A Walk in the Woods

quarter of a mile the sweater was wet through and hanging heavily on my arms and
shoulders.
To make things worse, I was wearing blue jeans. Everyone will tell you that blue jeans
are the most foolish item of clothing you can wear on a hike. I had contrarily become
something of a devotee of them because they are tough and give good protection against
thorns, ticks, insects, and poison ivy--perfect for the woods. However, I freely concede
that they are completely useless in cold and wet. The cotton sweater was something I had
packed as a formality, as you might pack anti snakebite medicine or splints. It was July,
for goodness sake. I hadn't expected to need any kind of outerwear beyond possibly my
trusty waterproofs, which of course I didn't have either. In short, I was dangerously
misattired and all but asking to suffer and die. I certainly suffered.
I was lucky to escape with that. The wind was whooshing along noisily and steadily at
a brisk twenty-five miles an hour, but gusting to at least double that, and from ever-
shifting directions. At times, when the wind was head on, we would take two steps
forward and one back. When it came from an angle, it gave us a stiff shove towards the
edge of the ridge. There was no telling in the fog how far the fall would be on either side,
but it looked awfully steep, and we were after all a mile up in the clouds. If conditions had
deteriorated just a little--if the fog had completely obscured our footing or the gusts had
gathered just enough bump to knock a grown man over--we would have been pinned
down up there, with me pretty well soaked through. Forty minutes before, we had been
whistling in sunshine. I understood now how people die in the White Mountains even in
summer.
As it was, I was in a state of mild distress. I was shivering foolishly and feeling oddly
lightheaded. The ridge seemed to run on forever, and there was no guessing in the milky
void how long it would be till the form of Lafayette would rise to meet us. I glanced at my
watch--it was two minutes to eleven; just right for lunch when and if we ever got to the
godforsaken lodge--and took some comfort from the thought that at least I still had my
wits about me. Or at least I felt as if I did. Presumably, a confused person would be too
addled to recognize that he was confused. Ergo, if you know that you are not confused
then you are not confused. Unless, it suddenly occurred to me--and here was an arresting
notion--unless persuading yourself that you are not confused is merely a cruel, early
symptom of confusion. Or even an advanced symptom. Who could tell? For all I knew I
could be stumbling into some kind of helpless preconfusional state characterized by the
fear on the part of the sufferer that he may be stumbling into some kind of helpless
preconfusional state. That's the trouble with losing your mind; by the time it's gone, it's
too late to get it back.
I glanced at my watch again and discovered with horror that it was still only two
minutes to eleven. My sense of time was going! I might not be able to reliably assess my
faltering brain, but here was proof on my wrist. How long would it be till I was dancing
around half naked and trying to beat out flames, or seized with the brilliant notion that
the best way out of this mess would be to glide to the valley floor on a magic, invisible
parachute? I whimpered a little and scooted on, waited a good full minute and stole a
glance at my watch again. Still two minutes to eleven! I was definitely in trouble.