500 metres left, they were almost there. Putting her fingers ready to press the release button on the seatbelt buckle. What they were talking about just went over her head. The only thing she knew right now was that she needed to get out of that car fast. She could feel her racing pulse throb in her throat as her face had lapsed into a quasi paralysis.

‘Ok, left here, and you can turn at the end of this road, there is plenty of space. Thank you so much for the lift! We really do appreciate it. How about we meet tomorrow…’ Anne was still chatting when Esther walked gingerly across the street after forcing out a quick ‘thank you’, determined to gather herself calmly and structured her gait assertively in the direction of her shared apartment. Looking back to see if her flatmate was following, she saw the silver Toyota leave. She raised her hand in an effort to wave, but half way dropped it, and in silence continued next to Anne towards their door. In silence they climbed the stairs to the top most floor, in silence the keys shook and clicked the door open, and in silent vacancy they bade each other a good night and parted into their separate chambers.

One single tear began to ease its way onto her face as she closed the door as softly as she could. On the matt was a pile of linen left there in the morning’s haste. The urge to sink into the soft linen and weep had grown so strong that she could feel the gravity pulling her down as she slowly collapsed onto the pile. Again, the familiar pain returned to her stomach, and immersed herself into her emotions that have been accumulating for the past two months.

She had particular partiality to the countryside in summer. The sky still light until the late hours and the Xanthic hue of the sunlight shining through the trees of the forest were so dreamlike. Esther used almost all of her free time to explore the surrounding area. She probably knew the place as well as the inhabitants of the little village, although by now she considered herself as part of the village. Every corner brought something new and exciting. Every little thing was observed. Her friends called her silly, and aberrant. Was it wrong to appreciate details? She would ask herself.
Often she was exploring on her own.

Once, she got hold of a map of the area. There were all the lines indicating the contours, the hills, swamps, roads. With eagerness she studied the map and found the place that had the highest number above sea level, transmitted the image to her mind, and set out to find it. It was in an area where she had not been before, and it seemed quite far away from home. The zeal was spreading to her whole body, and she could feel a tingling of excitement in her stomach. The possibility that it might be hazardous to her health did not cross her mind though, neither was she concerned about any dangers.

Esther was diagnosed as having a rare autoimmune disease that affected her blood. She was a haemophiliac, which meant that she got bruises easily, and it would take a long time for bleeding to stop. Her mother was a very good caregiver, perhaps a little too careful though, and if she could have, would have wrapped her daughter in cotton wool. Esther had a distinct aversion to this, and being the labile character she was, went out of her way to find adventure whenever possible. Secretly, though, she was quite fearful, and always remembered the consequences that any physical trauma might do to her. She would always exaggerate her stories when her mother was within range, just so that she could get a reaction from her. None of her friends knew of her disease though. There was one incident where her judgement had failed and she ended up seriously injured.
It was a lovely autumn day, and her family and a group of friends went to a picnic in a national park. There was some rock, about five metres high that had one lone battered pine growing on the top. Esther sensed the challenge the tree posed to her. Bold and proud, the weathered tree with its bulging roots, stood there undefeated on its throne.

She had not yet climbed two metres when she heard here mother’s distressed vice calling ‘Quit that and come down immediately! Do you want to end up quadriplegic?’
She kept hearing that quadriplegic example from her worried mother eve since her cousin, Rory, who due to a climbing accident ended up a paralysed from the neck down. But Rory was a dare devil, much worse than herself, and was climbing risky climbs without a rope. In any case, her mother always magnified things to be much worse than what they really were.
Esther carried on right to the top, meeting her opponent with admiration. What abusive treatment, and how many seasons this tree had seen, was evident on the trunk and its gnarled shape. It stood not much taller than Esther herself, but stood it did nevertheless. That it managed to grow with such little soil, was also amazing.
‘Now I know why you insist on staying here perched so precariously. The view from up here is wonderful!’ she smiled and winked at the old pine.

The route back down, however posed a problem. She decided to take a different route, and half way through encountered some conspicuously looking debris. With one foot she tested if it would hold, which it evidently did not, as she aroused a small avalanche which took her with it. Luckily she did not seem to have any broken bones, but somehow she managed to obtain a large cut on her forearm. Without delay her parents were at her side, as was the rest of the group. The wound was bleeding, and her mother tore a length off from her skirt to tie around the cut. Her father called an ambulance, and there was a stir in the group, for most of them could not understand why such a huge fuss was being made over a cut.
By the time the ambulance had arrived Esther was beside herself with worry and her mother, who was surprisingly calm, did her best to prevent further blood loss by putting pressure on the makeshift bandaged wound.
‘Imbecile…!’ Esther cursed her own actions in her mind.

