April 28. Walked. And walked and walked.
Cosmo is taking time off the trail, and I surprise myself with how quickly I fall inward again. There are trees and stones looming in the ever-present fog. I crunch along on dead branches

Silence all day long, broken only by the crack of two eggs as I accidentally knock a bird’s nest out of the shelter’s rafters that night. Pulled a broom from the hut’s back wall. The bits of shell sweep easy, but the yolk just smears along.
Tough night.
April 29. I’m into Maryland, without show or pomp, pushing through yet another bank of fog. Still toying with the idea that maybe heaven is too crowded, and heavy souls are causing those comically puffy white clouds to sink down here into purgatory.

As you can probably tell, I start to drift away from the ground when I’m not staked down. And it’s even easy to unravel when the sun gets put out. But the only way out is to push on.

Through the woods, hushed all around.

Down a cliff, a staircase of jutting stones.

1.2 miles along a paved street.

And finally, the red-halogen sign of Rocky’s N.Y. Italian Pizzaria. The lighthouse at the end of the road.
Jalapeño-bacon cheese fries. Large pepperoni, sausage, and cheese calzone. Large sausage, chicken, beef, and cheese pizza. Little something to jump start the heart.

The cashier looks skeptical.”Yes, I’m sure.” A wad of bills carelessly thrown.

Twenty agonizing minutes of foot-tapping. (Are they stoking a wood stove back there or something?) The timer beeps and the plates begin to arrive. “No more room here? How about if –” the waiter looks around — “you okay if I stack it here?” I nod. Two tables now belong to me. Other customers would be staring now, but there aren’t any.

post fog, pre -binge

Cut to an hour later. I’m on the trail again. Five miles from the shelter. Horribly over-full. Trying, and nearly failing, to hold a 0.5 mph pace. Trying, and nearly failing, to support the weight of my already heavy bag et al a uranium-dense, calzone-in-tinfoil carcass.
I am now a firm believer that gluttony, is the deadliest of all sins. Never in my life have I been so sincerely remorseful as I was that day. I wanted to make it to my shelter and sleep. I wanted to be able to walk normally or even just stand up straight. I wanted to go back in time and tell myself to keep trudging through that miserable fog. I wished for a lot of things that awful afternoon, but surviving Rocky’s gastrointestinal knockout punch was at the top of the list.
Karma is a lady (but I don’t treat her right) – Nomad