186 days of walking. April to October. Hope to despair, despair to bloody feet, bloody feet to enlightenment. 2627 miles and six pairs of shoes.
This was Eat-all. Eat-all was the trail nickname he’d been given by other walkers; he could hardly remember his real name anymore; he hadn’t heard it in so long.
Despite eating everything he could, his body had changed. His teeth never felt smoother, his ribs pushed through his flesh for the first time since childhood, and his toes lacked three nails, but none of that mattered now.
None of this was in Eat-all’s head as he paced out his familiar length of steps through the dripping forest. There was nothing in Eat-all’s head at all but an earworm, a song, that had begun as he crossed The Bridge of Gods into Washington and now smothered every other thought his exhaustion could manage: Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head. “Nothing seems to fit…I’m not gonna stop the rain by complaining.” Nothing bothered him on repeat after repeat after repeat, as scores of miles passed for weeks on end.
Light, like a window in between the trees, was the only clue he could have had that anything was coming, that a change was about to blow his world apart. That was all there was, a strip of light where there should have been trees. But he didn’t even notice that with his head down and his mind emptied of meaning.
And then he was there, in the empty space. Left down the slope, right up the slope, a long line of nothing marked the border. Canada ahead, America behind, a wooden monument marking the end of his epic journey from Mexico.
He leaned on the wet wood. Over. Over. A new thought had entered his head, ‘that is over’.
He was at the end of the Pacific Crest Trail made famous by Reese Witherspoon and that Wild film. Before that film, this trail had been less walked than the summit of Mount Everest. It had tempted him in with promises of renewal and restoration, had taken away half a year of his life, and more in its monumental planning.
So, next…
But he couldn’t do next. He couldn’t take the next step. The last step. There were still miles to go before he hit civilisation before the walking finally stopped, but really, it was done.
The reality of life and work, alarm clocks and a job, met him like a punch. Girlfriends and parents, college and big cities all waited for him. TV, adverts, parties, and people. He stopped breathing and felt the rain and his song peter out in the air. All he’d done forever was get up, eat, walk, sleep, and walk some more. He’d read constant walking could become a drug, and, yes, he was addicted.
Canada looked nice, exactly the same as America. Canada looked nice, but beyond Canada, it all looked a bit of a mess to Eat-all. With that song fluttering back in, he turned around and took his first step back to Mexico.