The Ritual

flopping white figures to make its grotesque installations in the trees.
    To what end? Why destroy such complicated and sophisticated creations as his friends? Why demolish all those memories and feelings and thoughts that made them? His mates.
    Tears stung Luke’s eyes. He shivered.
    They had come together when young. Were drawn to each other as curious attractions formed permanent bonds amongst all of those people at university, at a time and in a way that can never happen
again. They listened to music together and talked for days without pause. They woke in the morning to see each other. They occupied each other’s physical space and head space, and wanted each
other’s approval and needed to make each other smile. They had been good together until life and women and work and urges for new places pulled them apart. But there was enough of that
connection remaining to bring them back together. Out here. Fifteen years later. To find each other all over again.
    His friends had been destroyed for no reason he could think of. They had been destroyed like most people were destroyed. By just being in the wrong place. After all of that development and
growing and cultivating and caution and survivable self-destruction and failure and regeneration and struggling and coping, they had just walked through the wrong bunch of bloody trees. And that
was that.
    Come on you bastard.
    He growled at the air, and begged madness to take him away from the paralysing realization of what was lost forever. Because what was the point of reason? You lived briefly, died, were
forgotten. Just to glimpse this was enough of a cause to go insane or to put yourself away. Out here you were butchered and then tossed into a sodden crypt. Piled up with the mottled bones of
strangers and dead cattle.
    They were my mates.
    The rain pattered near him and the wind made ocean sounds up in the distant treetops. But no one answered him and nothing came for him now he was ready and unafraid and prepared to let his
tortured and tired, so tired, and messed-up consciousness end.
    He stood alone and placed his hands on either side of his head. The pain banged from recent exertions. He closed his eyes and he thought of those who were gone, those friends he had lost. Best
friends to the end; an end that came too soon, without warning.
    As you are, boys, I will be. Soon.
    He turned and shuffled away into the trees.

FORTY-FIVE
    Lying on his back, Luke looked up into the distant canopy of a million leaves and the endless networks of branches. In places he could see the sky and it was dark. For a
moment, he wondered where he was. Then remembered and closed his eyes again.
    He passed himself from tree to tree, using the great trunks and lower branches as crutches. The constant swoop and hover of flies became a loud whine when one of them
disappeared inside his ear to probe. His hands were wet with lymph from where he had clumsily torn at the great white lumps growing into his cuffs. Some of the bites thickened under his watch
strap. The splashes the insects made when he swatted them made him thirstier. He prayed it would rain again so the clouds of flies might go. They weren’t supposed to be here; that’s the
main reason they went hiking in September, because of the interminable stream of mosquitoes. Hutch had not mentioned these sand flies, or gnats.
    Was this the right direction? He wondered how far he had staggered since leaving the tent. It felt like a month ago. The previous evening occurred in another lifetime. How far now to the end of
the trees? Then he stopped caring and just continued; one step at a time, bracing himself for the migraine-judder before each foot landed upon the forest floor.
    After every ten steps he leaned against a tree or sat down in the wet verdure and waited for his vision to settle. His breathing was so heavy that the very act of drawing breath was tiring him
as much as pushing his leaden legs forward, time after time.
    He became oblivious to every feature he passed. The forest was just a blur he barely saw but clambered about in. Maybe his body was breaking itself down, one fat cell at a time to fuel this
death march. It had been so long since he’d eaten. The burning in his gut had turned to a combination of nausea and aches as his stomach clenched upon itself.
    To alleviate the terrible fatigue and boredom and bouts of terror, he counted what he’d eaten: five cereal bars and half a Dairy Milk bar in