Free Beyond the Sky and the Earth by Jamie Zeppa Page B

Outside, the dogs begin to bark. Hark, hark, I say aloud, and eat a cracker, an Orange Cream Biscuit, another cracker. I wish for cappuccino, I wish for baked potatoes, I wish for raspberry cheesecake. I wish to go to sleep and wake up in Canada. My legs are covered in flea bites which calamine lotion does absolutely nothing to help, and I scratch them until they bleed. I can’t believe I volunteered for this. Am I going to cry? Then I remember the tin. The tin, the tin, how have I forgotten the square tin with the round lid, the rat-proof tin, the treasure box, the Christmas chest, the store of all goodness. I pry open the top, reach in and pull out a cellophane package of dried beans. Lentils. Split peas. A package of origami paper. It is Sasha’s box. I have Sasha’s split peas and origami paper and she has my chocolate. Life is suffering! Now I am going to cry. I sit on the floor and cry and cry, and when I have finished, I have decided: I will go home in the morning. I have made a mistake, a terrible terrible mistake, but it can be rectified. I will send a wireless message to Thimphu. I will say I am sick. I will lie, I will cry, I will beg. I will throw myself on the floor and scream. They cannot make me stay here! They cannot make me stay!
    But the next day, the mist is gone and the sky is a clean, clear, dazzling blue. I can see every curve and contour of the mountains all around, edges and lines are hard and bright in the sharp morning light. At school, there is a letter for me. It has come from Tsebar, a village across the valley and up the next mountain, from Jane, a British teacher. I heard you were there, she writes. Why don’t you come and visit this weekend? I’d walk across but I hurt my ankle washing clothes in the creek. She has drawn a map. It’s only a three- or four-hour walk. Only!
    I decide to go. I cannot go back home until the roadblock is cleared anyway. I will go to visit this Jane across the valley, and on my way back, I will go home. I will pass this house and the fields and the school, I will pass the gate, the crooked shops, the little white temple, I will keep going, straight home. At home, I will go to the library, I will reread The History of Literary Criticism. I will make notes, a reading list, a study schedule. I will not make this mistake again.
    I take my sleeping bag, my high-tech flashlight, a bottle of water, a mini medical kit and my copy of Where There Is No Doctor. Down the valley path I go, stumbling under the hot afternoon sun against rocks and the roots and bones of trees. In some places, the path descends so steeply that I must clutch wildly at overhanging branches and nearby shrubs to hold myself upright. The path finally levels out, and I find myself in front of three shops. I can see the gypsum mine further downhill. Funded by the Government of India, Bhutan’s principal aid partner, the mine is an immense, ugly white scar in the lush greenery. Parked on the roadside, loaded with chunks of gypsum, is a huge orange truck, its front and sides garishly painted with eyes and elephants, its windshield garlanded with tinsel and plastic flowers.
    I continue on to the river, which zigzags wildly across the valley floor. I have to cross it six times, over sodden logs laid across large flat rocks. The sun is even hotter down here, and I am soaked with sweat by the time the path enters the forest and begins to ascend. Too bad I’m not staying, I think: I’d really be in good shape after two years of this.
    I stop, panting, at a stream. How much farther up is it? Shouldn’t I be there by now? Is this the right way? Why is my backpack so heavy?
    You shouldn’t have brought Where There Is No Doctor.
    What if something happens out here? I’ll need it.
    The only thing that’s going to happen is you’re going to collapse under the weight of it.
    You can’t be too careful.
    Yes, you can. You can be careful unto craziness.
    Caution is not crazy. Singing a song about tapeworm