The next morning the two friends continued to talk over breakfast until inevitably the conversation circled back to the previous evening and Epic’s story, which Milo had been waiting an extremely long time to hear.
Epic looked directly at him and asked where he would like him to begin. Milo instantly knew where, blurting out that he had been intrigued ever since Epic had divulged that he undertook his journey after taking ‘a great leap of faith’.
Epic exclaimed, “That is a great place to start! In fact that is the best place to start.”
He composed himself and began, “One autumn morning, I was eating some shoots, by the river, minding my own business, when I suddenly sensed some movement over to my right shoulder in the distance. I turned and caught sight of two intimidating, grey squirrels bounding towards me.
I had been raised with a deep fear of grey squirrels, for reasons which I will disclose later, so feeling in great danger, and flooded with adrenaline, I instinctively ran towards the nearest tree with the grey squirrels in pursuit and climbed at great speed. I thought that this action would delay their attack but might also trap me within the tree with my assailants. I needed a way to escape.
Luckily, this tree was fairly close to a neighbouring tree, so I headed straight for it, running along a branch and jumping into it. The branches of this tree stretched out over the river but fell a long way short of reaching the other side of the river.
However on the other side there was a large weeping willow, which I knew well from past explorations. In that instant I realised, I possessed only one chance, even though the gap between the trees was enormous. Sensing that I could succeed, accompanied by a surge of adrenaline, I rushed along the longest branch and took a giant ‘Leap of faith’.
I hung in the air for what seemed an eternity and beginning to descend I reached out to grab a branch. Somehow I managed to hold on and regain my footing. I looked back to see the two grey squirrels still in the first tree, looking stunned and perplexed, at what they had just witnessed. It would be folly for them to try and follow now.
I hopped down from the weeping willow onto the ground, adrenaline coursing through my veins from my giant leap, a leap I previously would never have dreamt of taking. My immediate thought was to flee as far away as possible quickly. So I ran and ran until I reached a safe distance.
That evening waves of elation, shock and relief washed over me until I fell asleep exhausted.
Epic paused and looked at Milo,” That was my leap of faith. A bit different from yours, much more on the spur of the moment, whereas yours was a continual daily leap until you escaped. The common thread being that we were both either stepping or jumping into uncertainty.”
Milo nodded in approval, eager for Epic to continue with his story. Epic sensed this and carried on, “Actually from this point I was now marching headlong into uncertainty.