Hawaii Trip 1

For midwinter break, mom took me and Jason to Hawaii.  Julie, Laura, and Mary came with us too, making it the biggest band of travelers I’ve ever left the egg nest with.  We spent most of our time on the big island, at a resort in Kona.

Everyone was disappointed that my head was stuck in a book the whole time, even Julie.  Vacations are supposed to be fun and engaging, my mom nagged.  Sorry, I’m just not that interested in having fun lately.  I think I grew up too fast.  Fun is for the deserving and the blissful, not for me.   Every time I feel that sensation creeping on, I get embarrassed and repress the emotion, remembering how insanely jealous it makes people feel, and that I never deserved it in the first place.

My stepfather hated watching me have fun.  Many times, when I was having it, he’d interrupt it and throw a fit about some little problem.  So, there’s your explanation, mom.  Like Pavlov’s dog, I was conditioned to hate the most joyful feeling a child can have.  No wonder I wanted to kill myself last year.

The book I read was The Count of Monte Cristo, a thick unabridged version that Julie had given me a few years ago.  I wasn’t ready to read it at the time, but now it’s one of my favorite books.  The story of Edmond Dantes is truly inspiring.  Like him I was stuck in a prison, the dark night of the soul; like him I've come back from the dead to strike revenge on a life that wronged me.

We spent a lot of time at the beach.   Jason swam in the ocean for hours while I just relaxed on the sand, reading.  One day we took a little road trip around the island, to see the volcanos at 10,000 feet.  To our surprise, there was so much smoke up there that it was difficult to see anything.  What a let-down.  That was the only thing I’d been looking forward to seeing the whole trip.  On the other side of the island, we had dinner at this nifty Thai place.  The food was so spicy and exotic, I’ll remember it well.

The last thing we did before leaving Hawaii gave me a pleasant surprise.  We went to a place I had overlooked on my wish list.  When I was younger, I had this great aerial poster of Waikiki Beach hanging on my wall.  I’d imagine going there and living on the beach, high up in a condominium.   It would be rich, clean, and have exotic paintings hanging on the walls.   I’d have a view of the sea and the sunsets and everything between them.  I would run and surf, write my stories, and go to fancy restaurants with hot dates.  Every weekend I would climb to the top of Diamond Head, to get away from the world.

Visiting this place was like a dream come true.  The buildings that lined Waikiki’s shore were like a crescent moon appearing in the daytime.  Sailboats and surfers bobbed in the troughs of the ocean waves, receiving their embraces from the waves the way whales do when the tide is high.  Girls danced in drunken splendor on the floor of a Tiki grill, their laughter intoxicating me, their curves as bounteous as the flaming sun setting above the Pacific horizon.  After dinner we walked out on the beach, where all was serene, and the muck of Seattle’s winter was far away.  Puddle Of Mudd's Blurry played from the background of some souvenir shop, making me wish Sandra was there.

Star Dancer III: the Waterfall

    She was laying in a grove of wildflowers, smiling at him from below his arms, arms that pinned her to the ground like they'd never let go.  Most of the flowers were clusters of chrysanthemum that had bloomed in an array of different colors.  Others were more rare, such as the tall ginger flowers near the trees to their sides, and the isolated strelitzias, which looked like they wanted to take flight.  Her blonde hair curled around them with affection, showing him a sense of nurture that he'd never experienced among his Fathers.  It was the most breathtaking thing he’d ever seen.  If only he knew how to preserve the moment somehow, like the way sculptors in his village would base their designs on real, living things, entombing them in representations of what they appeared to look like. 
 
