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Friday, September 21, 2007

Obvious

I was telling a co-worker about the time Nathalie and I got lost in the middle of the forest in Maui. It had gotten dark, the overhead canopy blocked out any light coming from the moon, we couldn't see a thing, and we were trying to guide ourselves out of the forest by the light of my little pocket flashlight.

We were following the small trail that we were on when we hiked into the forest. The forest floor was slippery and muddy, so the going was slow, but we were making progress. And then all of a sudden, the trail just disappeared. We swung the little flashlight around madly, trying to find the rest of the trail. Panic started to set in, but then we finally saw what appeared to be a trail about 15 feet away.

We made our way over there, but then we were horrified to find out that it wasn't a trail at all. Just a patch of dirt. We then turned around to get back to the trail that we were just on, but we had become disoriented and had no idea where it was.

Now we were completely disoriented, with our bearings completely lost, and with absolutely no idea where we were or what general direction we needed to go. Nothing resembled a trail, and pretty soon nothing looked familiar and everything looked like nothing.

The only thing keeping us from going crazy with fear was the light coming out of my little flashlight. I couldn't th-

Co-worker: [interrupting] Ohmygosh! That's crazy! Did you guys make it out?

Me: Uh... No. We never found our way out of the forest. We were lost for good and nobody ever came to find us.

Co-worker: Wow. That's crazy!

[silence]

Co-worker: Heyyyy....