Digging a Hole and Tripping In

Author’s Note: This is the sixteenth part of a series about Farren’s journey through a limbo world where everyone is trying to reach the peak of a mountain but have a rope tied to their ankle. Catch up by reading Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13,Part 14, Part 15, and Part 16

Surrounded by trees Farren navigated his way through the woods collecting his rope mindlessly. His focus was on the person he’d most recently met. Farren had been traveling all over the forest and just explained to the young man Jason the idea of going back to find his rock. Jason had been receptive of the message and was the third or fourth person who’d been open to it. The words of the burly red-head Harrower continued to encourage Farren to keep spreading his idea.
Farren gathered his rope which no longer followed a straight path but looped in and out around trees. While he collected the line he listened for the sound of the next person he would have the opportunity to talk with. They might be receptive, or they might not. He was only interested in getting his idea to more people. As he rolled his balls of ropes around a tree to unknot a thread that had been wrapped there from one of his journeys he heard a loud curse in the distance.

Farren dropped what he was doing and left his rope still half knotted around the tree. He had slack, and he could always come back to unknot this loop later. Farren headed in the direction of the sound. Once Farren got closer, he heard the rustling of leaves. It was the distinct sound of someone trying to get a good grip on the ground so they could pull their rock free. Farren could tell the racket was close but didn’t notice the person making the sound until he walked past a tall and thick tree.
On the other side of the tree was the grey-haired woman who he’d run into when he first entered these woods. Her young face was grimacing as she tugged at the rope. She was muttering curses, some of which were under her breath, while many others weren’t. “Hey, how’s it going there?” Farren asked politely.
The woman jumped at least a foot dropping the rope she was pulling. “Son of a bitch you scared me!”
Farren put his hands up in a gesture of surrender and backed away saying, “Sorry didn’t mean to.”
She nodded then looked at him with an investigative scrunch in her face. “You look familiar. Do I know you from somewhere?”
“I’m Farren. We met once before.” He gestured at his balls of rope thinking that while he had an ordinary face, he was, for now, the only person in these woods with this much slack.
“Oh yeah, you’re the lunatic that’s going back to his rock. I’m Hazel. How’s that whole,” she gestured at his rope to find the word, “project, going for you.”
Farren shrugged thinking about how little progress he’d made recently but then remembering the people he’d met and helped since seeing her the first time. “It’s going. Haven’t made much progress towards my rock but I’m helping out a lot of people.”
“Helping them by giving them the easy way out.” She said easy way like it was a dirty word.
“By sharing some logic with them, yes.” Farren didn’t appreciate this reunion. “What about you? Are you getting stuck often?”
Hazel blushed then barked, “No, this is the first time it’s happened in a few days.” She picked the rope back up. “I’ll get it unstuck in a minute.”
Farren reached out to help, “do you mind?”
For a moment the look on the grey-haired woman’s face was discouraging, and he thought she’d say no. Then she said, “I don’t see why not.” Her line was on the ground from when he’d startled her. She did an elaborate kick bringing her foot to her waist and grabbing the rope with her hands. She then handed some of the slack to Farren.

The two travelers tugged at the rope, and in ten minutes they could feel that it was free.
“Thanks,” Hazel said, “I could have gotten it done myself. However, I appreciate the help.”
“No problem. I assume I’m not going to be convincing you to turn back for your rock today.”
Hazel laughed already pulling the rope over her shoulder so she could move along. “Not today Farren.”
Farren shrugged, and they parted company. He wondered how long it would be until she got stuck for a whole afternoon or a full day. Would she decide it was a good idea to turn back when she got indefinitely stuck like Gesa? Farren realized he might never know.
The only solace he had was that at least she would know that the option was there. He wondered how many others were stuck in these woods or on this world and didn’t even know that turning back was a viable option. As he backtracked and picked up the slack that he’d scattered across the woods, he realized he didn’t even know if going back to the rock was a viable option. He’d done it just because he had to. However, if he succeeded he’d merely be stuck next to a massive boulder and unable to move towards the mountain that he was supposed to climb. Sure, Gesa had gotten to her rock, and when he talked to others, he used this as a proof of concept. But even that had ended in Gesa losing motivation for travel. When he was forced to leave her and move on towards his rock she’d been more interested in exploring than making progress.