    Managua smiled for the first time since they’d made love in the cave under Great Bonsai.  Naya felt the warmth of his body sending waves of energy through her own.  The energy caressed her heart and moistened her body, like the sun evaporating dew off the plants around them.  To her he looked like something from out of the sky; an aerodynamic bird who had lost his wings.  The wavy rivulets of his hair swept back across his ears against the blue color above.  No matter how elated he felt, his smile looked empty to her, seemingly tainted by childhood problems or memories forgotten.  She wondered what such painful eyes kept hidden from the world, and felt a motherly need to heal whatever was hurting inside him.  No doubt, his banishment had taken a toll on his spirit, but even before that she'd seen the same sorrow. 
    She knew that her Mothers would never allow them to be together, so she kept their love a secret from everyone they knew, with the exception of her closest friends.  Jingo was the only one Managua had willingly told.  Naya on the other hand had a whole group of socialites who knew about everything they'd done, even the smallest details.  Girls have been known to spread a gossip or two, and a secret such as sex would have had about as little a chance of staying a secret as the sun disappearing from the sky.  This kind of trouble caused a horrible anxiety in Naya.  At the rate people were finding out about them, everyone in Inana would know about it by the next new moon.  What's worse: the penalty in her village for being with a man was far worse than being excommunicated from Marduk, the way Managua had. 
    To escape from the pressure this caused her, she would close her eyes and dream of ancient flute wings to take her to faraway lands.  They could only be found on Montezuma, one of the largest mountains in the Limestone Range.  An ancient myth told the story of a  boy who discovered a flute in a cave of gold underneath the mountain.  The boy had always wanted to climb the legendary mountain, but it was too high for him to do on his own.  That is, not until he found the flute.  When he played it, the music magically gave him wings, but in order for the wings to stay on he had to keep playing it.  And so he played and played, soaring high into the sky until he reached the summit of the mountain. 
    Managua had a flute of his own, and whenever he played it Naya dreamed of him as the boy in the story.  While he played it, she identified each note of the melody as rising and falling, the same way the ridges of the mountain would.  She imagined him carrying her on his back while he played and flew, higher and higher, then lower and lower; higher, lower, and higher again.  The notes of the music made them rise and fall in unison, like a sine wave.  Whenever the notes he played escalated, she saw them rising to meet the crest of a ridge; whenever the notes fell, they descended into a lush valley together. 
    One of Naya's hideouts was at the base of a waterfall.  They spent a lot of time there getting to know one another and allowing their love to grow.  They also played with two dinosaurs that Naya had befriended: a brontosaurus and a pterodactyl.  Petey the brontosaurus liked to bask in the water at the base of the falls, in order to keep cool from the jungle heat.  Wheaty the pterodactyl liked to rest on his head while he did this.  The two had been refugees from the Dinosaur Oasis, a once thriving community located deep in the Orion Desert.  When a terrible drought dried up all the water and the greens, all the dinosaurs fled west to search for better land.  Petey and Wheaty were the only ones who'd survived the long trek over the Limestone Mountains into Gambria; all their friends and family had tragically died along the way.  This was now their new home; a place they'd come to adapt to over the years.  As far as size was concerned, the old oasis was nothing compared to Gambria.  Here, the land would never become parched under the intense heat of the desert sun; rather, an endless season of rain and intermittent sun allowed for an abundant supply of leaves and water for them to consume. 
    Managua and Mango liked to climb up Petey's long neck and slide down on it into the water.  Petey would make the gradient more steep for them by putting his head under the water and holding his breath for the duration of their slide.  After flying off the top of Petey's head, Mango's little splash would alert Wheaty of what he'd done.  On hearing this familiar sound, the swift creature would dive down to the water, lift him up into the air with his talons, and drop him back into the water again.  This annoyed the monkey greatly, but it gave Naya so much pleasure that Wheaty had no problem pestering the monkey in order to please his human friend.  
    Naya was always too scared to go sliding with them.  She found the most pleasure in watching them have fun, with a guilty silence that only young girls know.  One time Managua decided to jump from atop a high rock overlooking the pool beneath the falls.  With Naya watching, he extended his arms forward in the air and rotated his hips, making him look like a flying ballerina through the parabola of the jump.  He fell a good hundred feet all the way to the bottom, causing Naya to scream in fear that he'd hurt himself.  She ran down to the pool and waded forcefully into the water, hoping he wasn't hurt.  When he reared his head out of the water, laughing hysterically, she shoved him back under for causing her to worry so much.  Later that night she wept in his arms, wishing he wouldn't do such dangerous things, especially right in front of her.  To soothe her distress, he promised her that he'd never jump from that great rock again.  Nor would he willingly do anything as dangerous, though deep in his heart he knew it was a lie. 
    Every night they made love in their grove of flowers, under a twilit sky that always became more nebulous after sunset.  Intricate formations of cosmic dust spun in a kaleidoscopic milieu of colors that the gaseous clusters emanated.  Naya liked to imagine that the constellations were dancing with one another, putting on a show for their tiny audience down below.  Or that somewhere else in that great black beyond, others were holding hands and looking up at their own sky, wondering if beings on other planets were doing the same thing they were.  When she told Managua this, he said there was something about the vastness of space that made beings lose themselves inside someone else; something that made two bodies entwine unconsciously, as if the knowledge of a larger sphere out there would cause them to drift apart forever.  Maybe, he told her, such a fear of separation would cause the people watching them in the sky to make love to one another, as he and she would. 
    One day, while the lovers were dancing in a heavy rain, the sun broke through the western sky and recognized the world with light and rainbows.  Prisms of quartz seemed to smash to smithereens as the sunlight refracted through the massive raindrops around them.  Naya stopped, opened her eyes, looked up, and let the lost shards of light illuminate her face.  Managua looked at her and thought she was glowing like a yellow balloon drifting up into a storm.  If heaven is a place on Earth, this is it, he said.  Together they danced in the sunset for the remaining hours of daylight, singing in enchantment and not tiring for a minute.  Together they ran through the jungle to a place that had not seen the likes of human sex in ages.  They made love not in the jungle, but above it that night.  The city of animals in Great Bonsai jeered at them for intruding as they climbed the tree with their wet, naked bodies.  On reaching the top, they were able to lay under another endless, twilit sky; this time even more alluring because they were that much closer to God's kingdom.  Here the stars were painted on a black canvas that was even darker than the ones they'd seen from the ground.  Naya said, Because of you, the stars are like holes in the prison of space.  And with your Love, I can fly through them.  And Managua believed her.  He believed everything she told him now.  He believed her when she said that it wouldn't be the last time they'd ever make love, and he believed her when she said they'd always be together.  
    However, as time after time young people have found that the future they dream about becomes only a false hope; that they should never have set their expectations high enough to believe those dreams would become realities, the same would happen to them.  Most doomed lovers flaunt themselves unconsciously about austere forces that conspire to spoil their passions, just as Managua and Naya did.  Unaware of the danger lurking on the horizon, it was only a matter of time before their ignorance about the fall of a jaded civilization long past its days of glory would rear its ugly head, meddling with their lives in the same way that any other society starved for utopian perfection would. 

