Chapter 10: Contact
As dawn approaches, Emilio and Karl shuffle into the new day in silence, feeling more tired than when they settled down the previous night. The scene outside the tent looks completely different in broad daylight. Trees appear taller, and much of the river is shaded from the sun on one side. An early morning mist hangs low over the water, giving it a foul, swampy appearance. The campfire has nearly run its course, and their hanging clothes are partially dry.
“I’ve been thinking, Emilio, maybe we should turn back.” Karl sounds more hopeful than expectant.
“Seriously, Karl, we’re virtually there! Let’s just walk another hour, find the plant and get back to the airport.” Emilio speaks confidently, masking the fact that he isn’t entirely sure where they are. Karl nods reluctantly and they slowly dress and pack their tent before continuing their journey, battling the unforgiving jungle in quiet desperation, eager to get to their destination and avoid another night of sleeping rough in these overwhelming surroundings. The rainforest ticks and crawls with life. A spider monkey swings through the upper canopy, seeming to trail the unusual explorers. Stepping cautiously through dark sludge, weaving past unruly branches, prickly stems and strange, razor-sharp leaves which scratch at their skin from every direction, Karl fights back the urge to run, his fear of losing Emilio again even greater than his fear of hidden predators. Emilio is thriving in the foreign habitat. The sight of immense, vibrant, tropical plants is more staggering than he had imagined from the documentaries he had immersed himself in prior to the trip.
“I keep getting bitten, man!” Karl swats his neck and inspects his sore arms.
“It’s the mozzies. Don’t worry about it, you’ve had your malaria injections.”
“Yeah, I knew this trip was a bad idea as soon as I sat in the doctors waiting for those damned jabs.”
“I’ve never seen anyone cry so much over a couple of pin pricks.”
“It’s malaria man, it’s kind of a big deal!”
With cuts, bruises and torn clothes, they reach a strange arc of trees, which stick out a mile from the randomness of the dense tangled jungle surroundings, looking almost manmade. Further ahead, the undergrowth gives way to an unusual clearing. In the distance they can see a thatched hut with a fire burning in front of it.
“Whoa, hold up! You see this, Emilio? I think we should go back the opposite way.”
“Wait a second.” Emilio grips Karl’s torn shirt and pulls him in amongst the twisted branches, looking on inquisitively. A man appears from the hut, his face painted a ghostly white, wearing only a brown cloth covering his loins.
“We’ve walked straight in to a community, Karl.” Emilio whispers in astonishment.
“I seriously think we should walk the other way, they might try and eat us or something.”
“Shut up, Karl, we pose no threat to them. Besides, they may be glad to have visitors and offer us food or something.”
Karl looks on from behind, with his chin resting on Emilio’s shoulder. A long, sharp spear is slowly put up to the side of his face. Karl notices the spear in the corner of his eye and freezes in fear. His right eye follows the spear round until it is presented in front of his face, demanding submission.
”Emilio, we are definitely going to be on the menu, brother!”
Emilio turns, frustrated with Karl, before realizing their predicament.
“Oh man, this is crazy!”
Three short tribesmen with jagged edged spears usher the boys forward into the clearing. Approaching a line of thatched huts the tribesmen call out in a strange dialect. Slowly, people start to emerge from the huts and the surrounding trees, inquisitively and tentatively. As the villagers draw closer, Emilio and Karl edge together, until they are standing back to back. Directly in front of them is an extremely tall old man who towers over the boys, looking down on them with an intimidating air of righteousness. His skin is weathered, dark brown and leathery. His frame is muscular and toned beneath minimal clothing. Emilio estimates he must be close to eighty years old.
An uneasy silence descends. Emilio feels the need to explain their intrusion.
“Hey boss, we come in peace.”
“Yeah, we walked in here by accident.” Karl adds desperately.
The gathering remains silent. The old man then bellows out a name at the top of his voice.
“Valencia!”
A tall women with jet black hair steps out from the largest of the huts grandly holding a long tribal staff, topped with a gaunt monkey’s head adorned with long black and white feathers. Valencia appears westernized, with sandals, three quarter length trousers and a halter neck top, exposing tribal tattoos which run from the base of her spine, up her back and over her shoulders. The scantily clad men, women and children surrounding the boys part like the red sea to form a human passageway for Valencia to get to the front of the circled mass of onlookers. Emilio and Karl are pushed forward and presented to her in silence. Close up, they are struck by how different she looks to the rest of the tribe. She is extremely pretty, and wisdom beyond her years sits behind piercingly beautiful blue eyes.
“We want to know what you are doing here and how you found us.” Says Valencia confidently, with surprisingly good English spoken in a strong Spanish accent.
