The man in the woods

I was born in the middle of the last century, and I suppose that makes me—oh, I don’t know—a hundred-and-some-odd years old. I’m not really sure anymore. I never thought I’d get to this age, or that I’d get here feeling the way I do. But life, I’ve learned, is like a cat that comes and goes as it pleases, making you think you own it when it is only in its best interest that you believe so.

When I was twenty years old, I thought I was an adult. At thirty, I thought I was somewhere in the middle of my life. Forty, I knew it all. At fifty, I cared less, but only because I assumed the majority of my life was behind me.

Ha! Well, you can understand where this is going.

At fifty, I wasn’t even halfway through it, and yet I’d anchored myself with my preconceptions. Given each little moment and event its weight, only to find that most of my experiences were not anchors. They were balloons, floating up to the sky as the years breezed by, out of my reach.

I rarely understood where I was in my life. When I married at the age of twenty-two, I believed married life was my destiny, for then I believed there was such a thing. When I had my first child, I thought he would be my entire reason for being. And for a time, both he and my husband were, and would have continued to be, had death not robbed me of them both. My husband was killed in a road accident seventy or so years ago and my child was taken by cancer twenty years later. I never had grandchildren. I never remarried. I have no family. My younger sister passed away about forty years ago in her sleep, of old age, I’ve been told.

And yet, I am here. Alive.

What has it all been about, the whole silly business of my life? I can honestly not tell you.

Funny, isn’t it?

But none of this concerns me. And neither, I suspect, does it concern a young man like you.

No, what I want is to tell you one story.

Only one.

Of all my balloons, this is the only one I hold on to. The rest are floating, up in the sky. It is the only story I can recall with absolute clarity. I cannot tell you what it means, but that doesn’t concern me. All that matters is that it’s the clearest memory in my head, and for that reason alone, I wish to tell it.

I was raised in a small town; at the time it was called Tsitsikamma. In the language of the Khoi-San people this meant “place of water.” It sat near the coast, an incredibly woodsy place. That’s what I remember most: rolling hills blanketed in dense forest. The ground was covered in moss and chips of bark. The air smelled of damp and tree sap. One large highway weaved through it, but you’d never know until you were standing right on it; the woods swallowed that highway right up. Even the sound of passing trucks and cars couldn’t make it too far beyond the edge of the woods, certainly not as far as our cabin.

Before Tsitsikamma, we lived in a town called Kroonstad. My father was the manager of a factory that made cardboard boxes and my mother stayed at home to take care of me. I don’t recall much of Kroonstad, but I do remember the many boxes my father brought home. There wasn’t much money to spare, so boxes were often the best my father could provide as gifts, and I rarely complained. I kept myself occupied building fortresses, robots and motor vehicles. Other times I played marbles with myself at the bottom of an enormous and empty bowl-shaped swimming pool in the middle of the housing commune.

I kept out of trouble with my parents most of the time, except for when I brought some injured animal into the house without permission. Once I even managed to hide a few bats in a box, until my mother tipped it over while cleaning. Needless to say, bats were not her favourite of my friends, and she ended up running around the house with a broomstick, trying to shoo a pair of disorientated fruit bats from the corner of our ceiling, cursing and scolding me as she did.

I look upon my time in Kroonstad with reasonable fondness. But when the box factory went under, my father lost his job and we were forced to move. As a child, I questioned little: I simply packed my things, hopped in the back of our old car, and was driven out of Kroonstad to my new home in the thick, dark and marvellous woods of Tsitsikamma.

Our new house turned out to be nothing like our old one. Instead of the flat, concrete commune in Kroonstad, where most of our neighbours were large women with rollers in their hair who leaned over the fences chain-smoking, our house in Tsitsikamma was a log cabin in a deep forest clearing, where the neighbours were large birds and bugs who chirped and clicked from the trees and the bushes.