Star Dancer II: The Eyes in the Mirror

    When he returned to the village, nothing was the same.  All the things he’d been taught vanished from his mind.  Life was like a dream from which he’d just awoken.  He knew that what he’d done was a crime, that crossing the Forbidden River would get him in trouble if anyone found out.  But it had all been worth it.  To know the incredible feelings that the girl had aroused in him made any fear of punishment obsolete.  He also knew things he shouldn’t have, which both excited him and made him nervous.  He wanted desperately to tell the other boys what he’d learned about the other half of their species.  Unfortunately this would also spell disaster in the event that one of them snitched and told his Fathers.  And why had they kept something so fundamental to life hidden from them anyway?  Women were evidently not the hideous creatures he’d been taught.  The achievement of his discovery soon yielded to a sense of disillusionment with his tribe.  All his friends had been deprived of the pleasures he'd felt, and because of this there began to sizzle the first sparks of anger deep in his soul, an anger at what the establishment had withheld from his generation. 
    As he approached the village, he heard a familiar noise.  It was the sound of his friend Jingo's airboard coasting along wooden ramps they'd built between the tops of the trees, like a monorail.  The sound was a rumble at first, then came the high pitched echo of a horn.  Jingo sped into sight on a board that held a sail post, which he used to steer it with.  He suddenly jumped off, flipped into the air, and landed on the ground as his airboard came to a crash inside the canopy of the nearest tree. 
    "Bravo, brave chum," said Managua.  "Any higher and that fall would have paralyzed you for weeks."  Mango mocked his concern by standing with his arms folded across his chest. 
    Jingo laughed, bringing his arm up to shove his best friend, but Managua blocked it casually.  The two of them shared a mutual carelessless whenever they met one another, as young men often do.  Neither of them ever wanted to give the impression that it was good to see the other, because that was a sign of weakness.  Surely, the gaiety that accompanied such a greeting would expose a sense of need for the other person, which, if they had to be honest with themselves, was exactly how they felt.  They both needed each other, but you wouldn't catch either of them dead admitting it.  Thus every greeting was met with a jab to the chest, or a lunge into the side of their bodies- completely harmless acts that still sent the message across. 
    "Where you been all day?", asked Jingo. 
    "You wouldn't believe me if I told you." 
    They began walking toward the fort they spent much of their time at.  Jingo wore a necklace of fish bones and jewels that jingled whenever he walked; that's how he'd gotten his name.  Managua's name came from the fact that he never seemed to sweat, despite fully exerting himself.  Everyone thought he was made of some mysterious liquid that retained heat and had a renewable hydrological property.  Manwater, his name translated into- a hybrid word half borrowed from the desert language of Orion.  Incidentally, Mango's origin came from the fact that he uncannily preferred to eat mangos rather than bananas. 
    "Come on, tell me.  Tell me tell me tell meeee", persisted Jingo. 
    "Stop that, you fiend.  I swear, you're worse than the monkey sometimes." 
    The fort was built halfway up a kapok tree that skirted the bank of a small stream.  Here the boys kept many of the strange things they'd found while exploring in the jungle.  Some items were little metal objects they didn't have a clue how to operate.  Others looked to be the artifacts of tribes that were far more ancient than their own, things such as coins, carved idols, and tools.  Bits and pieces of the natural world decorated their hide-out; emeralds and other colorful rocks lined one shelf, while bones and plant seeds were kept on another.  The collection was like a miniature catalog of the history of the jungle, things that had been uprooted after centuries, mixed in with the marvelous natural residue of the planet's own past. 
    "I'll tell you what I found if you tell me what you found," said Jingo as he climbed up the tree. 
    Managua didn't have to hesitate.  He knew Jingo would find out the truth eventually, especially if he kept seeing Naya.  They were like two halves of the same brain; whatever was kept hidden between them eventually sneaked its way to the surface. 
    "Fire away, brother." 
    "Ok, have a look at this thing I dug up." 
    In the middle of the floor there stood the largest artifact Managua had ever seen.  A long white cylinder that was covered with dirt projected out of a lock system attached to a tripod.  Jingo demonstrated that the cylinder could be swiveled about its axis in any direction.  The two boys looked at each other, sharing an agreed expression that he'd probably found something monumental.  Managua went up to inspect the object with the diligence of a detective.  Two holes at the bottom end appeared to be where one ought to be looking into, but when Managua did so all he could see was darkness. 
    "It's not a weapon", he opined. 
    "The hole at the other end is covered with glass...  I wonder what crazy Ojaca would think of it if we showed him." 
    Managua gave him a look of disbelief.  "Jingo, how many times have I told you?  We can't tell anyone about this place.  If word got out, the Fathers would confiscate everything we've discovered." 
    "I know, but that old bugger wouldn't tell anyone.  The man's as silent as a salamander." 
    "I don't trust him."  Managua looked back at the object.  It suddenly dawned on him what it might be used for. 
    "Tonight you're going to help me carry this up top." 