The doctors managed to stitch the wound, and she received additional parenteral fluids, and Esther was recovering. Her parents, exhausted, were sitting in the corridor. Walter put his arms around his wife, who was near tears.
‘How did I allow this to happen? I have too much tolerance for her reckless behaviour. I cannot take this anymore, I have failed…’ there was a slight quiver in her voice.
‘Marianne, listen to me. You have not failed. Essie only does those things to get your attention. She is just a wild girl. I think that the memory of the incident will stay with her for a long time.’
‘I think it is quite questionable that she just wants my attention. Or I don’t know…she is my only daughter. My little girl… why does she have to break my heart with her foolishness?’
‘Maybe it is time to cut the umbilical chord…?
‘Don’t you say anything to me about cutting chords! Do you have any idea how much more painful it is to see the child you gave birth to suffer any harm? It is agonizing!’ Marianne pulled away from him.
‘Calm down, I understand….’
‘Don’t you tell me to calm down! How can you possibly understand…from the very moment she was a zygote in my womb, her being was entrusted into my care throughout her gestation, when she was born and when she was a baby. It is my duty as a mother to protect her even now. She is vulnerable, and the world is a rough place. She has my genes, the characteristic genes of my family…’ she said in a callous tone.
‘She also has my genes’ Walter added.
‘Yes, but don’t you know how much difference one Chromosome makes…?’
Walter was getting weary, and Marianne’s vocational language was getting too much for him, ‘I don’t know about that genetic stuff. All I know now is that we both need rest, and that our Essie is in good hands and that she is going to be fine’
Marianne calmed a little ‘OK. I hope so.’
‘Believe me, everything is fine.’
‘I believe you’. Marianne put her head on her Husbands shoulder. The fragrance of his deodorant was pleasant and it calmed her down. She knew she could trust him and depend on his strength. He put his arm around her again, and together they sighed with alleviation from their anxiety.

He closed his eyes and leaned his head back onto the wall. Marianne studied his face as she did the many times when she could not sleep. She found peace in his features. Every time she looked at him she found new appreciation for him. She knew every line, every corner by heart. Like a map she followed the contours. She could still see the faint scar that ran just below the temple to the ear that he got during an accident at work. His work environment is subjected to spontaneous dangers every day. And yet he has no fears. Perhaps it is because he has grown numb, or perhaps he is just masking it. He was right. Their Essi also had his genes, those same genes that make her so dauntless and so brave. She was a tiny bit jealous of them sometimes, that they had this strength she lacked. And then again, she was proud of them, sometimes even felt undeserving of them.

On the Wall opposite was a painting. It depicted a woman, wearing a white gown, lying on a couch. Something looked familiar but something was missing. Marianne yawned as she reminisced about the white gown. It was summer, back in Africa. She was not wearing her school’s blazer jacket, so it must have been summer. She had just written her last final exam, which was a gruelling three and a half hour history exam of non stop writing, so her right hand was tired and splattered with ink spots. There were red pressure marks on the side of her index, middle finger,  and thumb from where the pen had been placed.

There was a slight breeze, and heavy clouds on the horizon, signalling a storm coming up. She knew something was wrong the minute she walked up the dirt road towards the farm house, because the dogs that usually with their barking, and in their excitement leaving large brown paw prints on the white uniform shirts along with large blobs of saliva were not charging down to meet her. That might have been because of the xtreeme heat though. The inflatable inner tyre was floating in circles on the pool. She started to hasten her pace, and her ears pricked up as she was keenly aware of some imminent danger, or of something horrible.

Her Mother wore a white dressing gown. It was very pretty, and had a lace collar and wide lacy sleeves. Her father brought it back for from a trip to India. She remembers now. The awful cringe of panic. The glass doors of the veranda were open and the dogs were having their afternoon nap, and panting to relieve themselves of the day’s heat in their baskets and on the floor, and the muslin curtains were waving haphazardly in the breeze. The lounge was tidy, just as it was that morning. However, she saw something white, on the big couch, the back facing her view. There was a bottle, what seemed like a blue liquid was spilled on the carpet. Near the orifice of the bottle was a mark of lipstick. One of the dogs, the one that was slightly disabled due to a disfigured leg, was lying next to the couch, which upon Marianne’s entry looked up at her and let out one single long whine.

