Friday 20 July 2012

Otherside (Part two)

I'm in a marquee of some sort. A masked character wearing a full-length hooded black cloak enters. He's on stilts that must be adding at least three feet of height under that cloak. The wooden mask is a long face with rigid lines and features. The carved expression is flat and emotionless. It's a creepy looking thing. Neither of us say a word, but he sits down across the room from me and crosses his left leg squarely over his right knee. The action pulls the cloak up slightly and reveals what I expected to be a stilt. It's not a stilt. It's a leg, and it's little, if anything more than skin wrapped around bone. The mask is removed, only to reveal severely deformed face that I could only imagine to be the result of generations of inbreeding. The face is just a long as the mask. The forehead and chin each stretch to double normal length and the nose is also disproportionately large. It's not the kind of thing I want to study nor stare at. This is certainly too unsettling to hang around. Trying to appear casual, I make a swift exit, passing him without passing comment.

I need to get to the Misahualli, across the bridge. It's not far and I'll stand a chance of finding a hotel there. It must be past eleven o'clock in this unlit jungle village. There's no one around, but as I walk the dirt streets, I look up to the side where another stick-thin, nine foot cloaked figure is hanging by a noose from a tree. This isn't right. I don't like this. I want out of this jungle.

I follow the road that leaves the village. Something is off. It's not quite as I remember it. I reach the black tarmac road, but I don't recognise it. It's too wide. It's looks clean - as if it's been freshly laid. This isn't where I came in. If this was a parallel road, then going right is the way out of the jungle. I don't know where left goes. Looking right is a view that quickly, even unnaturally, descends into pitch black - the kind of black that I've only ever seen before in that mine in Potosi. To the left, there are street lights. I don't care. I want out of this jungle - overlooking that it's at least half-an-hour back to Tena, by bus. I don't make it more than ten feet into the darkness before visibility drops sharply to absolute zero. I don't like the other direction. This isn't it. There must be another way out of the village.

I see a couple standing by a house and approach them to ask for directions. She's looking away from me. I can only see her long blond hair. As I'm just beside her, they're talking, and I interrupt, "Perdon". Both turn to me. She doesn't have a face. She doesn't even have a head. Instead, there's a free floating banana, angled as a "smile", where one might be, and second banana in the same smile-shape just above, where eyes should be. I don't wait for a response. I step back, and once again, swiftly walk away.

I have no sense whatsoever that this is the effect of the Ayahuasca, nor any drug or alcohol. Everything I'm seeing, not least the banana-faced girl, is reality.

Some thirty feet away from me, standing in the road, there's a robot of some kind. It's no more than my height. It's a humanoid character, but also with insect-like features - like a praying mantis. Rather than a recognisably functional or even realistic looking robot, it's more like something out the the recent Transformers movies, but without any internal parts. Simply, black and yellow free-floating plasticky-looking armour forms the shape of the creature. I stand there staring for thirty seconds. It's alone and stands perfectly motionless. I look away and look back to find it's adjusted its pose slightly, but remains perfectly still. It doesn't appear to have moved towards me. I'm not scared. At least, no more than I would otherwise be of a person, in the dark, in the jungle. I start walking away, but frequently looking over my shoulder. It's not following me, but it's position and pose keep changing. How do I get out of here.

This is a tiny village, no more than a hundred-and-fifty-strong, and I've walked around it during the day. Now, in the dark, I have no idea where I am. I see another road that seems to leave the village, but I definitely don't recognise this one - it can't be the way I came in.

Wandering the dirt streets, I stop and look at the streets and small houses around me. I recognise this. This is Puerto Williams. Wolf - my Captain on the Santa Maria Australis - is back in Austria now, but if I can get into his place, I'll be safe for the night. By recognising the shape of the roads, I soon find where his house is. As I look squarely up at it, I know this isn't his house. There's a oval plaque amongst some weeds immediately in front of me. It reads "Kloss" - Wolf's family name. But this isn't his house.

I can see figures in an untidy bush by the roadside, the figures aren't people, they're the bushes themselves - like the robots, they're humanoid figures, but made only from thin branches and leaves. I can hear the two bush creatures talking to one another. I walk upto them and once again, interrupt, "Perdon", hoping to get directions out of this village. They instantly turn silent. The insect-like head of one creature twists, slowly and with a steady mechanical motion, to look at me, then crooks it's head fifteen degrees to the left in a separate motion. The creature doesn't have eyes - of course not, because it's a bush - but it's staring squarely at me. I stand there for a long two seconds, entirely expecting the creature to reply. There's no reply. I'm completely confused by the sudden silence. I slowly step around the bush, and as I do, the figure dissipates to a random assortment of leaves. I try returning to the first angle, but I can't restore the shape of either creature.

I'm at least able to find my way back to the main road of the village. I'm getting badly frustrated that I can't find my way out of this tiny village. I come to accept that I'm not getting out of the jungle tonight. I just need to get to the other town to stay overnight. I move towards the end of the road that goes out of town, albeit to the tarmac road that I'd previously ruled out. In the distance, forty of fifty feet ahead of me, there's something in the road. I get a little closer until I make out the shape of a big cat - a puma-sized cat. I'm quite lucid about not attracting any attention as it slowly crosses the road from left to right. I back away, and start walking the opposite direction.