 
    Old Maracaibo watched them from behind a bush.  What are those boys up to now?, he thought as they climbed out of the fort.  As they walked away, he heard Jingo ask, So what's the big secret?  But soon they were too far away for him to hear Managua's reply. 
    "Curse these ancient ears", he muttered to himself.  He'd have really liked to have known what that secret was.  For months he'd been watching them without being noticed.  Whenever they went away, he'd sneak into their fort and snoop around, making a note of any new things they'd found.  Some of the findings were certainly more interesting than others, but not interesting enough to warrant a report.  Chief Colom would be most pleased to know if they'd found something truly dangerous. 
    He got up and crept over to the tree.  Despite his age, he was able to climb it with ease.  He had to be careful though, because he hadn't seen the monkey go with the boys, and feared it would still be in the fort.  Before heading in, he looked inside the window.  Sure enough, he saw Mango sprawled out on a plush pillow, fast asleep.  There in the center, something sizable was covered in cloth. 
    Slowly he opened the door and stepped inside.  The smell of adolescent funk filled his nostrils.  Gnats buzzed about his intrigued expression, while a hornbill squealed off in the distance like a muffled trumpet.  He tiptoed up to the concealed object.  Just as he started reaching for it, the monkey turned in his sleep, muttering something that only another monkey would understand.  Easy there, little fella, stay asleep, he pleaded silently.  When it was clear that the monkey was out, he reached again for the bottom of the cloth.  Just as he was lifting it up, he heard the sound of footsteps approaching.  Those faggots are back already!  Cursing his luck, he immediately went to hide behind the nesting sofa that the monkey and his pillow were propped upon. 
    The door opened.  "I just can't believe you did this, dude.  And you think I'm stupid?", Jingo said as he stormed in the room.  "You could get in serious trouble.  They'll kick you out of Marduk if they find out, like Santana the Fool." 
    "Except Santana didn't do what I did.  He saw one for sure, but he never chased her down, and he sure as Hell didn't... You know..." 
    A moment of silence stirred the room.  Old Maracaibo listened eagerly. 
    "They'll crucify you, moron." 
    "Nobody has to know." 
    "Like Hell.  How am I supposed to keep something like this a secret?  If they find out I'm involved, they'll cast me out too." 
    "Jingo, fishbones, my one and only friend," began Managua.  "Listen to me, she is the most beautiful creature I've ever seen; more beautiful than a budgie, a gazania, and a sunset combined.  What she gave me is the most amazing thing I've ever felt.  The world is so different now, something meaningful has finally happened to me.  I feel like I'm a part of the bigger picture, like I've taken my place in the circle of life and fully become a man.  She's completely harmless, you know.  She didn't rip my heart out and steal it away to the underworld.  What I'm saying is they lied to us, Jingo.  We were raised to believe they were demons who would chew off our heads if we ever laid eyes on them.  But the truth is perfectly logical.  Do you want to know how I came to figure it all out?  Look at Mango.  Female chimpanzees don't haunt him, and he hangs around them more than he hangs with us.  So why would our females want to destroy us?" 
    Jingo was speechless.  Maracaibo shook his head in pity, desperately trying to hold his breath for fear of them hearing. 
    The young man whose social preconceptions had just collapsed trembled where he stood.  After a moment he gathered his composure, rising up to say, "I don't know, but the Fathers must have a good reason, whatever it is."  Then he cracked a smile, which broke the ice between them.  "All I know is, after the way you described her, I gotta get me one of these girls." 
    Managua sprang up in surprise.  "I'll find you one, buddy.  Just you and me are going to know about this though, not anyone else.  It'll be our secret, to the death." 
    "To the death." 
    The boys left the fort again.  Maracaibo dropped his lungs, retaining the awareness that he still had the monkey to deal with.  He held his head in frustration.  The boys had really done the unthinkable; their curiosity had finally gotten the best of them.  He remembered being curious when he was young, as if he'd had some divine right to go exploring places that he knew darn well he shouldn't have.  Things were different back then though.  The war between the sexes had only been in the recent past, and everyone remembered how human the women really were.  It wasn't until the next generation that Chief Colom had called for a purification of the youth.  The next generation wouldn't know who their Mothers were, they wouldn't even know that they'd come from women.  These days it was a lot harder to convince the boys of their immaculate conception in the land beyond, where babies supposedly grew on trees.  Especially after the Santana incident.  Now that Managua and Jingo knew the truth as well, Colom's radical teachings were bound to come crashing down. 
    Slowly he rose, making sure the monkey wouldn't hear him.   But when he looked at the pillow, nothing was there; the furball appeared to have left with the boys.  No doubt they'd awakened it when they'd come back to talk.  Perfect.  Now he could take a peak at the hidden excavation without worrying about being caught. 
    When he finally saw what they were hiding, his jaw dropped.  By the fires of Satan, this changes everything.  Yes, God help us all! 


