Yar 3: Part 5: Post 7: Losing Track

I'm still in the woods. I've been in here--or out here--for a long time. It rains sometimes, but I have a tarp and nowhere to go and nothing to do, so when it rains I just lie in my hammock, under my tarp--there's a string above my hammock to hold the tarp up--and listen to the rain. I have no reading material. I get no news. The world could have blown up in the last few days and I don't think I'd know. Kind of like when I heard as a kid that it takes eight minutes for light to go from the sun to the earth, so if the sun blew up we wouldn't know for eight minutes--except I always thought that was kind of creepy and this is relaxing.

There are coyotes, at least two of them. There are both ravens and crows. There are crickets. I hear them. I don't see them. I watch the way the sun comes through the leaves of the trees above me. I listen to birds and sometimes count them but mostly I just listen.

It's really incredible having nothing to do, and in fact I can do nothing--I'm not allowed to go anywhere. I have no schedule. I can stay up all night if I want, sleep all day, take a nap any time. No one minds. No one knows, unless Charlie is watching me in secret. I think he comes to check on me sometimes and that he can watch me somehow without my seeing him, but he can't be watching all the time, he has other things he needs to do.

He had said he'd send company if I needed it, but we decided to try it just me alone and I'm glad I did. I could send a note out with my things at the drop-off point if it started to get to me, but it hasn't. I mostly don't feel lonely. I wouldn't want to spend a long time like this, but so far it's been ok.

I've completely lost track of time. The sun moves, the stars move, the weather changes...for the last while the moon has been growing so every night is brighter. The last two nights two nights it's been almost half and so bright I've wanted to go do something by its light but I haven't. Of course I can't.

But the day of the week? The date? No clue. I lost track.

I worried for a while that I'd forget when to come down, but then I realized that when Charlie stops supplying me I'll notice and go back to civilization and get something to eat. It's occurred to me that maybe I could just stay out here, try my luck at foraging like Rick used to, and let the human world go spin by itself. Would anybody notice and miss me? The human world seems so far away.

And then, tonight, just a few minutes ago, I went down to the drop point to leave my left-overs and I found a note:

Time's up. Come to breakfast tomorrow. Bring your stuff to the greenhouse. 

We'll chat at some point.

--Ch.