Emotions and turmoil

David almost felt claustrophobic as he and Mark threaded through the forest in search of food. The trees were definitely more dense than they had been for the previous three days. He wished that he had thought to grab a shirt before they had hung the backpacks. Perhaps his only relief was that the temperature and humidity were lower, even in the middle of summer as the flowers indicated it was.

David had suggested they find some food, but now that they were looking he was leaving the search up to Mark. The more he noticed about this place, the more it bothered him and the less he felt like eating. Maybe the old civilizations who said the belly was the seat of the emotions were on to something.

Somehow they ended up in a small meadow where they could see that the sun was already on its daily trek across the sky. Mark munched on a couple of the grass stalks while walking. There was a path up ahead, but whether it was a deer trail or man-made he couldn't tell. Suddenly he changed direction -- off to the side there were several blackberry bushes.

David could only nibble on a couple of the berries. "I don't think we can wait very long to start heading back."

"To the lake? I know which direction we've been hiking. It won't take long to get back."

"No, I mean toward home. We didn't bring much money, and we will almost certainly have to buy tickets back -- not to mention the problems we will have talking to customs. 'Oh, yeah, we just woke up in your country.'"

"Unless we can figure out how that well got us here."

"Look, even if we do figure it out, has it occurred to you that it brought us here without our asking? How do we know it would take us back, or even if it did happen again that we would go back to that old temple? It's going to take at least a couple weeks to earn enough money to pay for passage back home. We need to start working on that now."

"We'll be alright. Everyone back home might worry about us a little, but they know we can take care of ourselves. Besides, I would really like to know how this works. If we can figure it out, think how easy -- and cheap! -- it would be for us to travel."

A smile finally flitted across David's lips. Mark was the entrepreneur and if he could figure it out, he would find a way to make money from it. "Fine, but I'm not hungry anymore and still want a walking stick. I'm going to go find one."

Mark stopped eating and joined David as he was turning to leave.

"No, I'll be fine. We can take care of ourselves, remember? I'll be back in a little bit."

"Are you sure?"

"Yep."

"Alright. Here, take this with you." Mark handed David his bush thinner. "It will help with limbing the branches. Bring one back for me too, if you would." He went back to his breakfast.