itself, in an impolite way. The safest bet was not to talk to them at all. You can glue on your best nihilistic grin at such advice, but I personally knew people who had paid a high toll for not following that piece of advice. I was courteous enough back then, probably a bit impatient. I looked around again. Nothing had changed since my first inspection. I raised my eyes to the sky solemnly, to that cold blue, bleached by the sun and burnished by the wind, with a small yellow jittering spot in it, and…
First, I felt it — an alienated sense of cold, a lifeless emptiness in my stomach that spread like a ripple across my body. Without any order from me, my arms lifted to the sides slowly, forming a wide arch as if they intended to hug something huge yet imperceptible. I stood with my hands spread and my back straight as a string, like a totem creature carved in wood, without heartbeat or breath, waiting for something. Then, I saw it. An eagle.
It soared dizzyingly high in the immaculate azure skies, all alone. I couldn’t estimate how high, for I had no reference. He moved slowly without any effort, a black silhouette on the blue silk of heaven. His slightly curved flight route in the loftiness of the sky looked like he was following the path of a giant invisible circle, a perimeter that might embrace what my mind would never be granted to perceive and my shell would never be allowed to touch — infinity, immortality, sinlessness.
All of a sudden, I started to cry. The tears ran down against my will. I felt choked. I didn’t cry easily, even when I was beaten, even when I was deserted. Something was coming out of me, something foul, bleeding, painful, like a rotten tooth. For a moment, I saw myself from the outside — a miserable creature sniveling in the middle of a road. Not bad, not good — just all alone. I felt sorry for that guy. For me, mercy had always won out before love. For a moment, and just for a moment, all those lies I had weaved patiently and fed to myself for years were gone. I, out of myself, looked different, very different, but the world outside was the same. So, I had to return.
I found myself standing in the middle of the road, stooping and rubbing my eyes with both hands. I looked up, squinting. The skies were empty — the eagle was gone. The sun, however, to my relief, was still shining. I felt like an earthquake survivor, standing among the ruins and expecting an aftershock. It didn’t come. Time, however, was precious. I had to put myself together and move on.
Months later, I recounted this experience to a friend of mine, a biologist, omitting the spiritual undertones of that story. My narrative was more like “I walked and walked, turned around a corner and saw a big bird in the sky.” My friend got excited. “I can’t believe it,” he exclaimed with a tinge of envy. “They are so rare in our parts, those birds. Are you sure it was an eagle?” I drew a picture. “Sure, it was one. You are a lucky one then,” he concluded with a sigh. “I would give the rest of my life to come across that bird,” he said dreamily. “I feel as if I did,” I agreed.
No matter what it was, a hallucination or a divine sign, I plodded on. I didn’t suddenly become a newly fledged wizard just because of that vision. Some of my deepest pains were gone, and the hills around me looked friendlier or, perhaps, less boring. All in all, I stayed who I had been before. I didn’t morph into a teen Gandalf or a werewolf with healing fangs. The eagle, however, wasn’t a false memory: I read Castaneda’s The Eagle’s Gift years later, with a pinch of nostalgia. It was a cool story to share with my friends, but for some reason, I decided to keep it private. As I said, the aftershock hadn’t come, but suddenly, I felt weary and tired. I wanted to lie down and nap for a while… and then go back home. Nice feeling at the beginning of a three-day hike, huh?
I started to think logically. Something was wrong. The visions, the headache, the buzzing voices in my head, the mood swings, the dry throat — all those signs might signal only one condition: oxygen toxicity. As a city guy, I had naturally gotten used to a certain amount of pollution. For that reason, oxygen had never been the top-priority gas in my breathing ration. Furthermore, the excess of it, as you can see, can evoke such symptoms as dizziness, drowsiness, and even hallucinations. I had heard about green fog and acid rains down there in the industrial regions, but had never witnessed those things myself. In my district, however, the main problem was soot. Looking out of my window, I could count a few dozen chimneys, fed mainly by coal. I must confess, I pretty much liked that bitter-sweet smell, which always made me dive into the feeling of anemoia for the good old Victorian times. We also had a busy road not that far from our windows. As a result, it was obviously quite possible for me to get an oxygen hangover in the forest.
I strayed from the path toward a flat dry glade with a round patch of tall, fresh grass in the middle, where there might have been a small spring. I had to have some rest and replenish my water supply. I walked toward the small green bush, treading cautiously on last year’s low grass, then stopped halfway from it and sat down on the ground. I couldn’t walk anymore. I reclined on my backpack and spread myself as if I were sitting in an easy chair and closed my eyes. I felt drained. It shouldn’t happen this way. People would spend years in the desert, praying, chanting and eating two grains a day to obtain the state of mental refinement that I had attained almost instantly, just by inhaling too much oxygen into my dusty lungs. It shouldn’t come that darn cheap, no way. And, after all, what was the message?
