Was I dead? I haven’t felt anything of a kind. I blink and I rub my eyes, it is impossible! At least a shadow or something, a steam, a whiff, a little something, that could justify my experience. Nothing! Totally bewildered, with my hands and feet “cold as ice”, absolutely disappointed and played-out, with an immense hole inside me, I get away, but my foot “clamps” into something. I wasn’t far from having a heart attack. I set the lamp towards the ground. On the ground there was a wet owl that climbed down as I told, getting me to paroxysm. On an instant, the animal instinct inside me hurled towards the owl to rip it away, that’s how angry I was, especially after her “landing”, but seeing her so small and helpless I took her carefully and put her in a hollow from the tree. I was hardly recovering from my human state. Although, my lamp faded again, I kept going ahead in the dark, getting my thoughts away from the momentary reality that suggested, that in case it would rain with the same force, downhill, at “Iobanel” and “Saveta’s” bridge, I would have some work with the bourns. I passed “Iobanel” but at “Saveta’s” bridge because of the dirty catch the alluviums obstructed, and the water that was coming from “Poderei” was divided in two. So, I won’t get my feet too wet, I thought which way to go, and heard under the obstructed bridge some gasping. Oh, my God, are you testing me again? It wasn’t just a simple estimation; the noises were coming right from under the bridge. How can this be, if the bridge if full of water, till above?!! Do I without any fail have to go insane in this morning?!! Please, God, don’t leave me! The moan and gasping didn’t continue. I “requested” again the carbide lamp light. As the sounds didn’t end I felt that my senses were leaving me. Not even a distance of a hundred meters was from those two places of challenging my mental health. As the noises from under the bridge amplified I had to get closer … With the strength I had left I put my hat on the lamp so that the wind won’t blow it. With a hard to hide sickening I lay on my knees in the clay soil from the lip of the bridge. I push the lamp forward, under the obstructed bridge and try to pull my self through the mud under the bridge. A little earlier seeing the owl I calmed down. Now, when I saw that scarecrow full of mud, a roar broke out from my being has covered all the storm’s noises on an area of two kilometers. Don’t believe I exaggerate but until that morning I haven’t seen people “dressed up” in mud in the light of a carbide lamp. I shouted out at “him” so that I would cover my fear:
– Who on earth are you?