Chapter 11
[I shouldn't have eaten sweet things!] Hana regretted her choice internally.
She felt uncomfortable all over her body. The sweet chocolaty sponge cake debris stuck in between her teeth like glue. She never knew that brus.h.i.+ng her teeth was a luxury. Her bosoms were still aching with pain as she placed the milk containing package gently between a few rocks just by the side of her food stash which she covered the top lightly with a layer of clingwrap.
She rummaged her handbag for a toothpick but to no avail. When she was about to lose hope, finally she found an una.s.suming bobby pin in between the pockets. The pin was not inventoried together since she had missed it before.
"Yes!" The shameless aunty had let go all manner of elegance and squatted down while attempted to modify the bobby pin into a makes.h.i.+ft toothpick. Kuro's concentration was broken as it was startled by her sudden shout.
[Since I can't floss, at least I can try to clean my teeth with this pin.] Hana grinned happily. [It's reusable too.] She picked her teeth while squatting beside her food stash while trying to decide what to do with the milk.
[What should I do with the leftover milk?] She sighed while slipping the bobby-pin-turned-toothpick into her jeans. Her mind thought of many possibilities. The most direct usage was by using it in cooking, making cheese, soap or even candle. However, all those items needed other ingredients to make it happen. She didn't have the heart to throw it away.
She sighed deeply and felt a s.h.i.+ver running through her back.
Hana realized she was still topless. She quickly fetched her milk-stained yellow s.h.i.+rt and put it on again. Although it smelled, at least her body was covered from the chill.
[Let's start working! I still have half a day to do something. One who doesn't work doesn't eat.]
She checked her notepad first and skimmed through the inventory. The food she consumed was negligible; she still had lots of stuff.
[I think I can splurge a bit for dinner today provided I can get my hands on some bamboos.] She had seen merchants selling lemang (1) during Eid's festival (2). Arash even bought some in the past. It meant that it could be used to contain things inside, not just glutinous rice (3). She desperately wanted some soup to warm up her belly.
She went through all the goals she had written previously;
Short term goals (Day 1)
1. Scout surroundings for information and geographic location - half done!
2. Find water source - done!
3. Find tinders, twigs and logs for fire making - done!
4. Find things for defense
Long term goal
Return home!
Hana sighed again, for the n-th time (4) of the day. A lot of action items were still open. She felt like such a slacker.
She added on some new goals and a new objective.
Short term goals (Day 2)
1. Scout surroundings for information and geographical location - half done
2. Find water source - done!
3. Find tinders, twigs and logs for fire making - done!
4. Find things for defense
5. Make a chisel
6. Make water container
7. Make a cooking pot with clay
8. Forage rattans to make baskets
9. Make fish trap at river
Long term goal
Return home!
Today's golden goal
Eat soup for dinner!
[Wahhh..so many things to do...] Hana cringed unhappily. She was always an unmotivated person especially when it came to physical activities. However, this time, her determination has been fueled by her final objective of the day as she was already bored eating sweet things.
She went out of the cave dwelling and sat down on the forest floor in front of the cave where it
was brightly lit. With that, she could save some energy from not needing to kindle a fire. It was too exhaustive anyway. She also didn't want to waste the battery by switching on her smartphone's torchlight all the time.
She brought out the four different shades of grey flat stones and tried to knock them with each other. She found out, the deep gray one chipped of in a flaky fas.h.i.+on. So, she stopped hara.s.sing the rest and focused solely on this single gray stone. She knocked it carefully at the edge until it formed a sharp end.
Finally, after a while, her first primitive tool was completed. She has taken quite some time as she worked out a little bit of finesse to adjust her strength and angle to achieve the shape and size she wanted according to her ideal chisel in her mind. It was a trapezium shaped stone
By the time it was ready, Hana's spirit already reached an all-time low. Her back ached too, adding to her discomfort. She wiped her forehead with the corner of her torn smelly yellow s.h.i.+rt. Her s.h.i.+rt stuck to her body and the smell of rotten milk lingered in her nostril making her brow creased. She tried her best to ignore her body odor in vain.
[I desperately need a good was.h.!.+ I smell like Arash's old fermented socks! d.a.m.n!]
Back on earth, her beloved Arash sneezed loudly as he thought that his wife must be missing him so much. Such an innocent sweet man.
Hana brought the newly made chisel with an empty water bottle inside an unused shopping bag with her and directly walked towards the stream she found yesterday. She didn't forget to jump into the cave to fetch her girl's napkin.
[It'll be good to have a bath later too.] Hana eagerly antic.i.p.ated the bath more than finding bamboo trees.
She kept on comparing her written notes with the surrounding to find her way. Yesterday was a hectic day. While following the songbird, she wasn't able to survey the trees around. While returning, it was already dark, hence she missed some noteworthy landmarks and useful trees. She walked carefully while poking her surroundings with a long stick she picked up casually before. Attacked by a snake once was good enough. No need for a second time. Kuro was snugly coiled on her wrist as usual; Hana was unaware when did this cheeky little snake climbed to her wrist as its weight was next to nothing. s.h.i.+ro was staying at home.
