On falling into a river

The Pooh Stones walk is so named because it was where we first played our variation on Pooh Sticks. One person throws a stone into the water and the other player has to throw their stone into the centre of their ripples. It's quiet and sometimes we let Pie the Lurcher off the lead, though mostly she disappears for forty-five minutes and comes back soaking wet.

On the day in question, I decided that I would find out exactly where she goes and why it is she invariably comes back drenched.

Following her usual escape route, I discovered a stone bridge that leads across a sideline of the meandering Dordogne river. The level of the river has risen over the years and the area in which I was walking is normally underwater. Though wet and mossy, I made it across the bridge without much trouble. It was when I stepped down the other side and held onto a branch for support that things started to happen. No slow motion for me. It was all very fast. I don't remember if the branch snapped or merely bent. I do remember that what seemed like solid ground a moment before slipped away and so did I.

The stone bridge of doom

The first thing I thought, even while scrabbling, was: “Shit! How did that happen?”

Followed by: “My feet are wet! My shoes are wet! My trousers are wet! I cannot get these things unwet!”

Calm but slick, this thought was pursued by: “Fuck, did anyone see me do this?”

I laughed, a lot, maybe frightening the dogs a bit, who seemed less concerned than bemused. I've fallen off lots of things in my time, but they'd never seen me end up in a river.

My first resolution back on land was that I should head back to the car immediately, as if that would make me dry again. Dispensing with that idea – not least of all because it would result in me coming across someone and having them see my impression of a mud monster – I marched on into the forest, my feet making a ridiculous sucking squelchy sound. Feet, socks and trainers had become one. Trousers and legs, the same.

Pie, laughing

 As I trudged, the words “fuck it” went around rather a lot, as in “why not?” Was I seriously going to allow some water to prevent me going for a walk? In a kind of looking-down-from-above sense, was this really as big a deal as it seemed from the ground?

The thing about falling into a river is that once you're soaked, you're as wet as you're going to get and the idea of 'falling into the river' no longer seems so bothersome anymore.

I walked.

The 'path' (there wasn't really a path, aside from the one I made) involved climbing over and crawling under a number of fallen trees in a stretch of wood so narrow and so densely-populated that I always appeared to be 30 seconds from a dead end. Every time I reached what I thought was the close of my adventure, however, there was an obstacle and a continuation. As in stories, the obstacles became bigger and bigger; there was balancing and jumping, grabbing and sliding. I encouraged the dogs. Sometimes I yelled for them to wait. There was a moment of teetering. I wasn't worried about getting wet anymore. And dirty had happened too.

As in many stories, my major obstacle turned out to be internal. I kept thinking that I ought to turn around and go home. It was getting dark. Nobody knew where I was. At some point, it would be impassable and I'd have to retrace my soggy steps. Ella was tired. This last was bullshit, for my benefit. But … what the fuck was that noise? There! In the bushes …

I kept going.

At the point at which the path tapered off to about a foot across – and there was a good chance I was about to go for another swim - I climbed a steep mud face up to a large, open area. Half a dozen birds took off with a crash of wings. I got the impression that they hadn't seen anyone here for a long time. Perhaps they had been busily eating the last person to come this way.

Ohh mannnn!

I stepped around plants that were springing up, because the trees were further apart than before and more light filtered through. In a movie, there would have been a Mayan temple or a field full of cannabis. Orchestral strings.

Beyond this open space were some sticks with ragged sheets of plastic attached, flapping in the wind. Maybe someone had been growing something (cannabis) here once. A ploughed field, no shoots. Aged tractor tracks. The sound of the river flowing, slow and unseen down below. I entered one of the most tranquil places I have ever visited, serene largely because of the effort it took to get there and the pleasure of having found something relatively hidden, from sight and thus from knowledge.

The dogs were the happiest I've seen them for months. The moment might have remained blissful if I hadn't started to worry then about the unseen dangers. You know. The lurking dangers that exist everywhere.

On entering a field like this, someone like me is not thinking about future picnics. He or she is thinking about bulls and wild horses and farmers with no sense of humour. I'm imagining a warning shot that whistles past my ear. I pushed through my childhood conditioning to be afraid, however, and allowed myself to enjoy the peace, the view, the moment.

I believe that this conditioning, shared by many to some extent …

Don't!

Be careful!

It's dangerous!

… is largely responsible for my inclination to write horror. I write about people who are afraid of chairs and snowmen and children. I write from the perspective of monsters who live in terror of people. In my world, apparently harmless things can be terrifying. I like to think that I also appreciate the beauty in life, however, and that the darkness of my work makes the light that much brighter.

Perseverance brought me back to the car, which meant that not only had I found an eventful walk that was good for me and the dogs, but I didn't have to do forty-five minutes of backtracking in the dark to get back to where I'd started.

I realised that while overcoming each obstacle had led to another and another and another, each one made me feel stronger, more determined, more capable, less afraid, and closer to something that was elusive but showed itself to me at the very end. I suppose that progression of events makes all the stories I have ever written and most of the stories I have ever read true.

Also true is that things we fear are rarely as bad as we imagine. A certain level of fear keeps us safe, but too much fear keeps us from living.

I've started to feel something again that I have been intellectualising for far too long: how important it is to face obstacles; mental, physical, emotional, financial, whatever. Avoiding your obstacles kills your story. And if that docked tale happens to be the story of your life, what a shame that would be.

Never mind falling into the river. I'm jumping into it.