The house itself was not really a house but a lodge for tourists and travellers. My father hadn’t bought the business; it belonged to his older brother. He’d offered my father a position as manager of the lodge, as well as a couple of rooms for us to use while my father worked there. I was a small child at the time, so it is difficult to say in all honesty that it was an enormous house, but at the time it certainly seemed so. There were six rooms, each with four or five bunk beds. Three small rooms with double beds. There was a communal room with a bar and a pool table below a big poster of a man sitting in a red Cadillac. The communal kitchen was full of tinny old pots on the walls and a ceramic rooster that perched on top of the fridge. Behind the lodge there was a large outside area where guests could sit on hollowed-out logs and braai meat on open fires, talking and singing into the early hours of the morning. The place was rarely ever full, but the backpackers and vacationers trickled in and out steadily over the course of the first spring we were there.

Most of them were young men and women who needed an easy and affordable place to rest en route to somewhere else. Sometimes they’d arrive wishing to spend a night and would only leave after three days. Sometimes they’d book a room for three nights but leave on their first morning. All sorts arrived but we had no real trouble. My mother and father argued a few times in the first couple of weeks, mostly about money, I suppose, but that didn’t last long.

After a time everything settled down as each of us explored some fresh and exciting aspect of this new life. My father had found a guitar stashed in a storage shed and was suddenly strumming old tunes around the fire at night, entertaining guests when the vibe was right. My mother took up painting, but spent most of her time taking care of my new sister, Carly. And I soon learned there was far more to do than play with cardboard boxes, marbles, and even bats. The woods, stretching on in all directions, were a treasure trove of curiosities. And I, a reckless and uninhibited explorer, planned on discovering each and every last one of them.

Over time, I grew used to the endless trees, the untidy forest floor, and the inquisitive looks and nods from the local wildlife. It had been my father’s idea for me to keep a notebook to write down whatever I saw and heard in the woods, and I adopted his advice with great zeal. Armed with my pencil and my notebook, I would wake up early and take a stroll, exploring and documenting all the woods had to offer. Every morning I went deeper in, sought out some new route, and found a perfect spot to lie in the shade and chew on the end of a pine needle.

Beyond the woods were more woods. I never came across anyone else on my rambles. I was told that the woods ended in a cliff-face drop into the raging ocean, but I had never seen it for myself. After the first few weeks of going out as far as I could, I assumed the edge of the cliff was a great deal further than I could ever walk and so there was no need to worry about it.

When I left the lodge I would always start at the same point—a path that led from our tiny car lot—but as soon as I was beyond the range of my mother’s kitchen window, I would divert left or right. Most of the time, it felt as if the woods led me, they set my path, and in that way I came to trust them, since the woods rarely led me to trouble.

Rarely, but … No, I cannot say never.

On one especially hot summer morning, I left the lodging with nothing but my notebook, a pencil and a banana, and began one of my regular walks. I turned off the path and headed down a leaf-laden slope. I grabbed a rough tree trunk and slung myself to the next trunk, and then the next one, and the next. I continued, light on the balls of my feet, all the way down. I looked up. Birds. Their silhouettes could have been mistaken for leaves were it not for their nimble darting from branch to branch.

In the woods there were all sorts of birds.

A book from the library had a picture of each of them, and I always made sure to keep an eye out. I had seen Knysna loeries, emerald cuckoos, olive woodpeckers and even a couple of barn owls. Funny how I still remember those names. Whenever I saw one, I wrote it down in my notebook and drew a picture of it. One day I even came back to the lodge with a baby robin that had fallen out of the tree and broken its wing. My father helped, but warned: Be careful out there, Moneta. The forest is not a playground. It’s a place full of living things, all fighting to survive in this world. Do not expect the loyalty of anything fighting only to survive. He warned that even plants, harmless as they appeared to be, would attack an intruder if necessary.

Plants have had to survive this world just like everything else. Don’t make the mistake of thinking they are weak or useless things.

He told me about prickly thistles and poison ivy and plants that would make me very sick if I ever ate them. I listened to my father and pondered his warnings, but still felt safer in the woods than anywhere else. As far as I was concerned, if everything in the world was fighting to survive, the forest couldn’t be any more or less dangerous. To me, the forest was a place of safety. A sanctuary.

