I'm Not There Yet

(Panorama from Nocturne, 2009)

Jeffrey said it was silly to believe Thomas was still alive. It had been four days out in Washington, so far and so deep that our compass serve as digging tools at most, and fail to even do the task well. Jeffrey was looking pretty good to eat, but I held on to the last of my will to survive with the both of us intact.
The passing crows seem to be waiting for one of us to fall to call the rest of their flock for a feast, but our bones still supported our weakened states. The spit in my mouth grew to an acid and thinned to drool from the side. I tried daydreaming, bikinis and surf, mounds of food, stupid with grease and excessive flavor. Jeffrey hated me, and would tell me this every time I gave him the look of hungry for fellow. I hated him because he hated me. Perhaps Thomas' body would've united us both in relief, but now it was too late, we had no hope.
There was a time when I could say I was a brave man; a sensible and reasonable person, but those times were tested, and the walls to my strength have been breached. Fallen to a dreary state just before zombie, I call my fellow, and tell him a story all so close in resemblance to our scenario.

John and Walter found the Greenberg river that runs for a thousand of miles from Washington to Southern California. Their recognition usually ends there, but what they endeared was every 1409 miles of that river with pain, and unbearable weight upon their shoulders. What was forgotten to history was that their horses and ox were eaten for their own fuel, and they had become savages as wild as coyote, feasting on raw flesh, and berries. With their clothes ripped and half nude, and their eyes sunk to their skulls, what kept them as outsiders to the beast was their journey. John and Walter, close to insanity, without a human outside their pack for six months carried out their passion of discovering the start and end of Greenberg. And perhaps today their fleet doesn't strike amazement but the cities that were settled on the Greenberg would not be, and those families and businesses would be nonexistent without their efforts.
I would like to think that John and Walter, without hope, had something that could be even beyond the shimmer of hope, they had their drive, their passion, and their strength to broaden their spirits and wills to survive and conquer. Today, I feel the spirit of such explorers in my attempt to survive, without hope, with just my hands and my feet, and my friend.
An eagle pierces the sky and catches a young crow midair, the sounds of struggle carry off beyond the treeline, and I can hear the sound of running water, and for a moment there I feel free. Free.