The Hue And Cry

And the weight of a soul

It has been an eventful week, more so than normal. On Monday, we drove to town and met our latest farm volunteer, fellow Substacker Leyla Kazim. On the last night of her visit, we decided to take a picture together, so we all walked over to the paddock of that day to see if the sheep would get in the frame too. They did not, but we went ahead and took the picture anyway. The toddler followed us over there and was playing nearby, but after an instant of distraction, we suddenly noticed that we could not hear him.

The final moment of piece before we realised that our son was gone.

Puzzled, Jackie walked back towards the house to look for him, while I walked with the sheep from the paddock to the pen. When they were inside, there was still no sign of the toddler. No more than seven minutes had passed since he was last sighted, which must be the longest that he's ever been out of sight, but we hadn't checked every square meter yet, so I was concerned, but not worried.

After another minute, Jackie said she'd look on the other side of the house, so I stood on the road and looked downhill. At that moment, I heard him, but it was such a faint noise. A scream. It was so far away, impossibly far, it had only been ten minutes since he was with us, and now I was struggling to hear the faint sound of his crying. I followed the sound down hill, the steep valleys and ridges can play tricks on your ears, so I wasn't one hundred percent certain that I was even going in the right direction.

At the village boundary, the faint wails became even fainter. I stopped for a moment, then the church bells from the next village started to toll and I cursed them for stealing my son's cries, but it was only the half hour toll and was over quickly. I took a few steps closer to the edge of the road and stopped by an electricity post, calling out his name, listening down into the forest, then the electrical box on the post began to buzz, which drowned out the noise again!

My patience was wearing thin, I couldn't understand where he was and how he'd got so far away. Had someone picked him up and driven him away, then abandoned him on some distant roadside to escape his crying? It made no sense, it was like having the world torn out from beneath my feet like a table cloth. I got far enough from the buzzing box to hear him again, he was calling for me. Papa! It was a sudden clarity that returned my senses. I called back.

By this time, Jackie and Leyla had given up searching near the house, and were now on the village road. I called out and told them to get down here quickly. When they arrived, I said to take a deep breath to slow the heart, then listen carefully into the valley. There it was again, the cry, as if from another world. I asked if they had heard it, and when I saw the confused looks on their faces, I knew that it was not just my imagination.

When we heard it again, Jackie said it could have come from the village behind us, from a house just down the road from ours. It is an empty house, the owners moved out a while ago, but the gate is unlocked, and so is the basement. I sprinted back up the hill as fast as I could and burst through the gate and then into the basement, but he was not there. My adrenalin had started to pump at this point. I quickly did a round of the house to be sure that he was not there, then went back onto the street.

I called down to Jackie, shaking my head, and told her that I will go and get my bike. She nodded, and I said to keep looking down the road. When I was in our own basement, retrieving the bike, I took out my phone and called the neighbour who lives just over the road from us. There were a few rings, and I was worried that she would not answer, but then she did. I said that my son was missing and can she help to search for him. She instantly said yes, so I said to meet me outside her house in a few moments.

When I was out of the basement, I ran into the main room and unplugged the e-bike battery. I rode to the neighbour’s house on full power, where the lady was just coming out of the house, her husband close behind. I asked her to rouse the other neighbours and for the husband to join the search. In a brief moment, a search party was organised.

Zooming down the road, I passed Leyla, telling her that more people were coming to help and that I would go to the other side of the valley. The bike reached 55kmh as I rode down the hill, I slowed down at the bend of the road. I was now in another valley from our own, and I came up with a search plan on the way. The next house in that valley is tucked away down a sleepy little track, invisible from the road. I carefully navigated my way over the rutted pathway, dusk was almost upon us. When I reached the house, I called out and knocked on the door.

The family of three all came to see who it was. I told them what was happening, they were ready to help. I heard the mother say, "It's as if it were my own son." I told them that there were seven people searching on the southern side of the valley, and that I will continue northward on the road above their house to the next village to enlist more help. I asked the mother to contact the other homestead in their valley - a household of four; two parents and their adult sons - and asked the father to walk up and down the road on the northern side of the valley, listening carefully and acting as a kind of relay with the people on the southern side.

Up to this point, it was only twenty minutes since we had seen our child, things had gone from zero to a hundred in the space of a breath, the moment I sprinted back to check the empty house was the moment of inflection. By the time I’d left the little homestead in the next valley, there were ten people actively searching, I could see lights shining through the trees on the southern side of the valley.

I knew that he was somewhere in the area, but I didn't know where, The easiest assumption was that he had wandered downhill into the forest, where he may have fallen down and started to scream. We could have all rushed down there to search among the trees, that is what most people did, but I'd made the choice to follow the winding road around the valley. If he were really at the bottom, then I would hear him from the other side and know for sure, then we could focus all of our energy on that area.