    Father Baranquila looked like a burly slab of meat sauntering around the village, with an abnormally sweaty surface that looked rather saucy to flesh-eating birds.  Other men trembled wherever he walked near them, as if being in his presence were like being in an earthquake.  His stature was a bit less terrifying whenever he reclined out on the porch to soak up the sun with a joint in hand, which was just what he was doing when Managua came home. 
    "Hey pops," said the boy. 
    "Where you been?",  he asked.  "Heard you skipped out on the hunting party again."  The hunting party.  A band of rowdy numbskulls. 
    "It's not like they missed me." 
   "Son, you're one of the best shooters Marduk has ever seen."  His kiwi shades gave others the impression that he believed nothing in life should be taken seriously, unless it was something that took away the sunshine.  "One of the da best, yessuh!"  A ring of smoke mercifully escaped from his mouth. 
    "That's not what I mean, pops.  Jingo and I... We just don't gel with those guys." 
    "Jelly sounds good right about now."  He swatted at a mosquito that wasn't there. 
    "Yeah, ok...  I'll make you some, pops," said Managua, unaware the his Father was only making a pun. 
    As he made his way inside, Baranquila grabbed his arm.  "Better watch yourself, boy.   Chief summoned you to the powwow tonight.  Sounds as if ya may be in trouble again." 
    A powwow, shit.  So much for playing with his new toy.  Calling a powwow just for skipping the hunt was a ludicrous idea, yet it had happened before.  If he'd missed the hunt, big deal.  Sure he could shoot, he could run, he could track down a kill as well as any of the other boys- even the fully grown men.  But he'd never felt like they needed him, since they always had enough bodies at hand to catch wild boars.  Besides, he always seemed to get in the way, what with his awkward opinions about everything.  To make matters worse, the chief might have called the meeting for an entirely different reason: the real crime committed today.  Still yet, as unlikely as it seemed, it may not have been called because of him at all. 
    "There you go again, just assuming I'm in trouble.  Appreciate your concern for me, pops." 
    Baranquila settled back into his recliner, salivating for the jelly he knew was coming.  He was a good kid, even if he was stubborn and difficult to control at times.  Though if he had to be honest with himself, such a radical temperament could be explained by the fact that he hadn't even been delivered from the baby farm.  They'd discovered him out on the byway, abandoned by some cretinous people.  None of the other Fathers were kind enough to take him in.  Since he was one of the least qualified Fathers in the village, and couldn't even order a son off the farm, he volunteered to take him in if nobody else would.  Not that he ever told his son the truth; he vowed to keep Managua's true origins a secret.  There was a possibility he didn't have to- the boy was so different from everyone else, and intelligent enough, that he might have already figured it out on his own. 

