“Man is the only kind of varmint sets his own trap,
baits it, then steps in it.”
John Steinbeck
By the time I finally reached the top of the cliff, my mood and view of things had lifted. “If you climb up, it means that at some point you’ll go downhill. From that point, it’s gonna be easy,” I cheered myself up. “It’s always nice to go downhill toward the end of your journey.” Indeed, it wasn’t long before the path turned downward. I ate some bread on the go and drank cold tea from the flask and carried on.
Walking cautiously down the path, I was about to learn one of the most important lessons Mother Nature could teach me: if you opt for shit, shit happens. I’m not talking about bad coincidences; I’m talking about bad decision-making rooted in my laziness and lack of time.
The type of vegetation there, on the top of the cliff, was different. It wasn’t even a top; it was actually the edge of a large plateau with a slight descent along my way, densely covered by what they would call “dark forest.” Fir trees stood close to each other like a stockade blocking the sunlight. It was a murky, sullen place. The fir branches obscured my view, and I could hardly see what was waiting for me a dozen yards down the road. I felt cold and unsafe again. The air was stuffy, and the silence was oppressive like the inside of a spooky mine shaft. The crackling of dry twigs under my feet sounded sacrilegious.
After a while, I reached a large glade, surrounded by a palisade of fir trees. The strands of fog I had seen over the cliffs from beneath seemed to originate from that place, for through the thick, uneven haze, I could barely see the farthest end of the glade. Its ground was covered with countless hummocks with unevenly shaped puddles of stale water between them. Scraggly trunks of thin, ill-looking trees were scattered sparsely across the place.
It was a bog. In all honesty, I hadn’t expected to find a bog on top of a cliff. I had never been scared of heights, depths, spiders, creepy clowns or closed spaces. But I was terrified of bogs and swamps. There was something intolerably ominous in those kinds of terrain. I looked down at the path. To my horror, it didn’t give me any clue as to where to go. The path, which had been dotted with mossy stones and debris, faded on the fringe of the glade, and only the wild bog remained.
Should I go back? Walk around the bog? Or (gulp) go through it? I looked at my watch. So far, I hadn’t bought any time using the shortcut. Worse, according to my quick calculations, I would have been five miles down the road if I hadn’t taken this treacherous path. Wasn’t it more reasonable to stay on the beaten path instead of all these silly tricks? Was it my thirst for adventure or just an ordinary urban guy’s laziness? I started to feel angry at myself. But, once again, anger wouldn’t have solved the problem.
I pondered on. To go back seemed to be the least attractive option. About two hours had been foolishly lost, and only in another two hours, I would have been exactly at the same place where I had started in the morning! The prospect of climbing down the cliff didn’t attract me either. It was quite possible I would arrive home after my friends who had covered for me, which would be an absolute disaster. To bypass the bog might be a less time-consuming alternative, but I had no idea how large it was and how much time it would take. I couldn’t see the flanks of the bog clearly because of the haze. So, I was left with only one option — to cross the bog, to go through it. I felt like I was doing something wrong. I thought again. Go back? Hell no!
I uprooted one of the malnourished trees that stuck out of the ground on the edge of the bog, took out my big hunting knife, and made a nice long pole. It was the first and the last time I used that bombastic cutting tool which, along with its leather sheath, weighed no less than two pounds. The pole could be used to probe the murky surface along my way, or to become my life vest, or more likely, a life stick, if I got into trouble. That pole made me feel calmer and more confident, but my advance across the glade became slow and inefficient. I was prodding the ground — mossy hummocks and wobbly dirt between them — before each step. I glanced at my watch again. Crap, I had to switch into a higher gear.
Now I was walking faster, but with more fear, checking only suspicious areas with the pole. At some point, I looked back, and my heart sank: I couldn’t recognize where I had come from! I suppressed all those awful thoughts that started flashing in my mind and looked behind me once again. Finally, I spotted my footsteps on the ground and figured out the place where I had started. It was clear that I was straying left. I took out my compass and held it in my right hand. My left hand was gripping the pole. In such a place, I would easily go in circles if I didn’t use my navigation skills.
Suddenly, an awful thought struck me: Who on earth had ever told me that there was a way out on the far end of the bog? I stuck my legs into the soggy ground and took off my backpack. The ice-cold water started to trickle into my footwear. I had to see the map. Bitter and useless reproaches swarmed through my head like a herd of scared geese. I stuck my pole into the spongy ground and started to scrutinize the map. Where I put my compass, I still won’t tell you. To my relief, the dotted line on the map was still in sight. The signs on the map were, probably, the troublesome stretches along this path. According to the map, that bog was the first one of them, so I hadn’t advanced too far yet. I had to go fast, or even better, to run.
At that precise moment, I got hasty and tried to do a few things at the same time: to fold the map and put it back into the bag, to reach for the pole and to find where my compass had gone. I was nervous and confused. Only one thing was pulsing in my mind: “Time, you’re losing time!” Half-ready, I pushed myself ahead and made a few clumsy strides. The soggy ground sucked my boots in and held on tight as if it wanted to save me from my own stupidity.
I forged ahead. There was a little pond, about ten feet wide, covered with a thick dirty-brown layer of dead duckweed. I couldn’t wait and check things. Somehow, I assumed that I could ford it. I plunged into that puddle like a desperate cow who had just got a round of buck-shot in the bum. Immediately, my legs buckled down into thick mud. I was stuck. The water splashed on my chest, despite the fact that the puddle was shallow (I realized it later on, when recovering my backpack.) I was leaning far forward, almost lying in that sludge. I started to make spasmodic paddling movements with my arms, and very soon I was half-buried in soggy threads of duckweed. My worst nightmare — to drown in a swamp — was coming true. I got rid of my backpack and, jerking and squirming, clambered back from that trap.
When I got out of the water, I felt broken and humiliated by, once again, my own foolishness. I sat down on a big steady hummock and tried to sort things out as quickly as possible. First, I had to recover my backpack. Second, I had to build a fire and dry my clothes. The water was bitterly cold, and my teeth were chattering out some kind of SOS in Morse code. I spotted an islet where I could set up camp and moved there.
I lost another two hours drying my clothes and warming my bones. The pond where I got stuck was neither deep nor wide. Wielding my pole, I fished my backpack out of the water. I hung my soggy clothes and footwear on sticks around the fire, very close to it, checking and rearranging them from time to time. When I put my boots on, they were still wet, but I could not wait anymore. It took me another hour to get out of that cozy place.
I was well behind time and had to move quickly. Soon the path indeed went visibly downhill. Or maybe I wanted to think so. I rushed along it, without proper precaution, stumbling and, at times, falling to the ground. Thankfully, I didn’t injure myself. I made no stops until late evening when the twilight thickened and I couldn’t see a thing on the road. After building a big fire, I warmed up a pound of canned beef straight in the tin can and wolfed it down along with some wet bread and some tea with a lump of sugar. Then I fell down on my blanket and slept the sleep of the dead.
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