I remember kneeling in a church pew as the teacher asked us a single question over and over, my mind spinning—why isn’t anyone answering? Tentatively, I offered an idea, only to be shouted back to silence. I don’t remember the question I wasn’t supposed to answer, or the answer I wasn’t supposed to give, but I remember my shame. I learned that day that no matter how demanding a person’s tone, no matter how many times she asks something, she might not actually want an answer.
I also remember approaching my mother weeks or months later, asking her to please not make me go back. Not because the classes bored me or scared me, but because even at that young age I knew something wasn’t right. Never mind that I didn’t yet know the word hypocritical; just as with rhetorical, I learned the meaning without the word. I could sense the pride of my teacher. I was an imaginative child, happy to declare a house inhabited by ghosts or to see Bigfoot’s tracks in the mud, but if I sometimes allowed myself to become lost in a game I still knew I was playing. I knew it wasn’t real. Watching a cartoon of Adam and Eve falling for the ridiculous whisperings of a snake and then being thrown out of their home by God was one thing. Acknowledging this cartoon not as fantasy but as an accurate representation of history was another. Even as a ten-year-old, I was repulsed. When I was introduced to the ideas of Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel in school several years later, I experienced the closest thing I’ve ever known to a spiritual revelation. I recognized truth.
It is this truth that has shaped my life. I lack the aptitude for higher sciences and mathematics—I figured that out in college—but I understand enough. Enough not to need platitudes. I’ve heard believers speak of the coldness of science and the warmth of their faith. But my life has been warm too, and I have faith. Faith in love, and faith in the inherent beauty of a world that formed itself. When my foot was caught, my life didn’t flash before my eyes; I saw only the world. The majesty of atoms and all that they’ve become.
This experience might be the horrible construct of some production team, and I might regret some of the choices that led me here, but the choices were mine to make. And even if I’ve made mistakes, that doesn’t change the fact that the world itself is beautiful. The scaly spirals of a conifer’s cone, the helicoidal flow of a river’s curve biting away the bank, the flash of orange upon a butterfly’s wings warning predators of bitter taste. This is order from chaos; this is beauty, and it’s all the more beautiful for having designed itself.
I step out of the woods; the road stretches before me like smoke.
I couldn’t have expected the attack, and yet I should have expected something like it. A farce. The more I think about it, the clearer the truth becomes: The coyote was animatronic. It was too big to be real; it moved too stiffly. It didn’t blink and its marble eyes never changed focus. I don’t think the mouth even opened and closed, though perhaps the lips moved a little. It didn’t bite my foot; they wrapped a snare around my boot as I slept. I was surprised and scared. It was dark and I didn’t have my glasses. That’s why it seemed alive.
The world in which I now move is a deliberate human perversion of nature’s beauty. I cannot forget this. I must accept this. I have accepted this.
With my vision, my missing boot, and my sore, stiff body, I probably make it only a quarter of a mile before I need to rest. It’s still early morning, I have time for a short break. I sit with my back against the guardrail and close my eyes. I keep hearing shuffling steps in the woods that I know don’t exist. I refuse to open my eyes to check.
My thirst wakes me, an endless stretching dryness in my mouth. I paw for my pack, find a half-full water bottle, and guzzle all that’s left.
That’s when I notice the sun is on the wrong side of the sky. Panic brushes against me—the world is wrong—and then my rational mind clicks into gear and I understand the sun is setting. I slept for the entire day. I’ve never done that before. But, I feel better. My head is clear, my chest looser. I feel so much better that I realize just how awful I must have felt before. My bladder is pinching and I’m starving, my stomach rumbling, begging. I’m so hungry I dig out the peanut butter and cram several tablespoons into my mouth, trying to ignore how disgusting it tastes and feels. I climb over the guardrail and squat among the trees. My urine is a deep amber color, too dark. I take out my second bottle and drink a few ounces. As dehydrated as I am, it has to last; night hiking is impossible without my glasses.
While gathering wood for my shelter, I uncover a small red eft. I cup it in my palms, crouching low in case it squirms free. I admire the bright orange skin, the black-rimmed circles dotting the amphibian’s slender back. I’ve always loved red efts. Growing up, I called them fire newts. It wasn’t until embarrassingly late in life—well into my first year as a professional wildlife educator—that I realized the red eft wasn’t a species, but a life stage of the eastern newt. That these bright juveniles grow into dull green-brown adults.
The eft grows used to my skin and starts creeping forward with a wagging gait, crossing my palm.
I wonder how many calories I’d get from eating it.
Fiery orange skin: bright toxins. I’m not sure how poisonous red efts are to humans, but I can’t chance it. I dip my hand to a mossy stone, let the eft saunter off, and finish building my shelter.
That night I dream of earthquakes and animatronic toddlers with fangs. In the morning I break down my camp and creep east along the smoky road. I may not be able to focus my vision, but my thoughts are sharp. I need supplies. A new pack, boots, and food—anything other than peanut butter. I’m nervous about my water again; it’s like I’ve gone back in time—how many days, three, four? It feels like weeks—to just after the blue cabin, after I was sick, when I was able to start moving again but before I found the market. I have no food, almost no water, and I’m moving east searching for a Clue part of me fears will never come. It’s exactly the same except now I can’t see and I’m missing a shoe.
I’m going so slowly, too slowly. But every time I try to move faster I trip or slip or step on something sharp. The sole of my left foot feels like a giant bruise covered in a giant blister.
The morning is chilly and endless. This is worse than the coyote-bot, nearly as bad as the doll, this blurry monotony. If they want to break me, this is what they ought to do, send me walking endlessly with nothing to see, no one to talk to. No Challenges to win or lose. The safety phrase is creeping into my consciousness, teasing. For the first time I wish I weren’t quite so stubborn. That I could be like Amy—just shrug and admit I’ve had enough. That this is too fucked up to be worth it.
What if—what if I were to walk quicker despite my eyesight? Maybe I’d trip for real. Maybe I’d sprain my ankle, worse than Ethan did, a real sprain—maybe even a break. Or what if I weren’t so careful with my knife? Maybe it would slip and the blade would cut into my hand, just deep enough that my first-aid kit couldn’t close the wound. Circumstances wouldn’t allow for continuing. I’d be forced to leave, and everyone would say, “It wasn’t your fault.” My husband would kiss the bandage and bemoan my bad luck, all the while telling me how happy he is for me to be home.
The idea has a certain appeal. Not hurting myself intentionally—never that—but allowing myself the opportunity to slip. With every step the idea seems less ludicrous, and then I notice a blurred structure ahead; a few cautious steps and I make out a gas station with a hand-painted NO GAS sign secured to the pumps, large enough that even without my glasses I can read it from some hundred feet away. My attention snaps fully back to the game and unease clamps my chest. As I get closer to the gas station I see a speckling of buildings down a second road to my left.