LESSON: Author's Share *Merged*

OK friends and neighbors, heres my first try. This is actually a true account of my first day on the River. Some of the things that I experienced there will be serious topics. The boat trip to the base camp could not have been more bizarre, too hard to try to make a serious topic. The story makes sense to me but...if it sucks, let me have it. At least give me a clue as to how to change things. If it's total trash and I need to start over, say that too. Thanks, Steve


. Up River, Busted Paddle and Something Stinks


First day in the real world, 120 miles from anything that looks like the 20th century and I’m in a dugout canoe with a half naked boy from the jungle who likes my tattoos. Seems like a good start for the day. We, a group of medical volunteers, left Iquitos yesterday in a handsome home made boat some 50 feet long. Lots of others just like it plying the waters of the Amazon River, which here is some 2 ½ miles wide. Proud boat, proud owner, first trip he says, Nuevo es, New. No Problems. Thankfully he was lying about the no problem part and the adventure was underway. New it was, tested with a full load of passengers and supplies it wasn’t, so A, it was a damn slow boat and B it ate gas at twice the expected rate. Slow is good though, lots a time to check out the river, other boats, small villages along the banks when we were close to them. No, the real problem was the gas thing. What was supposed to be a 12 hour trip saw us just over half way to the obscure tributary we were heading for. In the art of logic that creates adventures, only enough fuel was on board for about 15 hours…ooppps. Near the Equator, daylight and dark are equal measure, light at six, dark at six, so along about 5 the boat starts coughing like a 3 pack a day junkie. No problem, the boat is new. A bit of a huddle between the captain and the street urchins he had for a crew brought great news. ”The boat is fine, only it is out of gas.” Cool! No problem. Except I really didn’t see anything that resembled a port, or a village, or a floating 7/11 gas station. In fact, about all any of us saw from the middle of the river was a distant tree line of jungle…that and the street urchins making the sign of the cross and kissing each other good bye. Ah well, something’s bound to happen I figured and so it did. We began drifting backward down the Amazon River, 2 1/2 miles wide, 350 foot deep, in the encroaching darkness. The prayer level was picking up among the urchins, El Capitan is lookin’ nervous too. It can’t get better than this I’m thinkin’…I came for adventure and I’m getting’ my first taste of it. One of our dumber fellow passengers asks an urchin why everybody’s looking scared. “The trees senor”. Well that’s a silly thing, I said, all the trees are on the shore and we’re no where the bank. Si Senor, but the trees that have washed into the river, big trees, bigger than the boat, they float just under the surface they are so big. If one hits the boat, no more boat. Without gas we cannot steer around them…in the dark we cannot even see them. Oh. So about then some of the passengers start up a little prayer thing with the urchins while a couple of the others join me in telling the captain he’d better start paddling this big assed barge toward shore. Oddly. It seems that our conversation jolted his memory. “We have an outboard in the supplies for the camp” he cries, “We are saved.” He runs to the stern, throws the tarps aside with maniacal abandon and reveals our salvation, about a 1937 model 7 horsepower Johnson engine. It’s on his shoulder and he’s off the engine compartment where he lashes it to the gunwale and begins jerking the starter rope. Oddly, it has gas in it and even stranger it starts. Slowly we veer closer to the shoreline. The urchins are on point searching the now dark shore for signs of light. One of them cries out,”There, we are saved capitan” , “the Virgin has saved us”. I looked around real quick in the dark and didn’t see any virgins in sight but hell, who cares. We made it to the bank of a settlement of huts oddly backlit by the glow of a great fire…. under the cooker of a huge still set in a field of sugar cane. Ethanol, I wondered, how progressive. Well not quite, These boys had gotten tired of the old hunter/gatherer routine and sort of commandeered a century old , British made still, left over from the rubber boom days. With a little engineering and luck they were producing a few gallons of raw sugarcane alcohol each day and trading it to all the locals who floated by looking for a buzz. A quick and desperate conversation ensued between El Capitan and the Brewmaster. In almost no time, the captain had traded off a couple of the urchins and a fist full of green backs for 2 cans of fuel. Everybody was feeling jolly except the 2 urchins who had become collateral. They had lapsed back into maximum prayer mode and appeared to be trying to kiss their little ass’s goodbye. Getting in the spirit of our new found salvation I decided to bond with the Brewmaster whom, I had noticed had several tattoos adorning almost every part of his nearly naked body. Well, thinks I, I’ll just show him my tattoos so we can have a bit of kinship here. Hermano! He exclaimed upon seeing the various doodles inked on my arms while under the influence of a strange and different era. He grabbed me, pulled my shirt off over my head and quickly marched me into the center of his compound. Women and kids of all sort appeared from the huts, most bearing gifts from the Brewmaster’s still. Drink, he says, so I did. Sweet Jesus, I was enveloped in flame from the inside out; it became daylight then dark and daylight again. I would have fallen had he not had hold of my neck. Hermano, you must live with us now. Sure, I think, why not, I’m gonna die in the next few minutes anyway. Sure, I’ll live with you guys till I die. At some later point, El Capitan approached the Brewmaster and informs him I cannot stay because I still hadn’t paid for all of my trip expenses. As business men they both understood and soon had my body stored on board. Hanging over the stern, I watched my newfound brother fade away into the darkness. He had consoled himself to our parting by getting to know the two traded urchins. As they vanished I saw him sniffing various parts of them as they sobbed. Bye Bye boys. Have fun.





