On Camping — A Conversation

A chance to get away from it all? Or sinister adventure rife with ticks and bears?

Image credit: Sketch by Our OC

You buy a tent. A sleeping bag. Lanterns, flashlights. Fuel, batteries. First-aid kit — especially if you’re under a curse like we are. Tools, of course. Stove, perhaps. Utensils. Repellents.

Expensive, adds up the One.

A small fortune to live like a bum, agrees the Other. She checks herself. A homeless person.

The One’s younger brother calls. He’s going camping over the Thanksgiving break — unplug from the race a while, he says.

The rat race? the One asks.

The human race, he corrects.

The One is worried. He’s going to get bitten by a tick and get Lyme disease.

Camping is the worst, the Other says. You’re cold and wet and miserable. My school did camping — every year, mandatory, no exceptions. Something about survival skills. I learnt nothing.

The Other remembers her hand-me-down sleeping bag. And literally singing Kum ba yah. Huddled around dying flame and watching for spiders. And snakes.

Battle Royale, says the One — What’s Battle Royal? asks the Other.

Japanese film. Bunch of kids dropped on a deserted island. They must kill each other till they’re down to the last one standing. Banned and then unbanned.

Our Optimistic Companion — or OC, as we like to call her — passes by. This is why you have nightmares, she says.

As a species we spent centuries building and perfecting walls and roofs. Michaelangelo put art on ceilings. And he wants to go live in a tent.

Survival skills might help with the apocalypse, says the Other.

No, says the One. With no one to man the nuclear plants, we’ll all probably die from radiation poisoning first.

And the Other wants to know, Aren’t there bears in those forests?

The One is now wringing her hands. He’s going to get eaten by a bear.

Maybe, says the Other. How does it go? If it’s brown, lay down, if it’s black, fight back — and if it’s white?

Goodnight.

Right. Goodnight.

The One shudders. One time we stayed on a farm. I slept outside. I woke to a baby goat chewing on my hair.

It’s called a kid, says the Other. We could never go camping. We have the curse.

The One agrees. The curse, yes. We’ll probably end up setting the tent on fire.

The Other nods. And still, a bear would attack us — fire and all.