The River

“‘It wasn’t like you think. It wasn’t a camping trip. I lost weight, but more than that, I didn’t come back the same.’ And, he thought, I’m still not the same; I’ll never be the same. He could not walk through a park without watching the trees for game, could not not hear things […] He saw, heard, smelled everything.” 

Derek, who has never experienced surviving in the woods as Brian has, does not fully grasp the gravity of what he asks Brian to do by returning to the woods. He does not understand the serious, life-or-death nature of Brian’s experience, or how the effects of his experience have continued to impact him after his return. Brian’s personality and identity have changed because of his ordeal.

“There was something about the food, preparing the food, looking at the food—there was so much of it compared to what he’d had in the woods. He enjoyed taking the food out, working with it and cooking it and serving it and eating it. Chewing each bite, knowing the food, watching other people eat.” 

Brian’s relationship with food is one of the biggest ways his experience in the woods changed him. He appreciates food in a way that most people do not, especially not teenage boys. Although he values everything about food, he is not a glutton; instead, he simply loves working with food and has a deep respect for it.

“No. You don’t understand. I truly discovered fire—the way some man or woman did it thousands and thousands of years ago. I discovered fire where it had been hidden in the rock for all of time and it was there for me. It doesn’t matter that we have matches or lighters or that fire is easy to make here in the other part of the world. I truly and honestly discovered fire.” 

Brian tells a counselor about his first experience in the woods but can’t make the counselor understand what it was like. Someone who has never needed to survive in nature as Brian did can’t understand his experience and takes for granted essential elements of survival, such as fire.