As it inevitability does, the sun crawled out of some dark hole and proceeded its daily cooking of the tropics. Feeling quite like some grand explorer of yore I was anxious to start my first full day in the jungle. Had a breakfast of unknown meat and eggs and moved into a planning session with the local at the base camp. The grand plan was to have our western doctors work side by side with the various village shamans in order to have an informational exchange. The ground work had been laid months before and now all we had to do was go to a nearby village and see if we could find the Shaman.

 

I want you all to find your best piece...the one with most meaning, the one that makes you angry, the one that makes you sad, and post it in here. This is an author's share. Find your most creative, heartfelt, meaningful piece and share it. Let the world know your creative side!

 

The most significant events of the past 15 years of my life have been my time visiting and living along the Amazon River. These events, then, are the stories I must first tell. The telling will release me, there are other stories waiting their turn to come out. The Jungle is where it all starts though and thus I give you my account. I first came to Peru in my forties, all of life before was preparation, now in my sixties I push farther into my own Wilderness.
The whole purpose of this is to see if, in fact, I can write, or rather, if I can write in such a way as to entice readers. Please share your thoughts, I am old and weathered, I welcome the critism. Thank you for looking.


A Stranger in Paradise
Two thousand miles downriver to the East lies the Atlantic ocean, another two thousand miles to the west will find a spring in the Andes where the Amazon river is born. There are few people here in the center of this forest, I am blessed to be among those few.
Rain plays through the thatched roof above me, an old sound, comforting, it cocoons me in this hut, an illusion of security. Separate from the soft percussion from overhead there is the pounding of millions of raindrops on millions of leaves, the drippings into newly formed pools, branch’s rubbing against another and the occasion of thunder which is felt as much as heard. Somewhere water has made its way through the thatch, it patiently taps the floor waiting to reclaim this place. It’s my first night in the rainforest along the Yarapa River deep in the interior of Peru. I do not intend to sleep tonight, my senses have returned to childhood fantasy’s of play and adventure, of wild animals and the peoples of the forest. I am apprehensive, I have no idea what lurks here save for the memories of illustrations presented in old textbooks and National Geographic magazines. Scenes dripping with snakes from every branch, jaguars behind each bush, naked people armed with spear and club, I remember the pictures. Sound is my primary informant. There is backlighting from distant lightning, only enough to increase the mystery. The air carries a primordial scent, of earth, flower, decay and musk. I am a country boy, raised rural, familiar with woods and creek. This place is more than that. I am very foreign to this place, sad too, because this is home, mother earth herself yet I feel apart from it all. The sounds become white noise as time passes, there is an old song being sung to me, I follow it into sleep and dream.