It was her mother lying on her back, her one hand drooping to the floor, close to where the bottle lay and the other on her chest. She seemed to be asleep, and her face was peaceful. From where Marianne was standing, she could make out the letters on the bottle, ‘undiluted…silver nitrate’.

‘The results from the X-ray have just come in…’ with a start she awoke, there was a faint feeling of nausea playing in her stomach.
‘Mrs Mayer…?’ The female doctor, who was foreign, probably of Slavic origin, and because of the heavy accent and slight evidence of Hirsutism on her upper lip, looked worriedly at Marianne. Walter was just coming back towards them with a cup of coffee in each hand.
‘I am Dr Helena Hristeva, I am responsible for your daughter’s treatment, madam, are you alright?’
‘My dear, are you alright? Your countenance is completely pallid!’ Walter beheld Marianne’s the pale and sweaty face.
‘Yes, yes, I’m fine. I am feeling a bit sick to the stomach. I think it’s from all that worrying. I do worry too much’ she replied, glancing quickly at the woman in the painting and then fixed her gaze on the doctor’s upper lip trying to eradicate the toxicity of that image from her mind.
‘I could have the nurse give you a mild barbiturate to help you calm down, if you think it might help?’ the doctor said taking out her notebook ready to write down the prescription.
‘No, no, none of that for me, thank you. I might need a kidney basin, but I think I will be fine. The coffee will do good. My daughter is the one who should be receiving medical attention, not me’ Marianne remembered that her mother had extensive self-medication of several bottles of barbiturates and other heavy medication which were kept in her bathroom cabinet.
‘Ok, if you insist. Now, I have just received the X-rays, and there are no signs of breaks or fractures.’ The doctor was getting out the sheets from the envelope.
‘Oh that is a relief!’ Walter and Marianne sighed together.
‘However, there is evidence of a haematoma in the lower abdominal area.’ The doctor continued.
‘And that means…?’ Walter asked with a curious look
‘That there is internal bleeding in her lower abdomen’ Marianne answered, and with a worried look continued ‘She was complaining two days ago of painful defecation, what does this mean?’
‘She was!?’ Her husband exclaimed, looking at his wife.
‘Aha. So it is not due to the traumatic injury, as we suspected. Well, her blood tests have been taken, and we have detected that her thrombocyte count is very low. She is probably having a recurrence of the autoimmune process. I have had the specialist analyse the results, and a unilateral decision has been made to start gamma globulin therapy immediately. And with you, Mr and Mrs Mayer as next of kin present here, I need your final permission to start the therapy.’
Walter sat down slowly next to his wife and handing her one of the coffee cups while looking intently at the envelope in the doctor’s hand.

‘Who was the specialist you consulted?’ He asked, breaking the silence.
‘Doctor Fabian Rohner, an oncologist’ replied the doctor ‘He said to come here and give you the particulars of your daughter’s treatment in about half an hour’
‘Oncology? Isn’t that cancer?’ Marianne, alarmed, jerked herself into an upright position.
‘We have been screening for all the possible haematological conditions, and as of yet, there has been no palpable evidence of leukaemia, but we cannot omit the possibility yet and there might be a small a tumour growing in her abdomen or colon, the likelihood that it is benign is very high. However, there is doubt over that as well. The most probable reason, on which we both agree, is the relapse of the autoimmune process and the cause for the haematoma, for which she needs the globulin treatment, as we have to elevate her thrombocyte level as quickly as possible’
‘May we go to her?’ Walter asked the doctor.
‘Leukaemia, tumour…’ Marianne repeated the doctor’s words to herself.
‘Of course’ Dr Hristeva showed the way to Esther’s room.

That was more than four years ago. Esther was 16, and rather wild but she recovered fully. She did not have leukaemia, or a tumour, and now she was fit and healthy. Walking in her characteristic fast pace she enjoyed the sunshine on her bare arms.
At the juncture where the dirt road that went around the lake joined the country road, she turned left. This would eventually lead her to her destination, according to the memory of the map she maintained in her mind. In the ditch beside road was stale water and necrotic plant material, in which tall reeds were growing. A path caught her attention that emerged off the road and led to a large tree. This she decided to follow and it took her to a granite block that stood under a great oak tree, what seemed to be a memorial ‘In memory of the deceased, who fell at’…some great battle or other, was inscribed on the surface of the stone along with a quotation made by some famous general.
‘Do people fight great battles just so that they can kill lots of people and have memorials of them erected?’ She asked herself. Some things just really did not make sense. But she did not come here to look at blocks with people’s names on them.

