Day Sixty-Nine: Rebuilding Our Home (Part Two)

Birds singing, flowers blooming, a gentle breeze rustling through a riot of colors... This was no illusion. It was the sensation that greeted me the moment I opened my eyes this morning.

For a fleeting instant, I forgot where I was—I forgot everything. It took a few seconds for reality to wash over me.

For the first time, I realized just how beautiful this place was. Tiny birds hopped along the top of the sapling fence, chirping merrily. The morning air was crisp and clean, carrying waves of floral fragrance on the breeze. Without a roof to block my view, the lush green leaves of the towering tree above, interspersed with the delicate blossoms of parasitic vines, painted a picturesque scene.

I wished I could just linger in this beautiful dream forever. But the sun had already risen; I had overslept. The sheer physical exertion of yesterday's labor had left my entire body stiff and aching. How I longed to just lie back down and rest.

Yet time waited for no one, and there was still so much to do. The mere thought of rain had become a recurring nightmare. The sight of even a single dark cloud drifting by filled me with dread.

The rice, flour, and cornmeal had to be brought out to dry. I stuck to yesterday's method, loading the sacks of grain into plastic crates and dragging them out into the yard. By the time I finished, my back was so sore I could barely stand up straight.

I rested on a stool for a while, gnawing on a piece of wild fruit. The thought occurred to me to weave a hammock out of vines in the yard. It probably wouldn't be too difficult, but that was a project for later. The most pressing task right now was to put a roof over my treehouse.

However, the tarp was still snagged high up in a distant tree. Retrieving it would be incredibly risky, and I needed to think it through. I certainly didn't want to lose my life over a piece of canvas.

Little Black was already gone by the time I woke up. I had no idea where he had run off to, but perhaps he had just been cooped up for too long. It was only natural for him to go out and stretch his legs. I decided to let him be; after all, it wasn't the first time he had wandered off.

The roof dilemma weighed heavily on my mind. Aside from the tarp, I couldn't think of anything else that would be completely waterproof. Ultimately, I decided to build a frame out of saplings, lash them together, and cover it with vines and coconut fronds. If I layered the fronds thickly, like shingles on a roof, it should allow the rainwater to drain off effectively.

At the same time, I resolved to patch up this small shelter first, and then take a trip down to the beach to see if I could scavenge anything useful. After that, I would build a larger, sturdier house. Having two shelters would be far more convenient: one could serve as a backup and storage space, while the other would be my main living quarters. That way, if one was damaged, I would always have a place to stay.

This wasn't my first time harvesting coconut fronds. It was exhausting work, but time was of the essence. To gather enough leaves as quickly as possible, I pushed through the fatigue, dripping with sweat and nursing aching, swollen arms.

I recalled that last time, it had taken me an entire morning just to harvest fronds from four or five trees. Today, in the same span of time, I managed to clear nearly nine. As I hacked away, several coconuts fell to the ground, which I gathered up as well. Now that I had proper tools, the coconut meat would not go to waste; it could be prepared in several different ways.

By the time I dragged the fronds back to the shelter, I was utterly spent. The most exhausting part wasn't the dragging, but the constant straining of my neck to look upward while chopping. The dense foliage blocked my way, making it impossible to climb up and cut them from above. To make matters worse, my right arm, which had been swinging the axe all morning, was now so sore I could barely lift it.

I rested for a long time. My stomach began to rumble, but there was still no sign of Little Black. Being alone, I didn't feel like cooking anything elaborate, so I staved off my hunger with two of those seedy wild bananas and a coconut. It was quite satisfying. I drank every drop of the sweet coconut water, then split the shell open with my axe and scraped out the flesh with my Swiss Army knife.

Letting out a satisfied burp, I felt a heavy wave of drowsiness wash over me, brought on by the midday heat and my sheer exhaustion. Though I kept telling myself there was work to be done, my weary body refused to listen. Giving in to the fatigue, I climbed up to the upper level of the treehouse and lay down.

Shaded by the canopy of the great tree, a cool breeze drifted through, making me yawn with absolute comfort.

"I can't sleep. I'll just rest for a moment. Keep your eyes open. You absolutely cannot sleep..."

"My eyes are so sore. I'll just close them for a second. Yes, just a second. I won't sleep..."

"I'm so tired. Maybe just a quick nap. I'll get right up..."

Lulled by these self-deluding thoughts, I drifted off. By the time I woke up, the worst of the midday heat had passed. Though the nap had refreshed me, I was now in a race against time. The essential sapling trunks for the roof frame hadn't even been cut yet.

I scrambled to my feet and grabbed the axe, preparing to rush outside. But my right arm was still stiff and sore. In my haste, the axe slipped from my grip with a clatter, nearly striking me.

The near-miss jolted me out of my panic. Wiping the sweat from my forehead, I gripped the handle and pried the blade out of the wooden floorboard where it had embedded itself. Thank goodness it hadn't hit my foot. The mere weight of the falling axe had gouged a gash at least a centimeter deep into the sapling floor. If it had landed on my instep, it would have severed tendons and shattered bone. And in a place like this, a wound like that meant infection, tetanus, and a slow, agonizing death.

Saplings were abundant nearby. This time, I selected ones of uniform thickness, roughly the width of my arm. I had no idea what species they were, but they were slender yet remarkably tall—an arm-thick trunk could reach three to four meters in length. They were perfect for building shelters or fences. My perimeter fence definitely needed to be rebuilt, as the old one had mostly collapsed and was now practically useless. But that was a time-consuming project for another day; I couldn't afford to work on it now.

Felling the saplings for the roof went quickly. The wood was relatively soft, and a few diagonal chops with the axe were enough to bring one down. The real time-consumer was stripping the branches, which took much longer than felling the trees themselves. Instead of trimming them in the woods, I dragged the whole saplings back to the treehouse first. My main reason for doing this was that once dried, these branches would make excellent firewood. Since I had already expended the energy to cut them, it would be a waste to leave them behind.

I labored at this task until the sun dipped below the horizon. By the time I had stripped the last of the branches, darkness had fallen. That was about all I could manage for the day. After hauling the grain sacks back inside, I suddenly realized that Little Black still hadn't returned.

Night had fallen, and his absence filled me with a lingering sense of dread. I stood by the doorway, scanning the darkness for a long time, but there was no sign of him. Had he gone off to hunt rabbits again? Had he found a better place to stay? Or had he run into some kind of danger?

It was now the middle of the night, and still, he hadn't returned. Anxiousness gnawed at me. I wanted to go out and look for him, but I was terrified that we might cross paths and miss each other in the dark. Besides, searching the pitch-black jungle would be nearly impossible.

Where on earth could he have gone?