So there I was on that hot morning in my sanctuary. I jumped over puddles, picked flowers, dodged the gossamer webs of small spiders, and finally decided to eat the banana. I munched and ducked under low branches, munched and climbed over fallen boughs.

Once I had finished my banana, I worried about throwing the peel on the ground, but remembered the peel was just a plant too. It’s only inside buildings and on concrete pavements that banana peels are considered litter; not out there. Certainly. My forest would take that peel back into itself. The bugs would come out and break it down into bits, and once they were done, the trees would finish the rest. That’s how it worked. And it was at that moment something else dawned upon me, something I’ve carried with me to this day: a peel on the floor of a building isn’t litter at all. The buildings are the litter. Nature can’t use bricks and mortar. In the end, it’s the buildings that will never be taken back because the world will never have any use for them.

I threw my peel over my shoulder and soldiered on.

The light above me cut through the leaves like spun gold. I could tell the sun had climbed a great deal since I’d taken off. As I walked I thought about chores I still had to do back at the lodge: sweep out the foyer, restack the pamphlet rack, unpack the boxes of vegetables and put them in the pantry. Just the thought of it bored me and I decided I’d continue for another few minutes before turning back. I still hadn’t come across anything new, although I had seen a few sparrowhawks, which was always a treat.

It wasn’t long, however, before I came across a new surprise: a small, shallow brook, gurgling its way to the distant ocean. It was only a few metres wide and not very deep, but brooks were always great places to spot things you otherwise wouldn’t see: kingfishers perched on rocks, pools of tadpoles, little black sucker-like things that slid on their bellies and seemed to live off lichen.

I got down on my knees at the river’s edge and drank some of the running water. It was cool and refreshing. I stopped to breathe, wiped my mouth on my sleeve, and as I lifted my head, was startled by a long, dark reflection rippling on the water. I looked up.

A man was standing on the other side of the river.

I lifted my head slowly and got to my feet, keeping my eyes on him. He was high up on the opposite bank, staring down at me. There are some things I don’t remember as clearly as others—that is only natural, I suppose—but I will never forget my first impression of that man on the other side of the stream. The image of his body is burned into my mind just as a black mark is left in a plank of wood by a soldering iron. I remember how tall he was, and gangly—a lamppost dressed as a person. If you’d asked me then I would have told you he was seven feet tall, maybe taller. Perhaps it was the way his legs seemed to blend into the ground rather than rest on it. I could barely tell where he ended and his sinewy black shadow began.

He was wearing a long dark trench coat and he had his hands in his pockets. From where I was standing I could not make out the details of his face. He said and did nothing. For a moment I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, that he was a being conjured out of nothing but light and shade, but I quickly dismissed that possibility.

The funny thing is, I felt no fear. You may find that odd, but don’t forget, I was a young and innocent child. Quiet men standing on riverbanks didn’t scare me. Loud, barking, snapping things like dogs were more likely to send me off in a sprint.

From across the water, I asked his name, but he said nothing. He didn’t move. I asked if he came there often and finally he nodded. That gave me the go-ahead to continue asking questions. I asked where he was from and he shifted his head to his left, telling me. I asked if he had a home and he shook his head slowly—no.

Eventually, after running out of questions to ask, I told him it had been a pleasure meeting him, I was going home, and turned away. As I walked from the river, I looked back over my shoulder. He was still in his spot, watching me go. I waved and continued on, through the woods, back to the lodge to deal with my chores.

That night I could not get the man out of my head. I remember sitting at the dinner table, rolling peas on my plate with my fork as my father talked about something or other and my mother fed my sister in her high chair. I hadn’t told them about the man in the woods. There didn’t seem to be any need to do so. He was just another one of the many woodland curiosities I kept to myself. I guarded my time in the woods the way one guards a diary full of secrets that may never mean as much to anyone else as to oneself. I confided in the woods the way the woods confided in me, revealing each of its marvels so faithfully.

