THE HARDEST: PURGATORY – MERCY AND DESPAIR

The greenery blown, flutters from a windy downwash, the air bursting of a loud, whirring noise.

On the ground lay a case of Glucerna meal drinks and Oasis brand 500 millilitre bottle water, sleeping bag. A person roughly alights near the items. The Sikorsky S-76 points the nose another direction, and transitions from hover to flight. The chopper smaller and smaller in concert with its noise ever fainter and finally unseen, unheard.

Without its company, nature’s wind suddenly the preeminent attention. The lone person placed here as a lesson; none will return for them. Hope isn’t worth an afterthought. The sole human occupant of El Cerro del Aripo, a mountain.

Despair = the supplies can keep them remaining on this mortal coil till exhausted; the next door, mercy = defy inexorableness, ending it all now in a plunge 3,084 feet down.