Night has fallen in the wilderness. Beneath dim moonlight there's not much to be seen, and only the soft rushing babble of water somewhere down the bank. A man sits by the river, his mind like the landscape, full of darkness and the inexorable coming of tomorrow.
Now he stands; a figure is approaching. He's hard to make out, a shadow among shadows. Is he a tall man? Does he come as a friend? Are there more following him?
Perhaps these questions are asked, but they go unanswered as the two men fall, somehow, to grappling with each other. Hooking limbs with feet and clinching necks with stubborn arms. They wrestle to throw, to try and take the other to the ground and overpower him. The river's rush is forgotten amidst grunts and panting and the sounds of grasping hands and flesh on hair.
Hours pass This was not what the waiting man had intended, to spent the entire night contesting with a stranger (Is he a stranger? He's no longer sure. Can you be so close to someone for so long without beginning to know them?) when he has so much occupying his mind.
He does not want to DO this now. He could surrender. He could stop the fight, and try to deal or negotiate. But something in him knows it's pointless. They aren't even speaking. There are no tricks left that he can play, nowhere left to run. He plants his feet, pushes back, and despite the ache in his bones, and the hollows under his eyes, he stays. He endures. He does what is before him. He wrestles.
