Wild Boars and Wild Thoughts

I’ve always had a weird thing about noises in the dark. Not fear exactly — more like my brain flips into a different setting, like an old radio trying to find a signal. One hiss and I’m convinced it’s either a murderer or a mystical beast summoned by poor map reading. Which is why when I heard the first grunt — low, wet, unmistakably animal — I froze like a moth caught by a fridge door.

It was somewhere near the ridge trail in the Sierra de Cazorla, late afternoon bleeding into dusk, and I was walking that familiar kind of path that looks innocent until you realise you haven’t seen a single person in four hours and the shadows have started getting personality. I’d stopped to drink some water and stare at a rock that looked like a disappointed face. And then, there it was again. That grunt.

Followed by a shuffle.

Then a snort.

I didn’t run. I’m not that dramatic. But I did do that ridiculous wide-legged stance you do when your whole body thinks it’s being chased and your legs disagree on direction. Then I saw them. Two. Maybe three. Wild boars, all tusk and twitch and earth-coloured muscle. They were about twenty metres down the slope, snuffling around like they owned the place, which to be fair, they kind of did.

I stayed still. They didn’t care. One stared at me — or through me — then returned to whatever snack it was rooting up from the soil. I’ve read all the stuff: don’t provoke, don’t run, don’t look them in the eye like you’re challenging them to a duel. But in that moment, none of that mattered. Because I wasn’t thinking about survival.

I was thinking about my dad.

Which came out of nowhere. But there it was. Him, hunched in his armchair, watching a wildlife documentary years ago, muttering something about how “boars are just pigs that’ve seen some things.” I think that’s the last full sentence I remember him saying before the dementia kicked in. Something about the way that boar looked at me — half-bored, half-ready to explode — cracked open a strange feeling. Like I missed someone who was still technically alive but not really there.

We stood in our separate worlds for maybe a minute. Them rooting, me remembering. Then the boars shuffled off, casual as commuters, vanishing into the undergrowth like they had a dinner party to get to.

And just like that, it was silent again. Almost aggressively so. No rustle, no birdcall. The kind of silence that makes you realise how loud your own thoughts can be. I took a step forward and felt a twig snap. My heart nearly burst from my chest. But no comeback, no charge. Just empty space and trees.

I kept walking.

Didn’t even bother to check the map. I didn’t want directions. I wanted to be lost for a bit longer. Let my legs go wherever they wanted. Maybe end up somewhere with a view, maybe nowhere. Somewhere along the way I started singing to myself. Loud and off-key. Some old song I didn’t even like. I think that’s when I realised I’d stopped worrying about the boars. Or the trail. Or the rest of the world for that matter.

When I finally reached a clearing, the moon had started muscling in on the sky, pale and swollen. I sat on a rock and finished the last of my water. Thought about pigs and memories and how weird it is that sometimes the wildest things in life aren’t even the animals. They’re the thoughts that come walking beside you when you’re too far out to avoid them.

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