Withering Hope

“It’s not necessary to use a mirror; I have a lighter. But we still need wood.”

"We'll find something," I say, undeterred. But Tristan seems hesitant. "What?"

"You stay inside the plane," he says. "I’ll search for wood."

"No, I want to be helpful."

"The jungle is a dangerous place, Aimee. I'd rather you were unharmed when Chris finds you. Us."

"Well, if we don't search for the wood, we won't be found. It'll be quicker if we both do it. Besides, we won't go too far away from the plane, will we?"

"No, we won't," Tristan says. "I'll get a can of soda. We have to take care not to dehydrate."

The moment he mentions it, my thirst returns full force, my throat dry and raspy. Tristan disappears inside the plane, returning with a soda. I take the first sip, and it's all I can do not to drink the entire content. I pass the can to him, and he takes a few sips as well.

"Why did you bring just one can?" I say, my throat aching for more.

"We have to be careful not to run out of it."

"But this is the rainforest, right? It should rain soon."

Tristan puts the can on the ground, goes to our supply line-up, and returns with the two pocket knives. "It hasn't rained since we crashed last night. But it's the rainy season; we should have some soon."

"Well, let's look at the bright side, if there's no rain, we can start a fire."

He hands me one of the knives, saying, "Use this to cut any branches that might be useful. Take care where you step."

With that, we head toward the tree nearest to us. It's not the one I climbed earlier. I intend to steer clear of that one, though I'm sure other trees are full of snakes as well. I recoil at the memory of its cold skin. It was a very large snake, though not large enough to be an anaconda. I watched a few documentaries about the Amazon a few weeks back, because our honeymoon was supposed to be in a tourist resort in the rainforest, and Chris wanted to make a safari inside the forest. The documentary told about the millions of things that could kill one in the forest: animals, contaminated water, poisonous food, and a lot more. In fact, the only thing that seemed harmless was the air. It put me off the safari, and I managed to convince Chris to drop it.

Despite being surrounded by trees, finding dry wood turns out to be just as problematic as Tristan predicted. We even search inside hollow trees, but what the rain hasn't touched, condensation has turned unusable for starting a fire. We advance very slowly, the thick plants making our task cumbersome.

"Damn it. If we had a machete this would be easier," Tristan says, walking in front of me. After a while, sweating like a pig, I start losing concentration; the little soda I drank earlier long having left my body. Tristan appears to be feeling just as bad. The path beneath us slopes slightly downward, which confirms my suspicion we are on a hill. The more we descend, the muddier the ground becomes. It's almost fluid.

"Let's stop for a bit," I pant. I buckle forward, my knees trembling, and I put my hands on my thighs to steady myself. I keep my eyes on the forest floor, which is covered in mud and leaves and has a red hue. I'm grateful I'm wearing running shoes and not sandals, because they protect me from the creatures crawling on the rainforest floor. I notice a myriad of insects, and decide to close my eyes to stop from giving in to panic. But closing my eyes seems to make my ears more sensitive, because the sound of a thousand beings breathing all around me hits me. Angry chirping birds, sinuous slithering, and howling I don't even want to think about. They’re ominous, all of them.

"These will do," I hear Tristan say, and with great effort, I stand up straight. He's carrying a bunch of twigs with one arm. "Can you hold these?" I nod and take the twigs from him, holding them tight against my chest with both arms. He returns a few minutes later with another bunch in his arms.

"Are you ready to walk back to the plane, or do you want to rest a while longer?" he asks, eyes full of concern.

"I’m fine, let's go." Tristan puts one of his hands protectively at the small of my back, and I'm grateful, because my legs wobble. My breath skitters as I try to propel my feet forward, and I press the twigs so tight to my chest they crinkle. The walk back takes forever. I pull myself together when I see the plane again. Tristan goes inside and returns with a lighter and a can of soda. We each take a few sips, and I rest against the airstairs, strangely reassured by the feel of the metal against my skin. It's something familiar in this otherwise alien place.

Though overcome by a tiredness that has crept into my bones, I move to help Tristan start the fire, but find he's already done it. He placed it in a spot under a wide hole in the canopy so the smoke can rise high in the sky.

"Lucky you had that lighter," I say, standing next to him.

He smiles. "I can start a fire without a lighter anyway."

"That's an… interesting skill to have." I notice he used all the dry wood to start the fire, and now he's putting the less dry branches on top. Smoke comes in a matter of seconds.

"I must say, after your encounter with the snake, I thought you'd want to avoid the forest," Tristan says.

I chuckle. "Give me some credit, will you?"

He bends over the wood, fumbling with the twigs, rearranging them. Though the fire is weak, swirls of smoke rise up to the sky. They're not strong enough to be visible from a distance though.

"We should gather more wood," I say. "Better wood. We need more smoke."

"No. What we need is water. We have two soda cans left. That's a more pressing issue."