Farther away, I spot a masked girl on a bushy roadside. She's wearing a bright yellow hooded cloak. It's only the sense of proportion that suggests it's a girl. This mask is round and has a colourful toucan's bill. I approach and address the girl. Just like the bush-creature, she slowly turns and crooks her head. I'm waiting for a reply. I'm left waiting in perfect silence. My reaction is only "Oh, bloody hell... I don't believe she's got me with the same trick as the bush." As I look closer into the mask, I can't see eyes. There's no-one in this costume.

As I walk around, I continue to see creatures in the trees and bushes, but I'm not at all terrified. They're not chasing after me. I don't sense any aggression from any of the creatures. That said, I've got no inclination to go anywhere near those robots.

At the final road at the top of the village, I find two of these robots ahead of me in the road. As I approach, they instantaneously turn still and mute. I turn around to see a policeman on the road side, just twenty feet behind me. He's wearing a typical American police uniform and hat. He looks normal - not a creature and not some inbred freak. I'm relieved to see him. I approach him, and he turns his body towards me and looks up. His motions are mechanical. I stop, still fifteen feet from him. He sets his feet slightly apart, then raises both arms to horizontal, fully outstretched. His hands stay parallel to the ground - I don;t think he's trying to prevent me from passing. He's looking at me, but remains without expression. His head crooks to the right, then gently falls down forward like a de-powered robot. Finally, his left arm suddenly turns completely limp from the elbow, leaving the forearm to drop under it's own weight. The rest of his pose remains set. Just the dropped forearm is hanging and swaying freely, back and forth. I'm now trapped between the frozen robot creatures behind me, and the policeman ahead of me. My only active concern is that they might try to mug me. Rather than go an inch closer to either of them, I escape by climbing over a fence.

Once again, on the main road, I look down at the only possible exit. There are two people, a guy and a girl, walking down the road out of town. They look like tourists. Thank christ. I'm going to get out of here. Forgetting about the big cat that was on this twenty minutes ago, I begin a quick walk to catch up with them. They're almost a hundred feet ahead of me, and as they're leaving the village, they're descending the far side of a small hill that rises again on the other side. I lose sight of them, but I can see where they will come back up into sight. I'm walking at pace and watching for the two heads to come back into view on the other side. But, they don't. They're gone. Into thin air. Shit. Shit! What the hell is going on?

I eventually, I find myself across the bridge in the main square in Misahualli. There's one of those robots sitting on a bench in the corner. I stare at him, then look away for a moment. He's gone. I didn't look away for much more than blink. There's plenty of space around the bench. It couldn't possibly move that fast. The thing just disappeared.

There's a woman in the square. I follow behind her until close enough to get her attention. She turns, and I'm stopped in my tracks as I catch sight of her deformed face. It's as if her right eye socket is smeared outwards and down her face, like it was made of clay. I don't stick around to find out if she's a nice person.

As I'm walking down a street out from the main square, I notice some assorted rocks on the ground. As I'm passing them, something seems to have just changed. I look away and look back. Something is definitely moving or changing. The stones are in a line. I count five of them - big, small, small, small, big. I look away, blink a few times, and immediately look back. The middle stone has disappeared and the remainder are now spread evenly. I look away again. The two big stones are now on the left, one is balanced atop the other. Er... Pfhf, I don't know.

Everything in town is shut. I don't know what time it is now, but I don't care either. There's no chance of a hotel. It's warm enough to sleep outside on a bench. I'm looking for something, but it has to be out of reach of these creatures. I have a real concern that these creatures - the robots, especially - will molest my soul in the night.

Down a road, I spot a couple of parked cars. I set my backpack down, and in desperation, I try to open the door of the first car. I'd be safe in there. With no luck, I move towards the second car. It occurs to me that I've set my pack down out of sight, just behind the first car. I go to bring it around, but it's gone. I cannot believe it - not after the wallet. There's just no way. I look up and down the long road. There's no one. Everything is still, everything is silent. It was out of sight for less than five seconds. It's gone.

I return to the main square. I see a robot on the nearest edge of the square. The robot is white with a little blue and red. Somehow I know this is who has taken my pack. As I get closer and begin to circle around, I loose sight of it for a moment. When I turn back, he's turned into a bush creature. This bastard stole my pack. I'm angry, but I don't know what it is or what it's capable of.  Could I beat it in a fight? I'm not even sure that this "spirit" - whatever it is - is still in the bush, but I am distinctly thinking about kicking it's head clean off of it's body. After calming down a touch, I decide against starting a fight.

I'm back on the tarmac road heading out of the jungle. I can't stay here. I don't care. I need to get out of the jungle. Somewhere down the road, I see lights leading into the trees. It's a path, lit with large orbs of light - blue, red, green and white. I follow the path which leads into something more like forest than jungle. The path comes out into a football pitch-sized clearing. The path runs in an oval, serving access to ten or fifteen wooden chalets. I circle the path trying to find someone to give me a room for the night. I find a chalet with three men on a raised veranda. I try to get their attention. The seem to see me, but completely ignore me. They almost immediately start to pick up their things and casually step inside their chalet.

I circle back around the path, trying to find the exit, but I can't. I can't even get back out of here. It feels safer here than Misahualli. I haven't seen any creatures since I left the town. The only option is the slightly raised veranda on another of the chalets. Before I settle down, I try the door. It's unlocked. The chalet is empty and untouched. There's even soap or a mint or something on the pillow. I'm finally safe. I lock the door and rest on top of the bed. The only thing that keeps me from falling asleep is the thought that someone will catch me in here. That doesn't keep me awake for too long.

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