“Total accident! Right, Karl?”
“Totally!” Karl nods his head frantically.
“We’re lost!” Emilio proclaims, to Karl’s disgust.
“For fuck’s sake Emilio, I thought you knew where we were going.”
“I did, and then I didn’t. Anyway, shut up. Leave the talking to me.” Emilio clears his throat and then continues to fill Valencia in. “Well, I’m a science student, and me and my pal Karl here are trying to find a species of plant that I believe grows in this area. You see, the bus we were travelling on got hijacked and we had to find our way through the jungle on foot, as the main road would have been too dangerous. We were just following our map and it brought us up this way.”
Valencia considers what has been said and then raises her staff into the air chanting at her people. Instantly the people of the village raise both their hands above them and start chanting the same words back loudly.
“What the hell is happening?” Says Emilio.
. “You have been declared lost, and when someone is declared lost then we try and assist them, but first we must get rid of any evil spirits that may have followed you in here. There must be a cleansing ceremony.”
“Well, I can assure all the good people gathered here that no ghost followed us into the rainforest.” Karl is worried by what he’s hearing. “And we appreciate the whole cleansing thing, it’s very kind and everything, but we both took a bit of an unexpected bath in the river yesterday, and I can assure you that got us as clean as we need to be right now, so if it’s all the same to you, we’ll just get on our way.”
“You won’t be going anywhere until the evil spirits have been banished from you and our community.” Says Valencia, taking a more serious tone.
Emilio is fascinated by the idea of a tribal ceremony and is keen to comply.
“Karl, chill out, they want to help us. This will be cool! Besides, when will we ever get to be part of or witness anything like this again?”
The boys are hoisted aloft by the villagers, who chant in a repetitive, hypnotic rhythm as they carry them into one of the many thatched huts to have their bodies washed in preparation for the spiritual cleansing ceremony. The boys are placed on two separate wooden beds draped with red cloth. They are then stripped and given woven gowns. Karl clings to his pants as three old native women try to prise them from him. Emilio is fascinated while Karl remains desperately uncomfortable as his chubby flesh is exposed to a host of strangers.
“This is amazing, Karl! What an honour! Look, they
’re taking our clothes to be washed as well.”
“This is the end, their gonna boil our bones!” Karl wails, losing hope.
“Relax, Valencia seems cool.”
“Are you kidding? She’s a witch! It just doesn’t make any sense, Emilio, she speaks English and she looks normal compared to the other people, almost like she could have walked in here with us.”
“That’s a good point, Karl. We need to talk to her.”
Emilio tries to communicate with a woman who’s putting handmade sandals on his feet. She wears a red head robe and has a glistening gold nose ring.
“Excuse me, hello. Can we speak to Valencia, please?”
The woman smiles and turns her attention back to his feet. Another women, who’s trying to peel Karl’s damp socks off, gets the idea and whispers to one of the other women, who giggles and hurries off. After what seems like forever, Valencia saunters in.
“Wow, don’t you guys look groovy!” She remarks, clearly getting a kick out of poking fun at the odd couple, who are way out of their comfort zone.
“I don’t mean to be rude or anything, Valencia, but you kinda of stick out like a sore thumb round here, you know? What’s your deal? These people are hanging off your every word, and how come you speak English so well?”
“You really want me to bore you guys with my story?” Valencia replies humbly.
“It’s fine, Karl bores the crap out me all the time, I'm used to it.” Emilio receives a punch on the arm for his remark from Karl who mimes a fake laugh and then shakes his head. Valencia looks at the boys. She is normally reluctant to talk about herself, but she hasn’t spoken to anyone about her upbringing for so long she reasons that it wouldn’t do any harm. She sits down beside the boys and starts to reflect on her past.
“My mother died giving birth to me out here. I lived in this rainforest for the first ten years of my life, happily at first. But after a while I started to feel different, I wondered if this was all there was to life. I was bored. It made me feel rebellious. Nobody seemed to understand me. I started to feel alone, even though I was part of a large, loving family. I would always hear stories about the city of Iquitos, and I would often ask if I could visit there, but I was always told I was too young. One day I woke up and decided to leave, so I ran away to Iquitos. After a couple of days of walking around I found a refuge for street kids. I told the lady that ran the refuge that I was homeless and didn’t have a family. She took me under her wing and sent me to a local school in Iquitos, where I studied English and Mathematics. At the refuge there was an old black and white TV set. I was mesmerized by it. It was a window to the rest of the world, a world of individuals, of different races, of luxuries. I had an ambition go to America and maybe one day to Europe. I was so carried away with the new life I’d created for myself that I didn’t spare a thought for my family back home. When I did return to the tribe, I found that my father had died. He had searched for me every day from when I ran away until his death. I’ve never forgiven myself for not returning sooner. My relatives rallied around me, they never blamed me or turned their backs on me for one minute, although that is what I had done to them. I returned to Iquitos, and eventually got a job as an English teacher, which I still am. I come back here on a regular basis and visited my relatives to let them know I’m ok and to talk of my dreams, which to this day they find hard to understand. I always bring gifts and try to do something positive for everyone and in turn they treat me like royalty and put me on a pedestal, which they really shouldn’t.
