At first Messny’s camp-site had been sparse. When he had first come to this place he had carefully selected a sheltered spot to put up his tent – a tiny one-man bivouac of thin waterproof canvas. He had chosen a small corrie for the start of his new life. The sides were steep and offered protection from the cutting winds. The area around was overgrown with bushes and undergrowth forming a natural oasis in the midst of the barrenness of the moorland.
The green of the corrie was hidden from the purple haze of the moorland by the rocky outcrops. His tent nestled invisibly in the undergrowth, its faded green merging in perfectly.
It took Messny a full season to swap that flimsy tent for a warmer tepee of hide formed from the deer and rabbit that he had learnt to successfully hunt.
That first winter had been hard and his fur lined home a whimsical notion. But he had known it would be and planned for it. He had brought the provisions and clothing to see him through. They had not lasted long, but long enough. His body had thinned and hardened and he had paid for this new toughness with much pain and suffering. Messny had despaired and nearly given up. But his determination won through and he was glad of it. He had resolved to sink or swim and there was no quarter given to his wretched body. Starvation and freezing cold drove him to the full extent of his powers of endurance but he discovered new limits that he had never known he possessed. His strength surpassed his own expectations. Against the odds he not only survived but prospered.
He had equipped himself with skills but had soon discovered that putting them into practice was a different kettle of fish.
He learnt to hunt and snare the plentiful rabbits and deer, to track and trap and read the signs, to tickle or fish for trout in the streams. He learnt to seek out the roots, fruits and berries and to store food for the times of hardship. His eyes grew to pick out shapes, see movements and understand the signs. His hands learnt to wield tools and weapons, to fashion fire and devise ways to meet his needs. He could sit as still as a rock for hours until the time was right to spring into action. He could lunge, rush like the wind or relentlessly track down his prey. He used wood and bone, stone and metal. He made rope, clothing and bedding and created pots for water storage and cooking. His body grew strong and lean so that he could run effortlessly for hours on end and even make his way uphill without breaking his stride. He could leap from rock to rock and fall as lightly as a cat. He had mastered the summer’s heat and the winter’s snow so that while his body screamed his mind remained serene. In his head he kept an encyclopaedia of the area. In it was every tree, rock and bush, the animals and plants, streams and ponds. He knew their habits and the change of the seasons and became part of it. He lived off the land and depended on it. The land was his bounty, his friend and his bitterest enemy. He had learnt to respect it and all that comprised it, each plant and creature, and could feel that it respected him back.
The weak subhuman he had been was now a nasty taste in the past. Now he was free. Messny depended on nothing but his strength and resolve, his skill and resourcefulness. There were gifts all around him. Nature abounded. All you needed was to know how to become part of it.
Messny felt that he was at last a man. He could walk away from his past. He was alive for the first time in his life. He walked with his head high and a gleam in his eye. He now had everything that he had ever wanted and was filled with an inner strength that seemed to flow straight through him and out through that heavenly turbine to the very boundaries of infinity. There was nothing more to achieve other than to be in the moment with the majesty that surrounded him.
Life was full. There were never enough hours in the day to achieve all the tasks that needed doing, yet there was always time to sit and stare. There were whole days set aside to appreciate the changing panorama of beauty that was the natural world. It was a show unrivalled anywhere. Nothing was more important than the clouds as they created artworks in the sky in a gallery that was free to all who cared to look, or the stars that shone with a trillion years of wisdom; nothing was better that the taste of fresh meat cooked over an open fire. Messny was no longer detached – he was part of everything that existed.
Comfort and the promise of a million delectable pleasures had melted quickly into the past. They were no more than an idle thought. Messny had no hankering to return. He did not even wish for a brief glimpse of the past to act as a comparison. He had achieved inner contentment that sated every urge. Not even the aspects he was aware of lacked seemed important to him. He had enough.
Comfort, pleasure, pain or extreme discomfort were all merely states of mind. Pleasures were no longer confined to brief interludes sandwiched between lengthy periods of mediocrity. Happiness existed in being. It was complete and never left him. He had no need for more.
Even so there were things he missed. The main thing that he missed was the company of others. It was hard being a lone Indian in a strange land. A wife and friends would have made it complete. But Messny knew that he had chosen to cut himself off from the rest of humanity and would never share his life with another human being again.
But he was not alone. He could never be alone.