Short Story #1 - The Path Less Travelled

“Don’t let go!” I yelled, as I struggled to pull up Carin, my hiking partner, over the rocky mountain ledge. “Don’t let go, Carin, please, hold on,” I muttered as he, clinging onto the flimsy rope I had thrown down, swung in the ferocious gale, coming dangerously close to dashing the rock surface of the mountain. I pulled with all my might, praying that every tug of the rope would bring Carin closer to safety. He was being absolutely quiet – praying, perhaps, like I was, to be able to hold on.

Slowly, slowly, he came up, and immediately scrambled onto the ledge. The both of us retreated to our cave and collapsed on the stone floor out of sheer exhaustion – and relief.

A few hours later, I woke up. It was pitch-dark around me, and beside me, I could hear the deep, slow breathing of my companion. My glow-in-the-dark watch told me that it was eleven p.m. That explained the utter darkness that clung to the walls of the cave like soft mats of dark wool. I tried to go back to sleep but somehow, I couldn’t. Our near brush with death in the afternoon kept flashing before my eyes. I decided to step out for a bit.

I came out of the entrance to the cave, and sat down, resting my back on a boulder. Our cave was situated at the very edge of the mountain ledge Carin had fallen over. The whole of the countryside of Shayal lay before me, beautifully illuminated by the soft moonshine. I could feel my mind calming down, and soon, I drifted off into sleep.

The next morning, I woke up to find Carin missing again. He could be quiet and moody at times, and had gone off by himself like this before, but a small finger of worry wormed its way through my mind. It was exactly this disappearing act of his that nearly killed him the day before. While I was reading a compass and trying to figure where we should go next, he had quietly walked out of the cave, lost his balance while trying to sit comfortably on the edge of the ledge, and had fallen over. I rushed to the spot as fast as I could on hearing his yell. Luckily, the rope we kept for just such an emergency was somehow in my hand. I threw it to him, and he caught it, stopping his fall.

To this day, I believe that it was God himself who put that rope into my hand. A delay of even one second would have been disastrous.

I gathered our meagre belongings – one backpack, which sufficed for the both of us, and a few packs of food – and set out in search of Carin. I hadn’t walked far, when I came across him, drinking water from a small brook. When he saw me, he padded right up, wagging his tail happily. “Are you okay?” I asked, sitting beside him and rubbing his soft, brown fur. He looked me at with me those beautiful chocolate brown eyes that sparkled with a desire for adventure, and then, he looked at the long, winding path beside us.

“You want to keep going?” I asked. Then I laughed. “Okay,” I said, patting his fur again, “let’s go.” And my faithful dog and I continued our long journey.