Читать книгу Ndura. Son Of The Forest - Javier Salazar Calle - Страница 3

DAY 0

I am in the middle of deepest Africa, sitting, leaning against the trunk of a tree. Fever has taken me over, my body is convulsing and chills are becoming more frequent, a non-localized pain is all that I can feel in my organs. I can’t stop shaking. I'm on top of a hill. Behind me, there is a forest, a lush, wild and ruthless forest. The view in front of me, disappears just like magic, a few scattered stumps and remains of intensive logging, provides a glimpse of what was once there. At the bottom, I can distinguish the first houses of an emerging city. Mud intermingled with leaves and bricks. Civilization.

I am thousands of miles away from home, from my people, my family, my girlfriend, my friends. I even miss my work. The comfortable life, to be able to drink by simply opening a faucet and to eat just by ordering food in any bar. And sleeping in a bed, a warm, dry and safe bed, but mainly safe. Oh how I miss that serenity! When the only uncertainty was knowing how I was going to spend my free time in the evening after work. My previous preoccupations seem so absurd to me now: the mortgage, the salary, arguments between friends, food that I don't like, a soccer game but mainly, the food...

It is clear that the need for survival changes the point of view of people. Anyway, this is what happened to me. What am I doing so far away from home, dying, at the border of the Central African forest? How did I get myself into such a Dantean and apparently irremediable situation? What is the genesis of this story?

I mentally review the dire circumstances that led me to be on the brink of death, at the entrance of the transit freeway to the beyond, to the more than probable extinction of my story from the book of life.