I awake to screams and threats, fury in the trees around me, naked, I have no weapon. My knife is in the backpack, now it is in my hand, the sound of footfalls comes closer. “Buenas Dias Senor, there is breakfast if you are faster than the monkeys.”a voice soft and light with laughter. The Howler Monkeys are now passing the south edge of camp, bird song is replacing threat. Wood smoke backs the promise of food. I smell myself now, reeking of travel and fear and sweat. A shower has been rigged here, water pumped from the River to overhead barrels, I stand here feeling the comfort of cool water baptizing me in to the place. The water is sensuous, falling softly, touching me, clinging to me then sheeting off into the earth. Washing with a lump of handmade soap, I smell clean, a hint of some flower lingers from the soap. I am a child in this world, my first day on this earth here. My senses have been introduced to this place one by one, yet visually it is like being deep in a clothes closet hung all with various shades of green. To the front, the sides and rear, above and below it’s is all a monochrome of green with bits of color from flower or bird. Nothing else. Just green. Though hungry, I follow the path to the river clearing, my eyes need more than green. Log steps have been set into the riverbank. Following them down I enter a world of light. The Yarapa River comes at me from my left, does a two-step around a Lumpana tree ,then heads off on other business. It is deep blue, glinting as it passes under the Equatroial sun. Now the world has a bit more color, Bird are playing the air here, fish jump, butterflies congregate at waters edge. Flowers are more abundant too, there is light here, they can show off. Save for the boat secured to a tree there is nothing man made here. The word pristine comes to mind, This is the definition of pristine.



I head back up the steps, I’m hungry. Hungry for breakfast, hungry for this place, hungry for adventure. My first day has started.

 

yarapario, you have such beautiful things to contribute!

 

Thanks. Your suggestion of writing from the senses really fits for the forest. The place is as viseral and raw as life gets. The chance to put these stories out someplace helps a lot. It's very hard for me to "see" what I have written. I know the story, I don't know if I'm conveying the story though. Any and all critique is appreciated. If this is the appropriate place to post writings I will follow with more. Thank you again for your efforts in setting the stories free. Steve

 

Couldn't find my short stories, which are not my best works anyway. So here's a poem I wrote three years ago:


the burden of the daily grind
is a million pounds less
than your voice on the phone
with the questions
that beg to be asked
and the uninvited memories
that demand remembering

ah numbness...blessed numbness!

small talk is the highway to
awkward conversation
so i choose silence over words
and i throw myself to the
whirlwind of office hours
that i be swallowed up
tossed this way and that
bruised but unfeeling

am i still your friend?
maybe...
but the burden of the daily grind
is a million pounds less
than your voice on the phone.

 

this is a story i wrote when i was 9

the werewolf
In july 1979 there was a giant green werewolf named rufus on top of the empire state building in New York. then it happened! the giant werewolf destroyed most of the city by pushing down the buildings. he was angry because he didnt have any friends and he wanted to punish the new yorkers. then he took 5 steps and reached windsor ontario. I saw him! i was scared out of my wits. he yelled "hi my name is rufus, do you want to be my friend?" i answered "ok but youd better not eat me." the werewolf put me on his shoulder and brought me back to new york. it was like flying because i was up with the clouds. i told everyone who had survived that rufus was a nice werewolf but noone believed me they all just screamed "help!" because they were still scared of him. we took a few giant steps back to windsor. we slept on my roof that night. I was comfertable on his belly, but poor rufus had a bed of hard shingles. the next day, rufus and i went to lake erie. i floated on his back, it felt like i was surfing. on one of our trips back to new york, rufus lost his way and we ended up in washington DC. it was good because we saw the whitehouse. as we became friends, rufus felt bad for having to destroy newyork he wanted to go back and say "sorry" for what he had done. then guess what happend? i woke up in my bed with no werewolf. was it all just a dream? i went to my window and i saw giant footprints... the end

i like to think i have an overactive mind. now i realise i was like that when i was a kid too. lol like my 9 year old story?