A Short Hike in Lundra

The rain tumbled down, drenching the over-soaked trail and casting a cloud over the decision to have a picnic.
It was a bothered kind of rainfall, a cascade of laundry-flooded sheets that billowed and blanketed across the embattled countryside, rolling down hills and valleys so torrentially that the land was water-logged passed the point of etymology.
Trudging through the mire, two lone figures splashed along, braving the elements as if serving a penance. Their trailing footprints becoming puddles before their shoes even had a chance to leave the mud.    

‘Terrible weather today,’ grumbled the dim outline of one of the hikers still attempting to enjoy the Lundrian countryside.
By the waterlogged texts, of the most waterlogged of libraries, the skies of Lundra had always been grey, the trails had always been muddy, the puddles were lakes, and anything that wasn’t being rained on was most probably submerged.

‘It’s just a passing storm.’ The second shape called back as a gale suddenly whipped up a lashing of sleet that stole their words off into the valley to then tumble out of mind. ‘Wasn’t it blustery yesterday?’ 

‘It’s worse today.’ the gruffer of the two outlines replied grabbing at the fence that separated the edge of the trail and the perilous absence of any footpath on the other side. Somewhere below a ground waited impassively.
‘I wonder how they manage to keep track of their washing lines here. One poorly fastened blanket and you’ve got yourself a rather deadly kite. Never mind the shrapnel of a peg basket.’

Alice and John Meadows paused in the relative shelter of an overhang and squinted into the static of what might have been a good view. They had been warned that Lundra was rainy. Friends thought they were joking when they announced the holiday. A ticket officer, as humourless as a headstone, had asked them to sign a form stating they were travelling of their own free will. It couldn’t be that bad, could it? The Meadows had been to places that were “rainy” sure. They’d seen the bluster of a summer storm in Tolongully, they’d listened to the echo of sheet lighting across the Illoian Coast. There were places in the world that were notably wet, but nothing could have prepared them for Lundra.

‘The ducks must be happy here.’

‘Who knows, they’ll mostly have concussions.’

Alice looked at her sodden husband sourly as he took in the overhang, taking great interest in the geology of anything that wasn’t direct eye contact.
‘John! Can you try to be positive.’

There was a pause, twenty years of marriage and countless hikes had sharpened this moment like a whetstone.
‘I’m positively saturated, my dear. Say, do you think this rock is igneous?’ A long slumbering youthful memory had roused in the teasing of his wife. It wasn’t proper to be snide but then a compliment from a Lundrian was always a half-smile away from ridicule and John was determined to get into the spirit of the horrible county.
Somewhere within the impossibly grim “carry on, carrying on,” countenance the they both had grown into, John caught the very edges of a chuckle.

It was a cosy overhang, the path abruptly turning and winding below as if taking any chance of shelter. Roots grew through the craggy moss-lined sofit as an oak rested on the knoll above, spreading its branches wide and guiding the falling droplets away into a departing stream. There was a noisy kind of peacefulness here. One that could only be noticed when allowed to grow in a moment of rest. Against the wall, a wide stone had been carved into a kind of rudimentary bench that faced the drowning valley with its bounty of greens and grey beyond. John took a seat beside his wife and patted her on the knee, then hugging her as they both watched the rain for a moment.

‘How many hikes would you call this?’ he asked, far away but still present within an all too rare moment of peace.

‘Just one hike, dear. You can only do the one at a time.’
There was a pause as the two smiled in the moment of having just invented a game. They had hiked and walked across so many trails in their life, but it was only now that they realised that their favourite moments were when they sat down and talked.
A wind picked up, carrying a swirl of mist against the heavy droplets, water tumbling and colliding amongst itself as if in a dizzy kind of fireworks display. Deep in the valley below a small boat bobbed its way down the snaking river, the figures aboard presumably swaddled below a sail-cloth tarp strung from mast to stern.

With a sigh, John departed from the moment and fished around in his pack for what he presumed to be a clump of what was once a perfectly functional map.
Surprised, the haversack that he had bought from the innkeeper had proven to be waterproof enough that the paper was dry enough to be legible.
‘They’re not the clearest trails,’ he said, in the very Joyceian way of loudly pointing out a flaw in the hope that its creator might be in earshot. ‘Seems like they put more detail into the rivers than they do the roads. Typical, that is.’

Alice peered over and tried to make sense of the symbols that Lundrians had cryptically decided on for their wayfinding.  
‘I think the small vs mean bog,’ she said, pointing to a shaded section on the map that was marked with a word that may have translated to beware, ‘and the large ones are lakes. Anything blue must be a watercourse.’
Map makers—who were a rather perturbed kind of individual for a country where umbrellas were invented before pottery—put great effort into the minute details of their craft, fussing over falls of dales and depths of bogs far beyond what could be considered sensible. The office of Geographical Standards in Stallinger had dismissed the Lundrian method as uninteligible, but, for a Lundrian, when a footpath had just as much chance of becoming a stream, it was important to remain cartographically loose.     

The rain had slackened to a persisting mist as droplets fell and drummed within the foggy quiet. Above, the stream born from the oak’s branches burbled away and made its ambling path down the valley.
‘Shall we continue on?’ John asked, the chill of the departing afternoon becoming visible in his breath. ‘Not too far to go.’
Shuffling off, Alice and John marched on through the mud and puddles until the path became a road and that road led to an inn with contented hearth. Warmth, brandy, a kind of roast diner that only a country tavern could prepare, and finally a bed of snoring slumber.
Through many years, the two had together walked more trails than either could care to count. They had trekked across the deserts of Yansir, they had stood below the silent bows of fir in forests too old to bear a name. They had walked through boreal valleys as the wind carried countless petals through the air from meadows untouched by foot or sight. But of all these places, it was in Lundria where they had found a happiness not remembered for many years.  

As the rain drummed down outside the window of their room, Alice and John rested their tired legs and allowed the years to catch up to them somewhat. For in the dreary grey of a Lundrian morning, there is no rest better spent than in shelter of friendship.  

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J. McCray
2024