She continued to ponder about the deceased. Does it bring them any gratification to have a huge stone put somewhere, and have their names written on it? Her cat died ten years ago. It had severe flatulence, and therefore a blown up stomach. It was the saddest thing that ever happened to her by then. That cat, Cinnamon, whom she nicknamed ‘Cinny’, was her best friend. He was one year older than she, and he was eleven years old when he died. Her mother told that her own mother died when she was just 18. Apparently she had some disease like schizophrenia, although nobody knows for sure. Esther’s mother told her that her mother was not actually her real mother. That her real mother died when she was just a baby, and her father, Esther’s grandfather, then married another woman who then became the mother of his children. Apparently Esther’s mother only found out that she was not her real mother only after she died. Apparently that is also a good thing because she might have then inherited those genes that may cause senility. Esther did not understand much of her mother’s vocation, only that it had to do with genetic research. It was all very complicated, just like her family.

She noticed that there was definitely a hill in the distance, where the trees were higher than anywhere else. She set her course straight for that point, which would lead her onto other people’s properties, but here in this country, people did not mind. Her mom told her that in Africa, the farmers are very protective over their land, and that trespassing is illicit. According to the news papers, there is a lot of friction and conflict going on between the white farmers and black workers. Lots of farmers were being murdered because they do not want to give their land to people who claim ancestral rights to it. The white farmers say that these claims are a fallacy and will not budge. Esther let out a groan when she thought of those hard headed farmers, and equally hard headed Africans.

She crossed a bridge that had a little stream gurgling away under it. She stopped to view both sides, letting her gaze rest on the little insects that were flying up and down, who’s wings caught the sunlight, appearing like little glowing lights. When she crossed the bridge, she picked one daisy, the stem being a little flaccid and put it above her ear.
Right now, she felt worthwhile, and happy. She had blocked all the maltreatment she had been suffering over the past two months out of her memory, and she was just enjoying the nature. She had established a firm rapport with nature that provided her with comfort, and helped her lethargy into latency. This little village provided something like a kiss of life to her.

She could see the vasodilation on her hands and arms, brought on by her walking. She liked it how the veins travelled along her fingers, knuckles and the back of her hand. Like little paths running across each other, forming joints here and there, all leading to one destination. ‘All roads lead to Rome’ her father would say in reply to her mother’s question as to whether or not they were lost. His incredible work capacity stood in comic contrast to his almost complete lack of direction. He had always been a little maladapted to nature, but that never discouraged him from appreciating it. Her mother would smile knowingly back at her father, as she would readjusting her nursing bra after having nursed Aaron, her baby brother. And in her nasal tone say:
‘And how far are we away from Rome would you say?’ and with that take a look at the map, and help him find the right way with all subtlety, so as to preserve her husbands masculinity. How she missed hiking with her family. It must have been at least two years now since she last saw them. Little Aaron must have grown so much by now. She longed to see them again. To play with Aaron and the dogs, to crack jokes with her father and to help her mother with the baking. There was always some vital ingredient missing when her mother was baking. Last time they were making German style Christmas cake, trying to follow to a recipe sent by Esther’s grandparents from her father’s side, and this time, in the middle they realised that they forgot to buy the yeast.

Esther had reached the foot of the hill. It had a very steep incline, and it was covered with dense forest. But she did find a faint trail of a path that winded its way through the ancient trees. A little while longer, and she had reached the top. The last few metres were just rock, but flat enough to walk up on.
On top of this, was still one boulder, which she scaled easily. Upon this rock she sat and pondered yet again. In the distance were dark rain clouds, and a slight breeze filled her nostrils with fresh oxygen.  She came a great distance to be alone and sulk. She wanted to forget the city, her broken heart. She wanted to dwell on her feelings, and for time to stop.

Yet she found no rest. No peace.
In the silence she cried. Again the tears flowed and created little streams on her face.

There was a familiar sound. The breeze roused her. The black bird was singing cheerfully. So spontaneous. So free.
‘Tell me,’ she demanded from the bird ‘…where do I go?’
‘Home!’ it answered, ‘…Home!’
‘Yes, home.’ She smiled in return. Towards the grumbling thunder, southward, she turned her gaze.