After dinner I went to my room, climbed onto my bed, and stared through the window at the moon. I thought about where he could have come from and what he wanted. I was struck by sympathy for him. He had seemed so alone. Not just alone in the woods, but always. Anywhere. I struggled to imagine him knowing anyone, which was not an assumption I’d made about anyone up until that point in my life. What was most clear was that I needed to know more. I decided then I would return to the brook the following day.

But in the morning, I was less enthusiastic. The previous day seemed like many weeks before. I couldn’t trust my earlier opinion, that he was nothing more than some harmless woodland curiosity, but the weather was beautiful and sunny, promising a day of good things, so I grabbed my notebook and pencil, ignored my concerns, and set off to find him—not that there was any reason for him to be in the same spot.

At first, I struggled to retrace my steps. It wasn’t often that I felt the need to take a route I’d previously taken. I liked to set out and see where my feet would lead me. That day, I tried to remember where and when I had turned. I found it surprisingly difficult. It didn’t really concern me though; whether or not I found the brook, I was in good company. The birds chirped and the leaves rustled. Small creatures scurried beneath the dried leaves on the forest floor. Above, trunks creaked and teetered in the wind like old men with bad joints. I found a large stick and used it to plough my way through bushes, through small swarms of miniature flies that did little but tickle my face. It was not long before I felt warm and needed a drink of water.

I heard the chatter of water on stones and stepped through the bushes. I hadn’t spent any time exploring the edge of the stream the previous day. I was longing to see a frog or toad out in the woods and hadn’t yet been lucky. Perhaps today would be the day …

He was there. The man. It had momentarily slipped my mind that I had set out to find him, and yet there he was. Standing just as before, in his long coat, his hands in his pockets, still on the other side, but a few metres closer. He was no longer high up on the bank but right at the water’s edge. I could now see his face. He had a long head, like a horse’s, but his features were sharp and lizard-like. His pale skin was stretched too tightly over his skull, his ears too big and his neck a little too long. Now that he was closer I could see that he was, in fact, very tall—taller than anyone I’d ever met. He was hunched over slightly, his long wizened neck undulating. He cocked his head to the left like a nosy bird. His face was expressionless, his lips taut and thin, indistinguishable in colour from the rest of his skin.

I said hello. He said nothing in return. He cocked his head to the right. I sighed and looked away.

His lack of reaction disappointed me. I asked why he wouldn’t speak. He didn’t reply. I asked if he could, in fact, speak at all. He shook his head, no. Without thinking, I stood a step forward, but he became agitated and stepped back, shaking his head violently. I said there was no need to be scared of me, that I wouldn’t hurt him, but he did not seem convinced. For a few minutes we simply stood there, our eyes fixed on each other.

I pointed at a green bird in a tree. I told him it was a Knysna loerie. It didn’t seem to interest him. I looked down at the water and saw a small shoal of silvery fish whip between the rocks. I asked him if he liked fish. Nothing.

Frustrated, I said if he wouldn’t speak, I’d leave. Still, he offered only silence. I waited for him to signal that he wished for me to remain. Nothing. Fed up, I turned and headed back into the woods. As I did, though, for reasons I could not—and still cannot—fully explain, I looked over my shoulder and promised I’d visit the following day. Then I left.

As promised, I returned the next day and met him at the brook. He was closer still than the day before. In fact, he was in the middle of the stream now, unperturbed by the water sloshing about his knees. He simply stared as I talked on and on, about my father, my mother and sister, our house in Kroonstad, and what had brought us out to Tsitsikamma in the first place. I told him about the birds, the bugs, the trees and the plants. I assumed he was listening the entire time, though he continued to extend nothing other than the occasional nod and shake of the head. Soon, I simply forgot he was there at all. I got lost in my stories, punctuating my babbling with expressions like you know what I mean? and isn’t that wild?

Finally, he reached into his inner breast pocket and when he pulled his hand back out it was tightened into a fist. His action startled me. I’d been sitting on the riverbank, not expecting a response, and was now propped up against it. Carefully, he opened his enormous white hand and rolled out his long, bony fingers.

In the middle of his palm was a small frog.