“Wow, you’ve got a great story there, you should write a book about it one day!” Karl is engrossed.
“Anyway, enough of me, so what’s so special about this plant your looking for?” Valencia asks.
“Tell her, Emilio!” Karl slaps Emilio on the back to encourage him.
“Well, my research leads me to believe there is an area of the rainforest that could harbour plants with cancer fighting properties. So we’re out here trying to find them.”
Valencia looks at them curiously.
“Well, good luck with that. Our people have been here for thousands of years and we have discovered many plants with healing properties. All I’m going to say to you boys is that, if you haven’t realized it already, the jungle can be very dangerous, so be extremely careful. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you can easily get caught out.”
Karl looks at Emilio in a rage, as his worst fears are highlighted.
“We’ll bear that in mind.” Emilio smiles, and tries not to make eye contact with Karl.
Valencia returns his smile, and continues. “Now, we must continue with the cleansing ceremony. You will be presented with a drink called Ayahuasca. Our people say they received the recipe directly from the plant spirits. They believe it has healing powers and can ward off evil spirits!”
“Do you really believe in that stuff?” Emilio tries his best not to sound sarcastic.
“I think it’s good to keep ancient traditions going. Do I believe in it? I like to keep an open mind.”
Emilio is intrigued by this unusual girl, and Karl is besotted. An indigenous women wearing next to nothing but a beaming smile walks into the hut holding an old emerald perfume bottle and pumps a strange sweet smelling cologne onto the boys’ heads causing Karl to sneeze repeatedly. Karl doesn’t know where to look as he is riddled with embarrassment. She then beckons the boys out into the clearing. Valencia stands and guides them out of the hut and into the camp opening where two thrones intricately made of wood and vines have been erected, standing opposite at a distance from the raging fire. Over the fire hangs a rusty cast iron cauldron on a huge iron tripod. The boys are coaxed toward the throne seats, Karl looking nervously at Emilio, who gives him a nod of reassurance as he walks confidently over and assumes his seat. Karl stands looking at Emilio nervously before joining his companion. The indigenous people surround the fire to dance; women gyrate unconventionally to the low patter of a mystic sounding beat. The women convey a spectrum of different looks. Some wear nose whiskers made from the ribs of palm leaves to represent the big cats of the rainforest. Some have huge circular earrings, which are embedded into their ear lobes, which look uncomfortable as they swing to and fro. Red and black face paint is used liberally and most often appears as horizontal lines across the face. Clothing is scant; the people think nothing of bearing all. A drummer is perched to the far right hand side of the clearing in front of a set of large hand carved bongo drums, the size of barrels. He starts a complex rhythm and within moments a group of men and women appear out of the trees wearing facemasks depicting various birds of prey. They move slowly around the fire, their bodies swaying to the rhythm. An old woman walks over with a hamper of raw ingredients including Banisteriopsis, Caapi vine, Passion flower, Psychotria Viridis and Coca leaves. She kneels down and cuts them up into small pieces on a block of aged wood and grinds the cut pieces in a pestle and mortar, mumbling all the while. She then adds the prepared ingredients to the low hanging cauldron to boil. Another middle-aged woman with extremely long black hair which trails along the ground behind her walks up to the boys, carrying headpieces made of red feathers and amber stones. She places them on the boys’ heads. Karl looks at Emilio and starts laughing nervously.
“What the hell is going on, brother, you just couldn’t make this up”
“This is the craziest thing I have ever witnessed. But it’s cool, though.”
They notice Valencia laughing at their outlandish head attire, which wouldn’t be funny on anyone within the tribe. Valencia is staring at Emilio in particular; each time she makes eye contact with him she feels an energy, she finds him very handsome and from the brief time she has been around him she can tell he is a sponge, absorbing and showing a genuine interest in just about everything he comes into contact with. She can relate to Emilio and is secretly hoping the boys are going
to stick around for a few days before moving on.
A light blue vapor emanates from the bubbling cauldron.
“Emilio, is that blue smoke? I’ve never seen blue smoke before, what causes blue smoke?”
“I have no idea, Karl!” Says Emilio, who is racking his brain trying to work it out.
