We were all
heading towards the so-called Durian Hill as it was known to have lots of wild
durian trees. It was the durian season again.
The hill was located deep in the forest.
We had been plodding for quite some time. It was already quite late in the
evening. I could hardly see the sun. We only had a few hours left to reach the
hill before the sunset. Then it would be dark. It was indeed quite scary to
think of it but the lure of the durians was too strong to resist.
Finally, we reached the foot of the
hill. We started to climb the hill at once. We knew we had no time to waste as
we tried all our might to reach the top to look for the fruits. The strong
odour of the durians lingered in the air. Suddenly, we heard a thud – something
was hitting the ground. Everybody heard it.
It must be the durian dropping from one of the trees.
Abun raced towards the direction of the
sound without even taking a second look at us. He wanted to be the first to collect the durian
and perhaps to feast the durian as well. The others had no match for him as he
was stout and sturdy.
Then out of the blue we saw him
racing down the hill. He almost bumped
into us. We could hardly have the time to stop him. We were feeling disappointed
with him since we all thought that he must be so greedy that he had collected the durian himself and not to share it with the others.
We then continued our way towards
the direction of the dropping sound of the durian. When we reached the spot, we
did not see any durians. We looked for them nearby and all the surrounding
areas but not a single durian on the floor. It was rather strange and a mystery
to us as we could hardly find any. Maybe that greedy Abun had collected all
leaving nothing for us. We were going to ask him about it later as we decided
to head back towards the trail leading us out of the forest.
After walking for some distance, we
were surprised to see Abun waiting for us under a tree. He was not like his
normal self. He looked pale and when we asked him about what had happened to
him, he could not even answer coherently. He only mentioned that he had seen a
gaunt, frail-looking woman feasting on the durian. She was like a ghostly
figure. His story was enough to make our
hairs stand on end as we hurried to get out of the forest. We all lent Abun a
helping hand as he was too scared to even move his legs even though he was
stout and well-built in terms of his physique.