I woke up from my short nap disoriented. I didn't know where I was. I followed the same routine of every Saturday. I woke up at six in the morning, took a quick shower and went to my local park for a 3 kilometer jog. My local park featured a pond where you could see ducks and swans hanging around. After my exercise I leaned on one of the trees surrounding the pond and rest for a while before heading back home.
This was a normal Saturday morning, the only difference was that at some point I had fallen asleep under the shade of the tree instead of simply resting. It was not problematic; I didn´t work on Saturdays so spending a few extra hours at the park only resulted on a late breakfast. A thud woke me up, I thought maybe one of the birds landed close to me, but to my surprise when I opened my eyes I see myself immersed in a forest.
The forest was packed more densely than my local park and the pond was nowhere to be seen. The tree that I was leaning on was now on top of a dirt mound, as if it was excavated and placed lazily on ground level, dirt and all. This was a strange situation, even if I was still on my local park on some other location, it still wouldn't explain how I got there while I was sleeping. As far as I am aware I was not a sleepwalker. Since I did not see anyone around, I decided to start walking until I reached a part of the park that I could recognize.
I had been walking for 4 hours, noon is quietly approaching. My situation hadn't improved much; I still don't recognize this grove. There was no park near my house with a size this big. Was I transported here? Or maybe I was victim of one of those aliens' abductions and I was dropped on a different place. At the distance I saw the forest get spacer, perhaps a meadow; I was walking in that direction. Once I got closer I heard familiar sounds, cows mooing. Although I had never visited a farm before, it was a sound that it was easy to recognize. Cows are not animals that live on the wild, they are farm animals. If there are farm animals, there will be people. I fastened my pace; I would finally get some needed answers.
I reached the grassland, and as expected a few huts and small houses were there. I walked towards one of them and knocked on the door.
– Hello, I was jogging on the park and got lost, I was wondering if you could give me directions to return home – I shouted.
I waited for a few minutes but there was no response. This wasn't strange, farms doesn't take a day off just because is the weekend. They deal with live animals and they need care every day. The person that lived in that house was, most likely, the one in charge of the farm and thus it would be on the fields doing farm chores. He wouldn't stay at home all day.
I took another glance at the horizon. While I had been inside the forest I kept glancing at the horizon however, due to the tall trees, I couldn't see very far. This time, I saw a huge wall on the distance, about 5 kilometers from where I was. The wall looked nothing like a modern brick and mortar wall would look like, it looked old, faded and deteriorated. The only wall that I knew would fit that description would be the Great Wall of China. I also saw a farmer tending the fields, and decided to go talk to him.
Once I reached the farmer I tried communicating with him
– I apologize for bothering you while you work but I am lost and I was wondering if you could give me directions – I said meekly.
The reply that came from him was a collection of sounds that had no meaning to me. He is speaking in another language. Once again I tried communicating, this time using bogy gestures and hand signs but it was futile, he didn't understand what I was trying to convey. My originals predictions had been way off, I was quite far from home, maybe on another country or perhaps another continent. The foreign language combined with the wall on the background, China was becoming more of a possibility.
The farmer signaled a young boy on the distance to come over, perhaps his son. The boy came running, and once he was close enough he and the farmer started conversing back and forth. The topic of the conversation was me, I still couldn't understand what they were saying but a few fingers pointed at me gave it away.
After a while, the young boy handed a farmer a wide leaf. The farmer took a feather and scribbled on top of the wide leaf before giving it to me. The leaf had been treated to resemble paper but it was still just a leaf. On top of the leaf a few square looking characters, that I didn't recognize, have been written. I was more puzzled than ever.
After they handed me the leaf and saw that I couldn't understand what was written on it, they started shouting angrily while they pointed at the big wall on the background. They wanted me to head on that direction, perhaps someone that could help me was there. I squinted my eyes trying to see better, and I saw a gap on the wall where a huge gate was located. I thank them profusely while I bowed since the reason for the angrily shouting was probably because I had annoyed them, and started walking.
My goal was the gate on the wall. My unusual Saturday jog continued.