 

    In the life of a monkey, there are many things that can make him curious, things that you and I would glance over without a care in the world.  Things like little nuts, insignificant bugs, the movement of a leaf in the breeze.  These are things he tries to find the meaning of, even if the ability to reason the way we can is beyond him.  Although he is at an evolutionary disadvantage, his natural curiosity has made him more intelligent among the other species of the jungle.  As the monkey sees, the monkey does.  And so it is that in seeing the oral patterns of man's speech, he is somewhat able to interpret the meaning of what a man is saying far better than other animals can.  In turn, he can mimic the way a man talks, as if he were speaking their language.  This is why some animals, no matter how inhuman they are, can magically seem to interpret what a man is trying to tell them, whether it be a dolphin, a pig, or their domestic idols, the cat and the dog. 
    Living among the men for 10 years of his existence, Mango fancied himself to have mastered the art of their speech, and in so doing, all men seemed to be vulnerable to his interpretive powers.  His advantage was that none of those bumbling bipeds had payed close enough attention to the nuances of monkey speech, so that none of them could ever understand anything he said when he screeched.  All except one: the boy he'd grown so fond of over the years; the one who'd given him as many mangos as he could eat in order to establish their friendship.  Managua was the one who had a similar ability, in that he could decipher the speech patterns of other animals and determine what they were trying to communicate.  Most men wouldn't have a care in the world for the speech of their furry friends, but Managua was as receptive to their barkings and bayings and screechings as anyone. 
    It was this mutual ability that allowed Mango to sneak in on a rendezvouz between Old Maracaibo and chief Colom with the intention of relaying what he would hear to his human friend.  The monkey nested himself inside a nook of the chief's house, just as Maracaibo had done back at the fort without him being aware.  He made sure to keep quiet, lest the hearing (albeit poor) of the old men should happen to detect him sneaking in on them.  The movement of their lips, their body gestures, and their facial reactions all translated the things they were saying. 
    What they revealed about Managua's fate may have upset the monkey, but it could never take away the fact that their understanding of one another was unique among the animal kingdom.  Very rarely can two members of different species communicate as effectively as they did.  Their chemistry made them the best of friends, and for this Mango drew a great amount of esteem.  He crept out of the house knowing that his master would be proud to hear what he'd gathered from their private meeting, despite the fact that it was bad news. 

 