I sprang to my feet. I so wanted him to show me up close. He didn’t. Instead, he extended his open palm as if it was the frog’s fleshy white throne, and tipped it over. I gasped as the stiff body rolled over, out of his hand like a ball, and plopped into the water.

It was dead. He’d pulled a dead frog from his pocket. The frog floated down the river on its back, arms and legs splayed, white belly up, and disappeared behind some rocks.

My hands flew to my mouth and I let out a wheeze, yet even then I didn’t fear him. I was like a mother whose child has made a horrible undercooked breakfast for her. Or rather, the owner of a cat both appreciating and detesting the dead pigeon left on the stoep as a gift. After the frog was gone, I let out an uneasy giggle and thanked him, my voice dubious.

He smiled. It was an awkward smile that stretched from ear to ear. His cheeks pulled back like two thick curtains. It felt physically forced, but earnest. It seemed to pain him, smiling in such a way, but I was pleased he had offered it.

I announced that he needed a name. Everyone needs a name, I told him.

I decided his name would be Burt.

Burt, the man in the woods.

A few minutes later, I left Burt and returned to the lodge.

At the dinner table that evening, I still said nothing, but was in better spirits. My father had invited a nice young Dutch couple to have dinner with us. Afterwards, he pulled out the guitar and played his songs. I could tell where the night was going; a couple of bottles of wine had been called to duty. The more the chatting and laughter grew, the more tired I became. They hardly noticed me leaving. I switched on my bedside lamp, climbed under the covers, grabbed my grubby notebook, and turned to a new page. I drew a picture of Burt smiling his big banana smile and wearing his long black coat. I drew myself, standing beside him. I filled the rest of the page with tall green trees and big, bushy plants. The land and sky teemed with birds and bugs. They were all huddled around us, faced inwards, keeping a watchful eye.

The following day I returned with food.

Burt was standing even closer, still in the water, but on my side of the brook. I had brought a tuna-mayonnaise sandwich my mother had made.

Now, the only thing I hate more than tuna is mayonnaise. My mother told me to not be fussy with food, because one day I might not have the choice. I replied that when the day came, I’d eat the tuna-mayo sandwich. Until then, I’d take advantage of my options. At which point my mother shoved the wrapped sandwich in my hand and said, The day’s come, smarty face.

I’d taken the sandwich reluctantly, but now I had an idea: I’d offer it to Burt.

I placed it on a dry rock between us and waited. He lowered his head and looked at it.

I said, Go on. It’s for you.

He looked up at me and down at the sandwich. He whimpered softly to himself, almost pitifully, and I encouraged him again to take it.

Then, unexpectedly, he lunged. His long arms flailed like two long windsocks as he leaned to grab it from the rock. I stumbled back and tripped over a branch, falling onto the mushy bank. I watched with wide eyes as he ripped the cling film with his teeth and stuffed the sandwich messily into his wide, cavernous mouth. He ate voraciously—his big jaw opening and closing violently—as if he feared the bread would try to escape his clutches. His throat made gurgling sounds as he pushed the food in. Once it was finished, he licked the mayonnaise off his hands, working his long pale tongue into every crease and wrinkle of his palms and fingers.

Then he was done, and he snapped upright like a switchblade. He narrowed his eyes at me and licked his lips.

He groaned. He wanted more.

I shook my head to say, Sorry, I don’t have any more.

He groaned again, his head jerking like a chicken.

For the first time, I felt scared, acutely aware that I knew nothing about the man. There was no way to anticipate what he would do next. He shifted under his coat, the bones in his shoulders clacking like pebbles dropped on pebbles as he twisted his head up and to the left, then up and to the right. He chattered his teeth, clack-clack-clack-clack, like the novelty toy dentures you wind up and set on the floor. Clack-clack-clack-clack. Birds fluttered away from the branch above him. His tongue rolled out of his mouth; his eyes widened to the size and shape of large coins.

I struggled to breathe. My heart beat faster. My body knew what my mind couldn’t fully register: I was more than nervous. I was scared.