After a thirty minutes' walk following her written note, she found some rattan and bamboo cl.u.s.ters a little further to the left of her walkthrough. Not far ahead was the stream she found yesterday thanks to the munificence of the little songbird.
Hana randomly choose a small bamboo within her scope of observation and started to repeatedly score under one of its segments using her newly made chisel. Time was tight. She could not effort to waste any.
One of the tutorials said to repeatedly scored the whole side of the bamboo branch just like when one was using a conventional saw to break it off easily. Chopping or hacking were not good methods to cut bamboo.
Hana felled two 5-6 feet bamboo trees as her hands started to feel numb from overuse. She then persistently scored all the bamboos into their respective segments.
[Soup...soup...soup!!!] The same word reverberated in her mind as Hana desperately tried psycho-ing (5) herself.
Hana cut three before the segments to make closed containers and the other seven she made them opened on one part, closed on the other part. She planned to make three temporary cooking pot, three water filters, and the last four into water containers.
Finally, when it was getting darker, Hana managed to finish her present tasks. She immediately filled up the bamboo segments inside her spare shopping bag after layering the inner bag with soft big leaves to prevent tearing.
Hana observed her surrounding to ensure there is n.o.body and no animal near her. She even asked Kuro to keep guard for her before undressing herself and sat at the edge of the stream. The water was slightly cloudy, but she could still see the shallow bottom. However, the temperature was freezing cold! Hana got gooseb.u.mps just by exposing her flesh to the water so imagined how she can bath in that condition! Firstly, she soaked and washed her smelly yellow s.h.i.+rt and her undies. Then, she washed herself properly until she felt fresh and energetic again.
Hana couldn't take the cold anymore, hence she stopped after a short while. After all, she had was used to warm shower anytime at home. She wiped herself well with the napkin she brought along and re-wore her wet yellow s.h.i.+rt after she wrung it to her maximum capacity. She re-wore her unwashed jeans without the clean undies. She just kept them in her shopping bag.
She finally realized that Kuro was gone. What an unreliable guard, she grumbled. After she was finally finished tidying herself, she filled her empty bottle with water from the stream. She then started to forage some wild onion trees and ironweeds from the side of the stream. There were a lot of them.
[This location is a treasure trove! Just yesterday I got some asam gelugor (6).] Hana foraged the ironweed herbs happily. Although she knew the herb can be brewed into tea, she never dared to forage around her residential area where there were plenty of them. She had seen a worker spraying herbicide everywhere!
She was also lucky to find some garlic herbs among the bushes; however, she only took three small cloves and leave the rest for later use. She heard the angry cawing of birds too although she hadn't seen any. She must've disturbed their nest.
Hana decided that her next biggest project after making potteries will be making a small herb garden in a fenced yard. Although the stream was near and not hard to forage for herbs, she couldn't prevent other animals from eating the herbs she regularly used even when she was foraging them sparingly. When she has her own garden, she could transplant all the herbs, weeds and trees that she liked.
She also took note of the number of fishes in the stream. They were not afraid of Hana at all when she was bathing just now. They curiously swam near her but not quite within her reach. If not, Hana would've catch a fish or two for grilling later like a martial artist that she watched in television last time (hehe it good to dream once a while right). When she went back, she planned to make another chisel with a long handle to be used for digging earth. It would be good to make a fish trap over here. She knew she would never catch a fish with her own hands or even when using a fis.h.i.+ng rod because she had never done any fis.h.i.+ng activity before.
[When can I get my superpower duh?.] Hana lamented.
Kuro went missing sometime during the bathing/guarding process. When Hana was ready to walk home, he returned with a small bird egg inside its mouth and dropped it on Hana's palm. Hana was moved by its concern and patted its head while praising it a good boy. How wrong she was, to blame it just now.
Kuro really know how to please its new mom!
Author's Note:
(1) Lemang = glutinous rice cooked in bamboos over open fire.
(2) Eid festival = Muslim's festive month, Syawal, after the fasting month of Ramadhan. It is usually known as Eid-ul-fitr or Aidul Fitri
(3) not just glutinous rice = lemang was a conventionally eaten with rendang, a must have dish during Eid festival in Malaysia. The bamboo was lined with banana leaves, then fill in with glutinous rice, salt and coconut milk, then, placed diagonally over open fire for an hour. The seller made tens of them at one time! It was getting so expensive nowadays.. (sigh) Check this out for the pics here https://ms.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemang
(4) n-th time = it means an uncountable number until you lost count. It's a math concept. If interested, can search under 'exponentiation' or better yet, just check out this wiki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponentiation)
(5) Psycho-ing = usually use to indicate psyching up oneself or encourage oneself to the extreme point. It's somewhat differ from the real meaning but was used like this locally.
(6) Asam gelugor = as a reminder, brindleberry