Chapter 15: One Step at a Time
On the other side of the unknown world, it was already around ten at night but Hana kept on tossing and turning on the dried leaves overlaid with multiple large banana leaves. The banana leave's midribs were hurting her back. She still couldn't sleep. She missed her latex double layered memory foam bed.
She was so sleep depraved these days and was welcoming this long awaited rest. However, when the time was ripe, her body just couldn't shut down. She felt her mind was so active and her body was aching everywhere. She had never do this much hard labor in her thirty plus years of her life.
Pounding gently on the sore spots at her shoulders, she kept on thinking about her conjectures. Despite her hubby's light admonition, she felt that she was right.
Just called it women's intuition. Whatever it might be. She just couldn't explain why.
She could never win an argument with her hubby. His was always backed by facts and figures, while hers was more on feelings and self-proclaimed sixth sense.
What she knew was, right now, she was pretty hurt by Arash's rebuke.
Truthfully, Hana knew she sounded childish and absurd. However, this time, she was backed by facts, not just intuition; all the geographical indications showed that she didn't go anywhere at all.
She was worried, tired and frustrated.
She knew her geography was just so-so (1). The worst was her physics. To invent or solve some mechanical problems, besides calculations, physics is a must. That was her hubby's forte. Even if a clue or a solution was found, she might not be able to comprehend it.
This was what troubled Hana the most.
She was a biology person rather than a physics enthusiast.
She was afraid that she had actually found an answer or a solution in front of her but failed to notice its significance due to her ignorance.
She took a deep breath and sigh.
She remembered, Arash always said, [Do not think too much ahead. Solve the problem at hand first. One step at a time. You will only stress yourself out.]
Now was not the time to think too much. Deal with the present situation at hand first.
Hana looked around for Kuro; suddenly she felt Kuro was the only one who could make her smile. Nonetheless, Kuro has long gone somewhere, probably hunting for small critters to eat while the aloof Shiro was by the cave entrance, silently relaxing with its eyes closed. However, its ears can be seen twitching to the left and right once a while.
Hana sat up and stopped herself from disturbing Shiro; she immediately busy herself. It's better to do something productive rather than lying around doing nothing and moping around.
She updated her item's list while roasting the tip of three six feet sticks she dragged home after settling her 'numbered business' earlier today;
Perishable time
Within one week
Twiggies (1)*
Bananas (6)
Chicken sausage (6)
Within one month
Eggs (8)
Bird egg (1)
Tausa biscuits (6)
Potatoes (4)
The foodstuff from a year's away perishable dates were not touched, so Hana didn't amend anything from there. Hana planned to reserve those items as long as possible and focus only on consuming the short-lived items first.
She added a new category, "Foraged items", to classify her recent bountiful harvest after amending the numbers of food items on the list.
Foraged Items
Asam gelugor (4)
Ironweed (3)
Wild onion (1)
Wild garlic cloves (1)
Additional entries were added into her item's list. She felt proud of herself for making a number of 'homemade' stuff. Her homemade stuff only consisted of food related items and crafts only before this. Even her beloved Arash was not a handy-kind-of guy.
Items
1.5 L water bottle (2)
clingwrap (1)
diaper (1)
mini wetwipes (1)
baby napkin (1)
chisel (for cutting trees) (1)
chisel (for digging soil) (1)
bamboo container - open (7)
bamboo container - close (1)
makeshift 'spear' (3)
The second chisel has been completed some time after her chat with Arash. She attached the chisel at the end of a long five feet solid stick and tied it up sloppily with a number of tree fibres she collected.
It didn't look great, but at least it could last for a while before tearing. The end where the stick and the chisel met was hacked a little using the previous hand chisel so that the new trapezium shaped chisel could be partially inserted in before being tied together to increase firmness.
This time, this chisel was a little different. It was 1 foot in length, flat, with the shape of a midi skirt. This kind of chisel will be useful for digging soil to make fish traps or plant trees later, if her dream of making a garden patch could be realized before she return home. It will have the function of both a hoe and a shovel. Hana liked everything that was multipurpose.
Sorting out her priorities, she planned to make a clay pot and a simple filter using some of the bamboo containers for access to clean germ-free and particle-free water.
Her water was getting less and less, but there was so much to do before she could prepare a makeshift water filtration system for safe consumption. Right now, she was down to the last half bottle although she had been very thrifty until bordering to dehydration.
Hana touched her dried lips.
Breaking out from her thoughts, she took the lightly roasted tip of one of the long sticks and rubbed the charred parts on a flat stone. She re-roasted the tip again and redo a couple of times, alternately rubbing it again and again until a sharp cone-like protrusion was made. Her wrists were getting sore again.
"Sigh..let's continue later-lah. (2)" Hana talked to herself in a whisper.
She lie down again and tried to catch some sleep.
As the fire getting lower, Hana fall asleep in between her endless worries, the same as her other half.
Author's Note:
(1) so-so = average
(2) -lah = Malaysians love attaching '-lah' to the ending of their sentence, just like '-ni'. It's just a sound.
*the numbers in bracket here (and the rest of the food/item list) represents the number of item present, not a footnote as in the sentences.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
mrandmrsmooncat
mrandmrsmooncat This chapter is quite short, we know..haha..
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