His left foot moved forward. Then the right. Then the left. Clack-clack-clack-clack. My hands scrabbled for purchase on the bank behind me, I pushed myself up with my feet, crawling backwards as fast as I could. He was gathering speed, lurching towards me, hands out, grabbing at air.

I’m sorry, I told him. I don’t have any more.

He wailed from his throat, disappointed and aggrieved. I continued to crawl backwards, realising he was not going to stop. He was begging now, yowling for food and no matter what I said he would not accept that I had nothing left to offer. He would not stop. I flipped over and dug my feet into the mud. I would have to run.

Moneta, it is time to run for your life, I told myself. This is what you must do. No time to think it through, Moneta. Run.

And so I did. I ran.

If there’s one bit of advice I can give you, it’s this: take care of your body. People forget it’s the only one they’ve got, flippantly putting all kinds of poisonous things into it, never doing enough to keep it fit and strong. People don’t realise that when it finally gives in, there is no replacement. That’s it. You’ve ruined it, rotted it away, and now you’re stuck in it, my friend. People also don’t realise that, yes, they will get older. Their bodies will weaken and there will be some things they won’t be able to do, like climb a tree or jump over a fence. Or run. Oh, I would give anything to be able to run again. Anything to have my young legs, my young lungs and my young heart! And let me tell you, as a young girl, I could run all right. On that hot summer morning, in the thick, evergreen woods of Tsitsikamma, with gangling, lizard-faced Burt ploughing through the woods after me, I ran.

I ran like I’d never run before. I hurtled through that forest. Each tree was a rushing blur. The air pumped in and out of my lungs. My heart thumped against my rib cage as I clambered up slippery muddy banks and splashed through puddles.

I ran as fast as I could, but running in fear is not like running to win a race or get in shape. Running in fear, your legs are never fast enough for your racing mind. I had no idea how far he was behind me, if I was losing him, if he was gaining on me, or if, at any second, his bony hand would snatch me by the shoulder and jerk me to the dirt. I simply ran and hoped. I hoped I’d make it out of the woods in time. I hoped I’d be able to burst into the kitchen and throw myself into my mother’s arms. She’d be standing in her apron over a boiling pot of something good. She’d throw her arms around me and I’d cry. She’d rub my back and tell me, It’s okay, sweet pea, everything’s going to be all right.

But I was not in the kitchen. I was not even in the lodge. I was in the middle of the woods. The man in the woods was an unknown distance behind me, with legs so long it probably took him only one or two steps to cover my five or six. I didn’t stand a chance.

I glanced over my shoulder.

There he was, ten to fifteen metres back, his arms and legs flapping like cooked spaghetti as he tore through the woods towards me. He let off a sound, a cross between a growl and a groan. Fury and despondency filled his wordless utterings.

Strange, yes? And possibly hard for you to believe. But it is what happened next that you may struggle with most. I wouldn’t blame you. As I grew older I somehow convinced myself that it hadn’t happened—that it was the wily invention of a child’s fancy—but these days, in these late years, I have come around. I now know that what I came to witness that day occurred just as I remembered it. This is another of a long life’s little lessons: there is no greater ignorance than the belittling of a memory for the sake of what you believe to be the truth at that point of your life. Once you decide the events of your past did or did not occur in the way that you once believed, you harm yourself in ways you cannot fathom.

Oh, young man. Take this with you: tread lightly. Your memories are what are left of your experiences, and a memory that has been tampered with is not easily fixed. It took me the better part of a hundred years to remind myself of exactly what happened that day in the woods. A hundred years to identify and then dispel all of the supposed insights I’d accumulated since then and restore my memory like a conservator restores a weathered old painting, stroke by careful stroke.

Remember that.

As I ran through that forest, something mystical took me over.

