of the foliage increased incrementally, plunging into the shadows in some places. There were mosquitos everywhere, they wouldn't stop harassing me as if we were in an endless battle. Sometimes they reminded me of the Japanese kamikazes of World War II, swooping down on their target without any regard for their lives. The mosquitos were the same, continuously throwing themselves at my body, regardless of the casualties I caused with my hands, using them as antiaircraft artillery. Some were so big that they looked more like giant bombers rather than fighter aircrafts, whose mere presence could make the enemy apprehensive. When I saw them approaching I immediately tensed up, ready to avoid them. There were always some hungry ones, I had plenty of bites on my arms and legs, in places where my clothes did not cover my body. Some were even on the same bites the other ants from this morning had left me. I was fighting a losing battle, a banal, futile, useless fight, since they had no end and I was increasingly tired. They bothered me so much that I decided to cover the parts that my clothes didn't with moist soil, creating an impenetrable barrier between them and my naked skin. That fleeting idea saved me. It was uncomfortable to move, especially when it dried, but the continuous attacks were worse.
Thanks to this trick I was able to forget those ruthless insects for a good while and, although I couldn't claim victory yet, at least it was a temporary truce. It also had the surprising effect of stopping the itching where the ants had previously been. Finally, a lucky break.
I didn't stop looking around, I had the constant feeling that I was being followed, that I was getting increasingly cornered, in a limitless forest. I even thought I heard steps and voices behind me or saw fleeting faces of guerrilla men watching me with ferocity from between the trees, constantly monitoring me. The truth is I didn't really see anything with clarity, I didn't find a single trace of their presence in the area. I had the impression that the trees bent over my head, imprisoning me more and more in a living wooden cell. I didn't know if I was becoming paranoid or what, but I had to calm down if I wanted to survive in this unfamiliar and deadly forest.
While I was madly wandering, I came across a gruesome scene. What seemed to be a family of primates, as large as a chimpanzee or similar, were lying in a glade without hands, feet or heads in the middle of large pools of blood, parched and surrounded by thousands of flies and all types of insects and scavengers. The stink coming from them was unbearable and I couldn't avoid instantly having vomit come up my throat. I gathered my strength and looked again. There were two that must have been adults and a smaller one. There didn't appear to be any young ones, what I didn't know was why they hadn't slaughtered them too, was it because there were none or because they had taken them to sell them on the black market. I knew that there were particular parts of animals that were easily sold as aphrodisiacs in the Asian countries: rhino horns, tiger bones and other things like that. Perhaps this was for something of the sort. I decided to get away as fast as possible from that damned place. This discovery not only confirmed once again the cruelty of the human race, but it also demonstrated that I was walking in areas frequented by furtive hunters, surely not very friendly with strangers.
I was very affected by everything that was happening. At a certain point, I finally felt a strong cramp in my calf of my right leg and it forced me to stop and stretch it while I squeezed my mouth shut from the pain and writhed on the ground. I had to stay seated for a while before I was able to move again and it kept bothering me non-stop for the rest of the day. Several times I thought the cramp was back and I had to stop to stretch my leg. When it started growing dark I was completely exhausted and I hadn't advanced a lot because I was forced to walk at a slow pace. My legs were especially exhausted from all the walking, my knee and calf were sore and my feet were almost numb. Looking at it from a positive point of view, if I ever left this place, I would have eliminated the incipient beer belly that was starting to show. It’s still something. I shouldn't lose my sense of humor that could perhaps save me. It was the only thing I had left, that and my desire to live. Elena, what would I give for one of your hugs right now, for a smile! Or for one of those tasty dishes that you prepared!
I sat on top of a fallen trunk, I ate all the quince that I had left and I took a big sip of water. I only had around a fifth of the bottle left and no food. I would spend this third night in a tree, after the ants experience I didn't think I'd be able to sleep, since the ants are on both the ground and on the trees, but what I least wished for was to get captured asleep by the scoundrels who fired the shots . Like the first night, I looked for a suitable tree and when I found it, I climbed to the chosen branch with the help of a creeper. As soon as I put my hand on it, I had to take it off because I felt a sharp prick. The creeper had thorns. I rubbed my injured palm and I looked for another tree to climb on. When I found it I carefully climbed it and I prepared myself to spend another night in hell. I took my sneakers and socks off and I prayed they would be dry in the morning, although I highly doubted it, since the air was almost permanently humid. My feet were wrinkled and had a light brownish green color. I dried them as well as I could, but the uncomfortable sensation persisted anyway. I tried to get warm, but I couldn't, neither with the blanket nor by rubbing my body. The ants and mosquito bites incessantly bothered me, but there was nothing I could do about it. The only thing that relieved this discomfort, was when I rubbed the humid mud on my body to avoid the bites, at those moments the constant itching was replaced by a comforting sensation that I wouldn't know how to describe. I felt a constant pain in my legs that I couldn't pinpoint, and in my back too. My right arm was numb from exhaustion from giving imaginary machete blows with the stick all day long.
I was so exhausted that I immediately fell asleep. My last thought was about hoping to wake up the next day to a breakfast with a huge glass of milk with honey and some toast covered in butter and strawberry or blackberry jam.
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