In-spite of that, it was hard to imagine that he could have gone all the way by road, which only travels about five hundred meters as the crow flies, but because of the shape of the land, actually meanders two and a half kilometres. My son is two and a half years old, a slow walker, and prefers to be carried, none of us would have believed he would walk that far, that quickly, but the fact is that he was that far away, we could hear it in his calls.

So I made my way onwards towards the next village, where I planned to ask all the residents there to help search. There was still light, but it was beginning to fade, and quickly. I thought I could hear his calling for me again, but a dog was barking over it. Then – as I raced along the road – I saw the dog in question, and assumed it was one of the local dogs. Then I noticed the life-preserver like object around the neck of the dog.

It was our Floki, who’d just been castrated a few days earlier. He was wearing an inflatable ring to stop him pulling out his stitches. And behind Floki, was our son, half running, half waddling. I rushed towards them and dismounted, he ran into my arms and began to exclaim "I.. I... I... was... lost!" He’d only been speaking in comprehensive sentences for a few days. I hugged him and told him that everything was ok, and he quickly calmed down. When I asked him what happened, he said that he went on a walk with Floki...

I carried him in my arm and pushed the bike back down the road, where I met my neighbour who was patrolling that area, he took the bike and went to find Jackie, while I went down to his house for a drink of water. I was intensely thirsty at this point. Jackie got the bike when she was found, and she came to meet us at that house. Then a car arrived from our village, and the two of them were whisked away. I had another few glasses of water and began the journey home. On the way, I encountered the other searchers, who were checking the forest on the downhill side of the road. Everyone was thrilled that he was ok and were amazed that he was able to walk that far.

I saw Leyla last, she had been searching the logging tracks near our house. Jackie appeared with our son, and we all sat on the road under a lamppost. The toddler was in good spirits at this point, excitedly telling us in simple terms about how he had wandered off with the dog and got lost, he told us about how he had cried and called, and I told him that it was a good thing to do, because we wouldn't have found him otherwise. The next morning, when he woke up, he told me the whole story again.

---

The ordeal ended as quickly as it began, in the space of minutes. I found him just before darkness fell. If it had taken longer, we would have needed to call the police, he could have been hit by a car (people don't like to slow down at blind corners here, it is not even unusual to be confronted by a car on the wrong side of the road coming round a corner...)

I am amazed at the speed with which the community was mobilized. In the space of a few breaths, there were ten people actively searching for him. Another four would have joined moments later. If I had not found him when I did, I would have roused the next village, then called my friends in the largest village of the big valley, and they would have leapt into action as well.

It reminded me of the Statute of Winchester; a foundational piece of medieval law, which dictated (among other things) that if there is a felon abroad in the country, then all men who own property must be heed the Hue and Cry and aid in the pursuit; they shall follow the cry with the country, as they are able. This was not a man hunt, but nonetheless demonstrated the strength of a community in times of crises. When a child goes missing, people come together without a second thought, and this kind of experience stays with those who are involved. It gives me hope, neighbours make sure that neighbours are ok.

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That was the end of the week, the beginning was no less impactful on us. On Tuesday, I experienced a bit of a reality check, something that I had a grasp of — in an intellectual kind of way — but could only comprehend fully by experiencing it. Slaughtering a sheep is not the same as a chicken or a rabbit. I’ve had my flock for a year, together we walk in the mountains, and I watch as they graze. The two ewes learned to know me as the shepherd, and that connection was not a one way street. I can’t say that I love my sheep, not like I love a pet, or my son, but I care for them deeply. Reconciling that care with the reality of making our own meat is a simple thing, but I struggle to find the words for it.

I believe it was the right thing to do, in spite of the truth of the matter; which is that the burden of slaughtering a member of my own flock now rests on my shoulders. Franky was the name of the sheep. That name has now joined the list of friends, acquaintances, and pets from my life who are no longer living their own lives. Those names are never far from my mind.

I see how ancient peoples may have formed the first proto religions. I have forgotten more people than I remember, but I will not forget Franky. She, and the others on the list, remain with me in the form of memories. It would be easier — given that I can not forget her — to imagine that she has now joined a new flock, a flock of spirits. If I were an ancient person, with no modern concept of the universe, I would make symbolic offerings of apple cores to her, because she liked them, and it was my responsibility as her shepherd to keep her happy.

Perhaps — if I were an ancient human — I would imagine that she is grazing the eternal pastures, where my childhood dogs run and jump with joy, where my child who was never born sits in the shade of a tree. Perhaps she would now be in the care of my friend, who couldn’t cope with this world. Even though it would be so easy to believe that, I can’t quite do it, I have modern ideas about life and death.