The gray hues of the morning came while the thick fog was rolling and billowing upward. By the time the sun had been over the hills for an hour, only light wisps of steamy mist were seeping out of the matted forest floor and swaying to and fro with the breathing air. Little woodland creatures were scurrying about rectifying the damages and reaping the benefits which the storm had left in its wake. One busy chipmunk, her cheeks budging with food and her head bent low, was scampering back to her nest as fast as she could go along one of her normal pathways home when she collided nose-first into a fleshy mass sprawled out in the ground. The collision alarmed her more than it did the mass. She looked up, jumped back, and scurried off on a wide detour.
The other party to the collision, namely Stephan Pearson (or more accurately his left cheek) stirred sluggishly. He seemed about to roll over when one of his eyes opened a slit. Then the other one opened. Both of them blinked. Then they both closed again. Stephan Pearson muddily conjectured that he must still be dreaming. Then he opened both of them wide and sat up.
He was halfway down the slope of a large hill, sitting in deep soft turf and surrounded by a whole world of emerald and azure. Before him spread a broad basin that was almost completely enclosed in verdant hills covered with lofty pines, maples, and oaks and carpeted with lush undergrowth. Directly in front of him to the north was a V-shaped opening in the wall of encircling hills through which he could see the placid blue waters of Lake Superior stretching out into a horizonless distance. Springing from somewhere on the hillside behind him was a rushing brook that tumbled to the bottom of the basin and cascaded down towards the lake through the V. He could hear deer romping around in the creek bed beneath him, and at the tips of his fingers was a patch of blueberry bushes burdened with plump, succulent berries. Steve sat there taking it all in for many minutes and then ventured in wonderment: I spend a month looking for this spot, and then I stumble onto it in the dark. It’s perfect. Why would you ever want to leave it?
For many days he acted as if he never would. The first day, after checking the motorcycle for damage (everything on it was working fine) and for leaks in the upended jerry can (it was still full of gas), he moved what little property he had down the hill about a hundred feet to a flatter piece of ground near the creek. Right off the bat he decided that all his hunting would be done outside the hollow. Nothing should be allowed to disturb its peace and harmony. He could fish in the brook and eat the fresh berries that were all around him: blueberries, raspberries, a few remaining strawberries, blackberries, thimbleberries, gooseberries, currants—they were all there. Firewood was no problem, nor was drinking water. Everything was virtually at his fingertips, with no irrelevant obligations to distract him. Joyfully he set about the task of making this place his home.
The first few days he did some exploring. He followed the stream back up the hill beyond the hollow, discovering to his great satisfaction that small game abounded, especially squirrels, rabbits, and grouse. He didn’t even have to hunt for them: they came to him if he sat still for a few minutes in the grass under a tree. He had only to wet his fish hook in a quiet pool to catch a gourmet meal of rainbow trout. He had no need to garner bergamot leaves for tea since patches of the plant were everywhere to be found, along with wood sorrel and wintergreen to munch on.
He also busied himself by constructing a small lean-to out of saplings where he could roll out his bedroll and store his few belongings in the two small weatherproof cases he had brought with him. He built a makeshift latrine nearby adjacent to a large patch of milkweed, nature’s toilet paper. The pond just below the campsite served as his bathtub. He dug a garbage pit several hundred feet to the west where wild creatures could clean up his leftovers without confronting him. Within a week this place felt more like home to him than any place he had ever lived in before.
On the evening of his seventh day in the hollow, he stretched out on his soft bed of white-pine needles as night began to fall and watched the stars pop out one by one. The flames playing in the embers in the fire pit set the shadows of the trees dancing eerily in the stillness. A hawk was spiraling round and round overhead. Was he looking for supper or was he just having fun? At this hour of the evening, probably just having fun. Whip-poor-wills were calling to one another from the far edges of the hollow, their strident age-old song attesting to the timelessness of the present moment in this timeless place. Lying there, Steve was drawn into an all-pervading sense of the rightness of things. The troubles and dissensions that people create for themselves were not to be found here. They seem so big when you’re in the middle of them and so tiny when you’re not. A warm breeze blew lightly in his face and fanned the glowing coals of the fire.
“This is life,” he whispered.
And, lo, he was asleep.