Show Me the Sky - Nicholas Hogg [63]
No, that’s a lie. I don’t care about rest. I’m writing to stop myself from vanishing. Physically, mentally, and spiritually, I’m fading away. I could dig my way back to London, to Paris, if you were by my side. I’m writing because I need my existence confirming. How do I know I’m alive without another human being to verify my soul?
I’m used to being alone, no brothers or sisters. No family. But then you came along, shared your heart and soul, wanted mine. And I know I insisted on riding this stretch of desert by myself, to prove something, to resolve what had gone before and examine my life beneath this lens of sky. What I do know is that I’ve never wanted someone so much as I do you.
Morning. And the undertakers are here.
Woke to the squawk of two vultures perched on the bank. They wear their ragged wings in the style of funeral directors, two sombre men in long, dark coats, waiting. Maybe they think my well a self-dug grave?
I threw handfuls of stones at them, and missed. Though I landed a few close enough to scuttle them into the bush. For now. They’ll be back. All morning I’ve listened to their cackles. I wish I’d bought the air rifle a Danish backpacker offered me in Katherine. I’d put a pellet between their beady eyes and roast them on the fire, skewered on a spoke like a kebab.
But what would I drink to wash them down? My well is four feet deep, and though the sand is damp, water isn’t gushing from the earth.
Again: two plus two equals three. Now the sun is up I’m pouring with sweat.
0.9 l of water remaining.
Took off all clothes to cool down and wait out the afternoon heat. Will dig again this evening. Slumped naked in the shade of the creek bank, opposite the bones of the reverend, twirling his silver cross between my fingers. ‘Do you expect me to start praying?’ I asked. ‘Forget it,’ I called out. ‘My fate is in my hands. Not yours. Not God’s.’
I felt stupidly powerful making these claims, the uncontested ruler of the void where I’m stranded. Then I heard my own voice echoing. ‘Crazy fucker,’ I shouted. ‘Talking to a pile of bones.’ My words ricocheted along the narrow banks of the creek and flew into the great blue sky, gone.
I’ve not seen another human being for three days. Not a long time, but neither have I seen evidence of life beyond lizards and birds. The silence is crushing. But then no, it’s not silence, because there’s wind and swaying bush, the crackling fire and hungry vultures. It’s loneliness that’s crushing. I had to fly to the bottom of the world and die in a desert to realise life is about other people.
I think of Miguel, a motorbike courier I worked with zigzagging parcels through the streets of London. We were standing in the shadow of St Paul’s Cathedral, dealing laughs and jokes with the other riders, when Miguel lifted off his bag and dropped it to the pavement. ‘Theeis city,’ he announced, before looking to the glinting towers of finance and banking, Sir Christopher Wren’s great dome, another busload of camera-toting tourists, and the technicolour brokers in lurid jackets, looking for all the world like ice-cream sellers rushing to save melting stock, ‘is a lie. A great beeg lie.’
He emptied the contents of his bag on to the kerb, brown and white letters stamped urgent, and rode all the way back to his village in northern Spain.
Right now, it’s that lie I want to be a part of.
The dying sun has ten minutes to live. Strafed cloud hangs like purple bunting, and I’m spooning coffee granules directly into my mouth. Will the caffeine buzz last long enough for me to dig down to the buried river? I have hopes of a fountain whooshing me into the air. Though the best I can expect is a mire of fetid water.
I’m sorry I’ve left our little cottage unfinished. Now the painkillers have run out, and my leg is burning agony, my right shoulder numbed and left arm jelly from the digging, I have the focus to build our petite