He set off, early that morning, with a hangover, a lazy dog, a good sharp pocket knife, a plastic bag full of instant oatmeal, another plastic bag full of canned tuna, a crudely drawn map, a compass, and a determination to reorganize. The sun hadn’t finished it’s ascent when he turned South.

The woods and mountains were waiting on him, as they had since before man’s reckoning, patiently and without judgment. They would be there when he arrived, they would exist as he trespassed upon them, and they would remain after history had forgotten his existence.

Many would see the boy he was when he arrived instead of the man he had become. Years of effort had not changed that. Things absent from man’s sight and thoughts are believed to stagnate perpetually like stone monuments. Worse, they are often twisted and perverted by imperfect memories like crude and inaccurate translations of ancient tomes by civilizations unfamiliar with the writers.

He had strength within him still. He would continue. So he willed it.