I ran. It was all I could do and the mud was thick on my boots so running wasn’t easy. None of this was easy…. but was it worth it?
Yes, my fevered mind said, somewhere in the back, it was well worth it! And the thing in my arms slid and squirmed…. sometimes this way, sometimes that…but I held on. I held on like my life depended on it and every breath I took pleaded with me to stop. Stop, relax, take it easy. You’re not used to this! You don’t do this…. You sit at home and READ about nature. You go to meetings and tramp around gently among low down bushes and discuss tiny things with kind and gentle people…. you don’t run through bog and wood at who knows what-!
The noise sang out. There among the wind.
There was a slight breeze, a mild moan but they were clever.
They used that and if I ran, if I ran fast enough…
I would be there the next day. At our meeting,
And I could tell them that. How they sang against the wind among each-other to mask their calls. It was a long call but if you hadn’t paid attention, it was easy to miss. It was there though. Easy to miss but there.
I almost stumbled between turning to see, to make sure
And holding tight to the perfect specimen. The winning specimen. The one that would bring me academic fame and put me far above the rest of the Dublin Naturalists Field Club!
This was it and isn’t she a beauty?
You see. I knew they were there.
Countless nights researching. Careful forays into the bogs, all on my own of course, to where I figured out they might be.
I asked locals and guides and spent a year in many different libraries…. campuses…things like that.
Putting the little bits together. Puzzling over every vague little reference to them. Always there in the back somewhere…. was this nothing but hearsay? folklore? Or did some saint somewhere in some half-lost record, see something real?
I took notes and they were my notes and anyone who asked. Well, I was in the DNFC so it was field work….and the nature lovers would ask questions but I would excuse myself, tell them I was going to be presenting this in half an hour or so. So, you will have to excuse me if I’m a little rude but this work needed to be done.
And that half hour was the longest of my life. A half hour that ran from a year ago or more when I first heard it on the breeze.
That seemingly distant sound
To now, when, with some courage I might add, I found myself here.
Running, tired but running- Shouldn’t this bog give way? Shouldn’t I have reached the road by now?
I ran. It couldn’t be too far away and this thing turned, and slid and fought
Something hit a tree back there! I swear I heard something above my clambering feet. A thud. Could they be that close?
Did I hear their feet plopping in the mud as they raced eagerly?
Or was it starting to rain?
But here in my arms was all I needed. Wrapped in the folds of my mack in quite a solid, real way was the answer to that question.
Something hit a tree again behind me. Maybe a frog jumped or a bird flew up.
I couldn’t tell the time. It was still a little light, light but fading and my watch was in among the struggle in my arms and my phone was in my pocket.
I felt tired. I took a quick glance at what I held. What coiled and coo-ed and twisted and turned. It was to all appearance some kind of dark coloured eel…a slender creature of some sort but beneath it were legs, short yet strong and to the front was what would get the attention of every academic in the country. Short little arms. Unbelievable but there and behind those fat cheeks and gawking eyes was something more. A spark of awareness, a light of intelligence.
Have you ever seen a frog sniff the air, gather its troop and with a determination like no other…. hunt? I run because of this.
I run because right now the rain falls quickly in rhythm and the wind gets louder.
This isn’t everything you know. This isn’t all I have! I have notes, I have carefully collected accounts from various people and places.
And now I have this. In my arms. A living specimen.
The trees were sparser now and the mud a little dryer. The road must be near!
And of course, with all my careful observations…my research…. creatures like these have territory of course. They stay there, don’t they?
They’ll soon be backing off and I will be the one that got away and I could already see in my mind the astonishment of my colleagues when I presented my findings. People would come from far and wide to see this and papers would be written by the million…all with my name in their neatly published pages! The fame!
I think I can hear traffic. I think, that’s the road! And a bus stop with somebody waiting! I can’t believe my lu-
Something hit, a pain. I feel it rising, suffocating. I can feel my strength weaken…My foot meets the edge of the path and I glance down cursing as my breath goes. Something is protruding from my arm.
The pain rises more. I can only drop her and stare as she lumbers into the dark of the tree line…
There goes my credibility. They will call me mad.
“Hey mister! Are you alright?” somebody shouts.
So, so this is what it feels like not to hold all the data…not to know everything.
And on the wind, I hear it.