“Hey, Emilio, I think we should refuse to drink whatever’s boiling in that pot over there, you heard Valencia, she said it can send you crazy.”
“Well, I’m up for it, these people are cool and Val said it was safe.”
“No, she said don’t drink it, it causes psychosis.” Says Karl desperately.
“She didn’t say don’t drink it. If it were dangerous she wouldn’t be over there laughing at us. It’s probably like downing a tequila and then taking a drag on a joint.”
“How would you know what smoking a joint was like? You’ve never smoked marijuana in your life!”
“I had it once after football practice. It’s no big deal”
“Shut up, Emilio, you’re lying. I’m always watching you from the stands at practice. And you would have talked about it till the cows come home if you’d had it”
“You don’t know everything about me, Karl.”
The beat of the tribal drums gets louder and more intense, the villagers start chanting, and the boys snap out of their argument as they become aware that something significant is brewing. They look on in bewilderment as the woman with extremely long hair dips a ladle into the steaming pot to fill a medieval looking brass cup with Ayahuasca. A shaman appears, dressed in a dark green hooded gown, which covers his head sinisterly. He is short with intense eyes; he seems possessed as he moves slowly towards Emilio and Karl, one step at a time. The shaman reaches into his gown and pulls out a long wooden pipe, which he proceeds to light. He takes long drags from the pipe before blowing the smoke into the headpiece that the boys are wearing. Emilio is laughing at the ritual, Karl is shitting his pants. The longhaired lady walks up to the boys slowly, bearing the brass cup filled with the warm herbal concoction. The woman stands before them and places the brass cup to Emilio’s lips. Emilio breathes in the aroma.
“Hey, it’s no big deal! It smells sweet and earthy, buddy!” He takes a long swig. “Piece of cake, nothing to worry about, it actually tastes alright.” Informs Emilio, eager for his friend to follow suit. Karl looks into Emilio’s eyes and can see no apparent sign of any problem.
“Ok, Emilio, what could possibly happen?”
Karl then opens his mouth and drinks the remaining liquid from the cup.
“Hey, your right, it wasn’t so bad.”
“See, I told you not to panic.”
The boys relax and enjoy the dancers and the drums’ hypnotic rhythms. Karl goes to get up from his throne and is pushed back vigorously by the shaman.
“Hey, what’s your problem? Can you believe this guy Emilio?……..Emilio!”
There’s no response from Emilio who has passed out and is now slumped in his throne.
“Hey, Emilio, wake up! Can you here me?”
Whilst Karl is shaking Emilio frantically his vision starts to become blurred. At first he sees a double image of Emilio, which suddenly splits to four, then eight and then sixteen. The beats of the drums around him start to feel like they’re thumping his brain into another dimension. He looks around at the indigenous people, but as he does their faces start to distort as if they were made of soft clay. Thick course hairs start to sprout all over their entire bodies as they morph into monkeys dressed in top hats and tailcoats, with giant tusks and sharp fangs. They begin to assume a crouching position and then spring at speed all over the camp like live frogs being cooked on a hot plate. Karl doubles over to his knees and is sick, the sick then multiplies before his eyes and starts to form a gigantic seemingly endless river of vomit, which flows upwards into the sky. Bright yellow inflatable banana boats drop from the trees. The suited fanged monkeys jump onto the boats and paddle manically up the river of vomit to the heavens.
Meanwhile, Emilio’s soul is floating up past the earth’s atmosphere and into space. Once clear of the earth he sees a line of infinite white doors speeding towards and past him like a locomotive. They eventually slow and grind to standstill. He stands before the row of white doors and his body splits into three independent versions of itself. The three versions walk through three separate doors at the same time. The doors lead to white corridors, which at first glance seem endless. All three souls start running at the speed of light. Two of him run on forever and the other reaches yet another white door. Emilio opens the door into a blindingly white room, which has no ceiling and is exposed to the entire universe. At the end of the room is a white dining table. Sitting at the table are two of his deceased aunties, playing a game of crib. Aunty Ann and Aunty Jane are both wearing enchanting white dresses and sporting copious amounts of diamond jewellery. They both turn calmly and beckon Emilio to the table to join them. Emilio is overwhelmed with happiness.
“Wow! I’ve missed you two, how are you?”
“Never better.” Replies Aunty Ann
. “How is this possible, Aunty Ann?” Says Emilio, starting to well up with tears.
“Everything that ever was will be again, forever!”
“Time doesn’t exist, so don’t let it stop you, it’s never too late!” Adds Aunty Jane.
“And Emilio! Take the third gate.” Says Aunty Ann softly with a wink.
Emilio’s aunts turn their attention back to their game, as the white door behind him opens up, and a strong vacuum sucks his soul back down to earth to rejoin his body.