    The bonfire blazed to the beating of drums.  Men were gathered around it, playing in rhythm to the crackling flames.  As chief Colom made his way to the throne, the noise of the fire became drowned out by tribal beats and cheerings.  Totem polls etched with plants and animals rose to the evening sky in a square around the bonfire.  Their bases were connected by the drum players, who sat in lines that formed a perimeter around the gathering within. 
    In the gathering were members of the hunting party and the elders of the tribe.  The elders wore headresses with silver feathers, while the hunters had on rawhide vests trapped underneath their bow slings.  Everyone had black tattoos of figures that were similar to the ones on the totem polls, draped across the napes of their necks.  Jingo was sitting with the latter group, as Managua would have had he not been summoned.  Jingo had no idea what his friend might be in trouble for, since he hadn't told anyone about the events that day.  But perhaps word had gotten out about something, or two things, or three. 
    When the summoning began, the Fathers all bowed to Managua with respect, for he was the finest of the young hunters in their village.  He returned their courtesy by bowing to them once he reached the chief's throne. 
    The drumming stopped with a deadly abruptness. 
   "Managua, son of Baranquila, you are summoned here today to face the man in the mirror, to tell whole truth regarding the questions addressed, or else the house of Marduk will be swept out from under your feet.  Should you fail to reveal these truths, the mirror shall prove your falsehood for all the elders to see.  Step forward, my son." 
    Before him, a grand mirror glistened from the embers of the fire, its frame a golden color that drew from ornate baroque patterns.  He saw his reflection in the ten foot glass within, a face as stone cold as the flint of his spear.  He knew that the mirror would reflect red eyes in the event that he lied to his own face.  Its magic was a source of controversy among the Fathers.  Nobody knew where it had come from, or how it worked as a lie detector.  Most agreed that it was an ancient relic left behind by the Old Ones, much like the artifact Jingo had found earlier that day. 
    The angry sound of the fire was replaced by Colom's powerful voice.  "First:  why were you absent from the hunting party today?" 
    "I had an important matter to attend, oh high one." 
    It was a violation to look away from the mirror while one spoke to it.  Managua was careful not to, lest the elders see it as proof that he was lying.  As he'd found in the past, it was important to cover up the real truth with half-truths that the mirror couldn't detect.  Even if you knew you were only telling part of the truth, the mirror wouldn't know the difference because the audible interference still matched the look in one's eyes.  Thus the boy knew he would need to be clever if he wanted to avoid trouble.   
    Thanks to Mango, he knew that the snitch Maracaibo had been stalking them.  It was curious then that Jingo hadn't been summoned to the mirror with him, nor had he told his friend what the spy had done.  Jingo had mysteriously avoided the entire situation, unless the chief was counting on him to be betrayed by forcing Managua to admit to the mirror that he'd been an accomplice.  That would have been a horrendous outcome. 
    "What important matter was this?", asked the chief. 
    "I saw something in the forest.  I didn't know what it was."  He'd planned out what he was going to say before he even got to the powwow. 
    "Did it have two legs and fairer skin than yours?" 
    "No sir, it wasn't even a life form." 
    Chief Colom twitched in annoyance.  The mirror hadn't given him the devil eyes.  What the devil for?  Maracaibo had always been good with his word.  Glancing to his right, he gave the old spy a look that pleaded for help.  
    "High one," put in Maracaibo, "Might we ask him exactly what he saw in the forest?" 
    The chief looked amused.  "Yessss, 'Caibo.  No use dancing around the truth.  On with it boy, what was it you saw?" 
    "Well, I'm not entirely sure.  It had a white metal cylinder that was really long.  And it pointed up to the sky.  You can look into it with your eye, but all I saw when I did that was blackness." 
    Maracaibo cringed, Jingo looked dumbstruck.  A murmur rose from the crowd; a bat fluttered over the fire.  Still the mirror showed no signs of him lying.  The chief looked at Maracaibo like he wanted to strangle him. 
     "A metal cylinder?  And what did you do with it?" 
    "I brought it back here.  It's in the back of my house.  I was going to tell examiner Ojaca, but not until tomorrow.  First I wanted to see if it would work better at night."  Jingo let out a deep sigh of relief.  If he'd revealed the truth about the fort, they'd both be toast. 
    "Oh, high one," interrupted Maracaibo, "Ask him if he did see something with two legs and fairer skin than himself." 
    The chief relayed the question. 
    "Yes, I did."  Then after a brief pause: "Big Baranquila", to which everyone at the powwow roared with laughter, with the exception of Baranquila and the examiners. 
    Chief Colom pounded his stick into the ground.  "Managua, son of Baranquila!," he yelled, "Did you or did you not cross the Forbidden River and see a WOMAN today?" 
    A long silence.  The fire leaped into the air with anticipation.  Now the chief meant business.  One of the elders might have coughed if not for Managua's deep inward search. 
    "I have already told you what I saw today, High Chief." 
    "Is that ALL you saw today?" 
    "No sir, I saw trees and rain and birds as well." 
    "And did you cross the Forbidden River?" 
    "Maybe sir, I might have gotten lost."  He'd cast his eyes into the ground. 
    "Look INTO the mirror while you speak, young man." 
    "Aye sir, I crossed it." 
    "And what did you see on the other side?" 
    "More of the same, sir."  Managua looked into the mirror and saw his eyes begin to glow.  What may have been a half-truth wasn't good enough for the mystical judge within the glass. 
    "A lie.  You saw something else then; what was it?" 
    "A cave, sir.  There was a cave and pink water." 
    To everyone's astonishment, the redness in his eyes went away.  Pink water?  Nobody in Marduk had ever imagined such a thing. 
    "Managua, my son, you are really trying my patience."  Colom's tone had reached a tired drone.  Everything he'd asked had failed, as he'd struggled to find the perfect wording that would assure his guilt.  It was in this moment of despair that he finally asked, "After you crossed the Forbidden River, and before you came back, did you see a woman in that time frame?" 
    His response was immediate: "I've already told you what I've seen.” 
    “Well it wasn’t the damn cylinder, that’s for sure.  Was there something else you saw, that you haven’t mentioned yet?” 
    “Yes, sir.” 
    “What was it?” 
    “A city of animals in a tree.” 
    "What else?" 
    "The sky." 
    "Dammit boy!" 
    Maracaibo whispered something in his ear.  “Ahh, now let’s see how you'll wiggle yourself out of this question.  What was the most beautiful thing you saw on the other side of the Forbidden River?” 
    He thought for a moment, but not a moment too long.  “Heaven.” 
    A lie.  His eyes glowed bright red. 
    “It was heaven, I tell you," he said, disbelief dawning on him.  "It had the finest hair and the most soothing skin.  When it spoke it made me feel as if I were falling under the spell of a dreamy lullaby.  She was kind and considerate, possessing an inherent softness that soothed me to the touch.  I considered not coming back to this dump, where everyone looks the same and nobody cares about your feelings.  She cared, more than any of you.  Except for pops." 
    Baranquila looked down, as if to avoid having any part of this.  The rest of the men, if they had to be honest with themselves, wished the boy would continue with his wonderful description, despite being repelled by the implication of his guilt.  In all their eyes, Managua could detect a sense of longing that was more than mere curiosity.  It was almost as if they innately knew there had to be better halves of them, somewhere in the world.  That it might have been the women they'd learned to fear was painfully obvious. 
    “You refer to it as a she", cackled Colom, who just a moment later betrayed a look of fear at what the young man had painted in the minds of the others.  "Your eyes returned to their natural color at the closing of that delightful monologue.  So it's true, then.  The man in the mirror has spoken, and he has spoken well.  What you saw young man, was a woman!” cried the chief in indignation. 
    Managua rolled his eyes and fidgeted his feet, looking lost for the first time.  He searched for words that might amend the situation, anything that would soften his confession.  “It was not your idea of what a woman is," he resolved. 
    His eyes stayed natural.  A murmur spread through the crowd.   He prayed to God that someone would defend him, because he'd obviously been telling the truth about how ideally pleasant these supposed demons were. 
     "Ideas mean nothing in the eyes of the mirror," said the chief.  "There is no context in which you can absolve your guilt.  You admittedly crossed the river, which itself is a crime.  You claim you might have gotten lost, which doesn't excuse you since the river is so far away, and even a lost man would have little chance of wandering so far.  Come to think of it, boy, you've never even been lost before, even when you were a little one.  Baranquila, do I speak true?" 
    "Yes, oh high one," said the Father.  "My boy's as sharp as a horned lizard, and I don't think they get lost much either." 
    Managua braced for the sentence he knew was coming.  The chief, looking smug on his snake-skin throne, had been victorious in dissecting his plot.  You admittedly crossed the river, which itself is a crime.  He hadn't admitted it, which bothered him immensely.  He wished the chief were required to look in the mirror when he made accusations like that, for surely it would tell the Fathers he was the one lying.  One thing he'd forgotten was that everyone knew he had exceptional navigation skills.  That went without saying; it was another reason he was so valuable on the hunt.  In fact, he realized, it may have been his most valuable asset, and for that he may have overlooked why they needed him so much. 
    "Managua, Son of Marduk, you deliberately abandoned your hunting duties, crossed the Forbidden River, and laid eyes on the sole thing you were taught never to behold.  In addition, you've harbored an artifact which we suspect to be a threat to the stability of the village.  It is with great regret-" 
     A sudden explosion came from one of the houses behind the village.  It had been in the same place where Managua had put the artifact he'd hoped to deceive them with.  Everyone rushed to the spot, but few of them needed any direct evidence of what it was that had exploded.  They all looked for the artifact behind Baranquila's bungalow, which surprisingly to them, was nowhere to be found. 
    They concluded that perhaps it had never existed in the first place, and the boy had made up the whole story, exploding something else in its place.  Then came the question of how he'd exploded something while he was being sentenced at the powwow, and that therefore the cylinder really did exist.  Perhaps someone else had discovered it, and didn't like what they saw.  Colom himself had said it was a threat to the village... 
    After all the commotion and confusion, Baranquila was the first to look for Managua, who'd escaped from the scene when no one was looking.  He was nowhere to be found.  He'd vanished just like the strange cylinder he'd described. 

