Hunter's Island
Right. I've come to this island. It's called Hunter's Island. I was feeling adventurous after a long time of the same old same old. Also, I'm a forager and I wanted to see hunters. What the heck. How they live and all that. I just like to observe different people, you know? So I came from afar and started to look around: extensive savanna-like grounds, umbrella trees, hares, deer everywhere, buffalo and whatnot. A landscape fit for purpose. But in all truth, I'm having a hard time finding a single hunter out here.
You might be wondering: have you looked inside the caves? Hm-hm. I have. And yeah, they are all there. Most of them licking their wounds in the darkness. Chasing mice, starving, not wanting to ever go out into the wild again.
Trying to make sense of this no-hunt situation here on Hunter's Island, I've been yelling questions from the caves' entrances. My main one being, 'Hey, why don't you hunt?'
Some say it's not safe. Some say they're too old. Some say it's not fair out there. One hunter told me the problem was they couldn't control the way hares run – hares do what they want. Another told me it was just a lot of effort. Their muscles, made to sprint and to help up little hunters wanting to climb umbrella trees, are thinning out. I'm no hunter myself, in fact I'm a vegetarian, but this is sad to see, man. Not saying I'm an anthropologist either, but I observe these people complaining a lot. Other hunters do them wrong and they start mulling it over and stop teaming up with each other, they hide in those caves and don't look anybody in the eye. The little ones fall from the trees – they got no help or training you see – and they don't want to climb anymore, they don't want to try new tricks, give it another shot.
I'm noticing these hunters are trying to convince themselves the wild is not worth it. Again, I'm not on a mission here, I'm just an errant soul. In fact some conquistador blood might be still running down my veins, so I'd better be careful with what I do on this island because I don't want to alter the slightest bit. But I just can't help myself from telling them what happened to us, how we disappeared and that. Cause it all started when we decided that whatever we didn't dare to do wasn't worth it, when partnering with other foragers wasn't worth the pain, when befriending wolves wasn't worth the time, when we stopped sewing broken sacks, and wouldn't change our routes, when we began to pluck more and bend less, when we couldn't be arsed to explore other islands. And we would lie down at dusk and chew clumps of grass to trick our bellies and lower our stamina, our unburnt stamina, until it woke us up the next day. We called that unburnt energy all sorts of names and felt terribly sorry for ourselves until one day I looked around and realised you were all gone and I was the last forager.
At Hunter's Island they've forgotten hunters hunt, they've forgotten hunters live in the wild, help others, trust others and need to be trained. They've forgotten that in doing so wild things are inevitably going to happen. Hunters get hurt, and bleed and sometimes get hunted down too. For they are hunters. And it may not be fair, but this is nature, and justice is too small a word. You can't control the hare's movements, but you can try to improve yours.
Well, I've ended up sermonising to these poor hunters, bless them, and now I'm off to the next island. That's it for today, my fellow foragers watching over me from the stars. I carry your memory in my patched-up sack, alongside some raspberries.