For days Farren toiled over this conundrum as he backtracked his rope. Occasionally he’d go on short excursions letting out slack to hunt down a sound that he thought was another human. Unfortunately, he didn’t find anyone, and he chalked the sounds up to wind or falling branches.
As he was chasing down one of these sounds and about to turn back assuming that it was nothing he heard a whistling sound. It wasn’t the whistle of wind through tree branches, but instead, it was singing a birdlike tune. Farren honed in on the direction, and as he started to close in on it, he noticed the sound was getting closer.
Farren was so intent on paying attention to the sound that he missed noticing the rope that lifted off of the ground. He tripped over the line and fell into a pile of dirt and leaves. The whistling was right next to him then it stopped.
“Sorry about that,” the man standing above him said. He reached his hand out, and Farren accepted the help getting up.
As Farren dusted himself off, he noticed that the whistling man was holding his rope in one hand and a ball of rope in the other.
“No problem, thanks,” Farren blurted out as he racked his mind to figure out when he’d met this man to explain the idea of going back for his rock.
“Have we met before?” He asked studying the man’s long hair and thin lips.
“I don’t think so,” the man said, “I’m Jabril.”
The name didn’t sound familiar to Farren. “We have to have met. I’m Farren.”
“You’re Farren?” Jabril said in amazement.
Farren still couldn’t remember when he’d met this man, but the man had obviously met him. “Yeah are you sure we haven’t met?”
“Oh no, I would have remembered meeting you!” The man sounded like a child getting the gift of a lifetime. “Harrower told me about you. He was telling me about the idea you had where you go back to your rock. Harrower suggested I do the same and I have been.” He lifted the small ball of rope that was in his hand and then gestured at another small one behind him. “It’s so much easier than dragging my rock around.”
Farren was stunned and sat down on the ground. “Harrower told you about me?”
“Yeah and when I first heard you coming, I was excited that I’d get to tell someone else. But then I noticed you already have rope balls and quite a lot. I was bummed, but now I’m meeting The Farren. Do you really have thirty rope balls as Harrower said?” Jabril asked in amazement.
Farren gestured over his shoulder, and the boy counted. “Twenty-nine. That’s pretty close to thirty.” He said after a moment.
Farren had a nagging thought that he should have had more than thirty but dropped it as the young man brought up questions about his journey to this point. “Did you really make a boat out of just rope?”

Farren answered all the man’s questions noting that Harrower had shared everything with Jabril. Although he quickly noticed Harrower had taken the liberty to embellish many of the details.
In the end, Jabril said, “Wow, I didn’t think I’d ever meet you. Harrower said you’d left to go the other direction and I figured you’d be long gone towards your rock now.”
“Me too,” Farren said mulling over something that was nagging at the back of his mind. He looked at the long haired man’s rope ball, “How long did it take you to get that?” Either it was a month like it usually took Farren or this man was faster at knotting up rope than Farren.
“About a month,” the young man said. “Should it be quicker?”
“No that’s about right. Do you know how many balls Harrower had when you met him?”
“Just the one,” the man asked then eagerly added, “But I’m sure he’s got more now.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” he said nodding. The man across from him made a puzzled face as Farren stood up.
Farren counted to rope balls and realized Jabril had counted right. There were only twenty-nine. By Farren’s last count he had over thirty balls. He’d been backtracking his rope to make up the lost distance. However, he’d been letting out at least a ball of slack a month. A grim frown settled on his face.
“What’s wrong?” Jabril asked.
“Nothing,” Farren replied. He didn’t want to burden the eager man with this new problem.
“Anything I can help with?”

Farren turned the question over in his mind along with a dozen other things he was thinking about, “Yeah, how eager was Harrower to tell you about this whole idea?”
“He brought it up before he introduced himself,” the long haired man said with a laugh.
Farren nodded his head as if Jabril had given him grave news. “It was good to meet you,” Farren said to the man across from him. It was getting late, and Farren didn’t feel like being around the eager young man while thinking up a solution out of the hole he’d dug himself. Not only was Farren two months behind on collecting slack he had also let out two months of slack. He wasn’t just stuck. He was moving backward with progress.
Farren picked up slack and left the young man to do the same. He wondered if he should continue to traipse around the woods sharing his idea with others or if he should continue towards his rock. Farren knew arriving at his rock was pointless. Once there he wouldn’t be able to budge it an inch. However, he also knew his effectiveness as a woodland messenger would diminish over time. Jabril’s eagerness and Harrower’s stories were proof of that.
He leaned against a tree and hopelessly slid to the ground. His eyes grew heavy with sleep, and he wondered what the right answer to his problem would be.