The Three-Month-And-One-Day-Mark

And we would average, what, ten miles a day? She asks.

Yeah it looks like it.

The river is almost 2,400 miles, she says. Maybe we could do half instead.

I don’t know what that means, I Think.

“I don’t know what that means,” I Say.

It will take 8 months then, she says. Three months is better.

I don’t know how to do less than all of it, I say. I don’t know how to do less than all of Everything.

Of Anything.

How can anyone commit to such a short period of time? Three months is not an adventure.

It’s a small raft and that’s a long time to spend in such a small space. You know, together. She says.

“Are you saying you’re going to kill me?” I ask. “At the three-month-and-one-day-mark?”

Well.  You know.  I’m just sayin’, she says. Three months is a good number. Plus we have to be prepared to drown and die every day.

Well not every day, I say. Just a lot of them.

If she’s going to kill me after three months, then I’m going to need to recruit a team. Because it was the loneliness damned near killed me last time. I’m more afraid of that then I am of drowning.

But it sounds like it’s possible that I’m intolerable for long stretches. Maybe it’s probable, even.

Maybe the team could take one month shifts and then no one will kill me and the Missouri River will be conquerable. But it’s hard to have a newbie over and over again on an adventure. It’s impossible to fall into a rhythm before the month-long-shift-with-me is over and my newbie heads home. On the first of every month I’m like, okay this is the stove and I cook shit on it. That bunk is yours. And stop talking so much please. I stopped talking two months ago.

Maybe she could do month one and month four and month eight. Then we could start and finish together.

I don’t want to be alone. Don’t make me be alone and drown and die all by myself. Or with a newbie.

Well, I doubt all 2,400 miles are raft-able anyway, and I have a lot to look at before I even start on all my logistics.

I’ve got until 2020, so I think I’ve got time.

But like the one guy said…

“The trouble is, you think you have time.”