I always knew I could run, but I was no longer simply running. I was moving through the forest as if I had designed it myself. I knew every part of it. I anticipated every upcoming hole in the ground—every slippery slope, every fallen branch. I leaped from rock to rock. I swerved effortlessly through the gauntlet of trees and bushes. It felt as if I was running on air, as if the forest had uploaded the obstacle course in my head beforehand, or I had done the exact route a thousand times before. The woods opened up. I flew through a thick bush, barely touching it. I cannot explain how I managed this, but I did. The bush was riddled with thick thorns, but it left me unscathed as I slipped through it.

I looked back and saw the man crash into the same bush. The thorns ripped through him, shredding his coat and his skin. He howled as he smashed through the dried hedges and burst out with two thrashing fists. Once he was out, he continued running after me, cut up and bleeding, yet seemingly oblivious to the pain. I ran ahead of him.

I flitted through a clearing of tall grass and small shrubs. My bare legs were exposed to a poisonous ivy, but suffered not even the slightest reddening of the skin. Those rough leaves brushed past me like soft strips of cotton cloth.

The man rushed into the same grasses and crashed into the thick underbrush, landing on all fours. I spun to see him. The ivy was not nearly as forgiving to him. He wailed like a baboon in a trap. The ivy ran across his face, grazing and infecting him, intensifying the pain from his cuts. His screams echoed through the trees.

Now, I’ve felt ivy; it stings, but his was most certainly not a normal reaction. In just a few short seconds his face had reddened and swelled like a boiled tomato. On the mound of each of his lumps, white blisters began to form. His left eyelid bulged and drooped. His thin, indistinguishable lips were at once very distinguishable—fat and red.

I swear it.

Some people may tell you it is impossible, that ivy would never affect one so severely, but let me tell you, I saw it. It was as if scalding hot water had been poured over him. He yelped like a small dog, struggling to breathe as he slowly got to his feet. Even his hands were no longer long and white, but inflamed and disfigured. With a madman’s gusto, he staggered on towards me, his hands swimming through the damp air, his eyes glassy and unfocused.

I gulped and took a few quick steps back as he edged closer, reeling and panting. He threw himself against the trunk of a tree and wrapped his arms around it. His throat was so bloated it must have been virtually impossible to breathe. He wheezed and whistled, his face pressed against the bark. His lips and eyes drooped from his face like slivers of raw fish and yet I could still see an intensity in his face. There was still a busy and incensed mind inside that failing, bloated vessel, that was for sure.

My father’s words came back to me: Plants have had to survive this world just like everything else.

He saw me—or perhaps he simply sensed me—and pushed himself off the tree with whatever strength of will he had left. I moved backwards. He swayed as he took a few steps, confused, battered, blistering, but still intent on stalking forward.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking they are weak or useless things.

A flying insect buzzed around his face, and he swatted blindly at it. The insect circled his head, infuriating him. I saw then that it was no harmless fly that had made its acquaintance. It was a hornet.

The hornet landed on his face and stung him. He shuddered, froze in his spot, and shrieked. I looked up. A second hornet was spiralling down from above. Then, a third. Soon there were hundreds, literally hundreds of them, descending from the trees and engulfing him. He flung his arms madly and let off a high and unearthly screech. They stung him in the neck and face. They slipped beneath his clothing and plunged their stingers into his body. He beat himself with his fists, throwing himself forwards and backwards, spinning on his spot like a top, yapping and wailing as they flew into his mouth, as they stung him in the eyes, as they injected their poison into his blood.

He tried to walk but at that point he could barely stand. His legs began to wobble, and then he dropped to his knees.

I grabbed my chance to leave.

With the sound of his screams following me, I ran back to the lodge as quickly as I could. The light of the sun lit my path. The bushes and trees parted. The wind escorted me. I ran flat-out for almost fifteen minutes.

My mother was drinking tea at the kitchen table, reading the paper. I burst in, sweating and panting. I left muddy tracks all over the floor. She pushed herself back from the table and stood. I ran into her, just as I’d imagined, and then I cried. She asked me what had happened. She asked me where I’d been, but I said nothing. She kissed me on the top of my head, rubbed my back in circles, and said to me the words I’d ached to hear, but at that moment they were the most impotent little words I’d ever heard: It’s okay, sweet pea, everything’s going to be all right.