What Pegman Saw : The road less travelled

Image : Google Street view

 

My breath is coming fast and hot. The road is grit shifting over baked mud, tearing at the soles of my feet.

I hear them behind me, boots thudding – relentless. I’m unarmed, barefoot – they’ll catch me soon and they know it. Two choices, then – jungle or river.

The jungle would seem the sane prospect – plenty of cover, trees to climb, bush meat and berries to eat. I could pick off my pursuers in traps made from creepers and sharpened branches, right? Only, I’m a fisherman, not a soldier, and the jungle terrifies me – the dissonant harmony of the animals, the unsettling stink of growth and rot.

But the river … The water is blue as the sky, flat as my palm, the slightest wrinkling in the wind. I know its monsters.

I swerve left, pump my legs, kick hard at the bank, a moment of silence, then …

 

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This fantastical flash of fiction was written for What Pegman Saw, the writing prompt inspired by Google Street View. This week we visit Bolivia. See here to share and read other stories.

 

Note

The title is a famous misquote of the Robert Frost poem, The Road Not Taken. See here to read the poem and for a very interesting interpretation of it’s meaning – you may be surprised.