The Walk: Part III

That last walk across the bog before, stretched for eons.   Each step I sank a bit deeper.  I was up to my knees when I was a quarter of the way across.  I kept thinking that I was going to step off the rock shelf that was beneath me, and be forever lost in that stinking, slimy goo.  It stunk to high heaven!  If you think cow manure is smelly, bogs are double that.  All that rotting vegetation.  You see, the bog really looked like a meadow with lots of vegetation.  NOT.  This was the ultimate in April Fools jokes.  And yet I wasn't laughing.  Each step I took, my heart was in my throat.  I was absolutely terrified...and yet the only way to the other side was through that awful, stinking, icy cold muck.  I could no longer feel my toes or my legs.  They were absolutely numb.  And by now the bog was well above my knees.  I was halfway across.  I thought about lying down so my weight would be spread out over the top and perhaps if I did go down it would take more time.  But then the foolishness of that idea came to mind.  I pictured my whole self sinking all at once...being swallowed alive by this terrible woman eating muck.  And all this imagination was remembering all the terrible movies about swamp creatures and the such.

At long last I was just a few steps from a very large stone that sat next to the fence...that was all that was between me and the space next to the road.  Yes, the stone shelf beneath me remained.  The bog reached only to mid thigh.  Gratefully I scrambled up onto that stone and lay on my back looking up at the gray sky which was still spitting rain.  I slipped one sock on a very numb foot, and then the other.  My sneakers were next.  About then I looked up to see a man on a tractor coming down the road from someplace nearby.  I feebly waved at him.  He waved back, turned the tractor around and left me sitting there in the bog muck which was dripping slowly off my lower body.  The smell was spectacular.  Rotting vegetation and cow poop assailed my nostrils with their stench.

One last jump across a bit of bog and I was clinging to the barbed wire fence.  I slid along it for a ways until I could find an opening to crawl through.  AT LAST!  I was through!  I was on solid earth.  I was now on the road.  I was crying in relief and left over terror.

A black car came driving along and I waved it down.  Might have been the end of the story right there, but the driver took one look at me, the monster from the bog, and screeched away.  I only wanted to ask for help!  Barely lifting one frozen leg at a time, I shuffled up a driveway and knocked at a door.  Did I see a flicker at the curtains?  No answer.  I tried three different houses, with the same result.  They were probably there behind the curtains whispering about the sight on their front porch.

Finally I knocked on a door and a woman opened it to me.  "Hello, may I help you?"  Her eyes didn't meet mine.  She told me she had arthritis and was legally blind.  That explained it!  Her name was Dot.  She was very kind.  Brought me something washable that I could sit on while she called my friend Sue to come and get me.  She gave me hot tea and some biscuits as I sat on a wooden stool in the front entryway.  She was too polite to mention the smell!

Sue came shortly and I changed into dry clothing.  She drove me home after a profuse thank you to Ms. Dot.  Sue didn't say much on the drive back to the house.  She helped me inside.  They had been worried about me, my friends.  Had even stayed home from work to look for me. 

I went and ran a hot bath in the big clawfoot tub.  She took my dirty clothes, everything I had on, and put them directly into the washer.  She brought me a robe from my closet.

Lavender tea was brought to me, and I soaked for a long time in the bubbles.  April in New York.  Sounds like a lovely romance, my welcome to New York.

Sue, Peter and Steve enjoyed telling that story about me.

And of course, if you remember from the beginning of my story, those red sweat pants were never to come clean.  The bog had left its mark.