The Crisis

The crisis finally came as he stood in the supermarket car park. He became increasingly unsettled by the movement of people and cars all around him. Three men were standing smoking behind him – the smell of their cigarettes made him nauseous. He broke out in a cold sweat. Then he started to walk.

People looked at him anxiously as he lumbered along the pavement. They backed away from him as if they were worried that he might knock them over. Nothing was further from his mind. 

He tried not to think of all the poisons he was taking in from the buses and lorries on the main road. He kept going to the outskirts of the town. On the horizon, on the crest of a hill was a wood that had captured his attention time and again. In his dreams, he had stood among those trees. 

He left the footpath and walked into a field. Accidentally, he tore down a fence, giving himself a few scratches in the process. Sheep raced away in panic at the sight of him, at the sound of his heavy footsteps. 

He kept going with determination upwards through the field, looking at the horizon – he had turned his back on the human race, and he wouldn’t go back again. 

When he reached the top of the hill, he stopped. There was nothing to be heard but the sound of the wind blowing through the branches of the trees. He found a space for himself among them. He rooted his lower limbs in the earth and turned to the sun. He heard the wind rustling over his own rough, dry skin. He breathed. He had found a place where he could be truly alive.