segment 42

She would never have enough courage to kill herself.  Having one serious breakup was not something new to the rest of the world.  If people in other horrible circumstances had made it through, she could too.

She pulled out a navy blue book with a scuffed but otherwise plain cover.  She ran her nails over the textured spine.

Opening it smelled like someone had taken it to the rainforest, buried it in the mud, left it there during rain season, dug it up, brought it to a hut where someone was cooking a meal, threw it in a suitcase and flew home with it in tow.

She opened up to a map of the main land.  Triangles, representing trees, seem to flood the page, along with a few rectangular bridges, some u-shaped mountains and the temple.

She tried to imagine every being that occupied the jungle.  It was no place anyone would choose to visit.  There were stories about drug trafficking, tribes, poisonous plants, wild animals, hunters and people starving to death for her to consider.  The journey sounded arduous, especially since she couldn’t find any writings less than twenty years old. Travel would take more than two days, with three layovers each way and airfare alone would begin at five thousand dollars.   It would be difficult to find a place to stay, since she did not know anyone who knew anyone in the area.  She didn’t even own a pair of hiking boots.