I sat like that for a while, half-asleep, half-awakened, until I realized that somebody was staring at me. I had caught that feeling by my skin. I looked cautiously from under my eyelids and saw a chipmunk — a small, slim rodent that looked like a bleached squirrel that had lost its fulsome tail. It stood steadily on its hind legs and studied me, tilting its tiny head from side to side grotesquely.
A curious bird came over and settled nearby on a long wobbling branch, ruffling its feathers and balancing with its half-spread wings. It was probably a magpie — I couldn’t classify it. It stretched its neck forward and cocked its head in a puzzled manner, as only a bird could do, and studied me as well, but from a much safer distance. I looked at them motionlessly through the slits of my eyelids. I didn’t want to freak it out as I recalled some stuff from biopsychology. If an animal saw a pair of eyes pointed at it, it knew in that instant that it was being hunted. Two eyes set together with some gap between them work as a rangefinder and are the exclusive feature of predators. For that reason, I kept my eyes almost shut. I was a nice predator who didn’t care for small birds and rodents. I preferred smoked sausages and ice cream, not at the same time of course. Finally, I wondered what time it was and, inadvertently, moved my hand. It was a small, almost imperceptible twitch, but it was enough for the little guys to move away. I released my shoulders from the straps, stood up, took the flask and walked toward the green spot in the middle of the glade.
There are whole years of my life that I can hardly recover in my memory. However, some short moments stay clear, almost engraved… like that moment.
I came close to the green patch, delicately pushed aside the grass with my hand and leaned over. It was a small spring, just a couple of feet in diameter. It had no outflow: water came from under the ground and soaked into the adjacent turf. The surface of the spring glistened in the sun, busy with reflections. The bed of the spring was lined with smooth fine sand disturbed only by a few tiny dancers — the underground streamlets that made their way through the spring’s bed.
I withdrew my arm. The grass straightened immediately and blocked the view. There was something sacred in this spring. My mind was obviously slipping into an archaic way of thinking. I sniffed. Damn oxygen. “His mind was as calm as the surface of a lake in the early morning…” I mocked myself with a quote from the numerous “spiritual” manuscripts that had already started to take over the bookstore shelves and human minds deserted by Bolshevik propaganda.
My head was clear, and my simple solitary thoughts floated through it like draughts of air through the emptiness of an abandoned ancient temple. That sensation would return to me years later, usually in the morning after the long nights spent drinking. There were not many of them — thoughts, I mean. They weren’t even thoughts. Rather, they were scattered, disjointed words, a sort of rhyming game based on a very limited vocabulary. Purity… Cleanliness… Clarity… In and out. Rather out… Outs… No. Ins… Innocence.
Innocence. That word stuck in my mind, while I was still staring at the spring now hidden from my eyes. Innocence… What is it? Where does it come from and where does it vanish to? When, how and why does a young man turn into a rotten sadist, a killer? Who is responsible for that metamorphosis? Genes? Planets? Parents? Friends? Does knowing or not knowing what the genitals are used for make us innocent? Was Sigmund Freud right in describing us, human beings, as innately indiscriminate pervs who learn to behave themselves to avoid social punishment? What a strange angle. He wouldn’t have made much of his career, that clever guy from Vienna, selling his psychoanalytic stuff somewhere in Khajuraho. Or so I thought, sitting on my haunches, with my left arm outstretched, its elbow resting on my left knee, and the right arm holding an empty flask.
No, I thought, innocence is something different. It’s the inborn capacity of any human being to reject evil. You can carry this gift to your grave, probably, without putting yourself in a glass case; you can also run out of it pretty early in your life. Or you might never have it at all, ever. You can’t go to the plastic surgeon and fix it. Those thoughts made my head feel heavy. Enough of deep thoughts for today, I decided.
I leaned over the spring once again and carefully immersed my flask into the water. “I beg your pardon for disturbing you,” I said in my mind. “I’m thirsty. I have a long way to go. I won’t take too much of you — just what I really need. I’ll always remember your kindness. And, maybe, you’ll remember mine.” Well, I saw no Spirit of Ecstasy or any other creature darting out from the grass and waving me goodbye, but suddenly, I felt that all my strength had been restored. Probably, I had just rested enough and gotten used to that toxic gas called oxygen.
In a few minutes, I was back on track. My boots dusted the road with methodical fury, as two obsessive housekeepers would beat the dust out of their rugs. I was pushing the Earth as strongly as I could with both heels. One, two, three, four… One, two, three, four… Left, right, left, right — sing the song, go straight!
“You know the day destroys the night.
Night divides the day.
Try to run
Try to hide
Break on through to the other side.”
(The Doors, 1967)
© 1995–2025 Alexander Daretsky. All rights reserved.