 
Dear Father, 

 
    It pains me to leave you like this.  You of all were the only one who believed in me.  You gave me a chance when none of the others would.  I'd always suspected I never came from the same stock as them.  Now that I've seen a glimpse of the world outside, it's occurred to me that it is far larger than anyone in Marduk can even imagine.  The baby farm is a sham, isn't it?  The children come from the women, whom I presume the Fathers do backdoor exchanges with.  The Fathers that know the truth, anyway. 
    If you were one of them, I realize that my sins are unpardonable, and I can never come back.  I hold no grudge against you for keeping me from the truth; if that was the case, you were only doing it to protect me.  If you weren't, it may shock you to know that babies aren't grown on trees the way fruits are.  But any sensible man will recognize that there are more similarities between men and mammals than between men and fruit.  Santana was one of them.  He paid the ultimate price for his intelligence: eternal damnation.  Well, if that's what it takes to be smart, then so be it.  I wouldn't change anything about myself, even if it meant staying in the village.  I'd rather be intelligent than live the lie of an indoctrinated vegetable. 
    I would also like to apologize for leaving your home in a heap of rubble, which you've surely deduced was my doing.  Actually it was the monkey's doing- however it was my idea.  The artifact is safe.  Mango's trained ear was listening in on the powwow the whole time.  Once he knew they'd banish me, he dragged it off into the forest and replaced it with a fake I made from scraps of other things we've found.  I've looked into the cylinder at night, and figured out how to work it.  You won't believe how much is out there, Father, you just wouldn't.  Life doesn't seem as significant anymore, and yet it feels greater than ever.  A strange paradox that will no doubt leave you befuddled. 
    My heart is torn about never seeing you or Jingo again.  You are welcome to come find me, should you feel disenchanted with the way things are.  I'll be with Naya, my angel in the flesh, on the other side of the river.  She hasn't told her Mothers about her own sin, because the punishment for that is far greater in her village: death by fire.  I'm trying to convince her to run away, so we can start our own life together.  I won't tell you where I'm staying, but I will say it's a most magical place, and I am happy to start a new life here.  Should you ever decide to find me, look for a waterfall, and really large animals. 
    I trust you will keep this letter as private as you see fit.  While I don't expect you to come looking for me, I'd be obliged if you kept the honor I highly esteem in you by keeping these confessions private.  That's the least you could do for the child you've lost. 

 

Your Eternal Son, 
Managua