Sunday, December 14, 2014

we clambered down in silence and returned to the table, eventually she spoke.
'do you think we shared the same dream?'
'undoubtedly, you obviously had your perspective and i mine but it was the same.'
'it was very vivid captain.'
'mmm, yes sometimes my past lives are very vivid and this current one is obscured. it's like living in a fog sometimes. in the past i had purpose, this...world has very little purpose for me.'
'maybe it's just time to reflect.'
this bar is peculiar, a labyrinth, any moment we could run into a minotaur.'
audrey giggles, 'that's geoffrey's sir-name, geoff minotaur.'
'your kidding me?'
'nope.'
'is that a strange coincidence or just surreal.'
'everything about this place is surreal captain. its why i like it. it's called the le bar inn, which could be a play on labyrinth i suppose.'
'it's a magic theatre alright.'
geoffrey suddenly appears, he's wearing a ringmasters suit and carries a tray, 'i thought you both like some nibbles.'
he places a tray of dips and breads down upon our table, smiles at us both, 'enjoy, it's on the house.'
i nod my head and audrey looks excited at the avocado dip.
'i love guacamole.'
she scoops a load onto a slice of crisp bread and pops it in her mouth, 'mmm, it's beautiful.' expertly she repeats the motion and pops a piece in my mouth. she's right, it's very tasty.
in the corner a spotlight shines on a small stage and a group of musicians start playing a song, a man with wild hair shakes his head and strums some psychedelia and a singer playing base sings about the jungle.
the room starts to shimmer, shadows creep over us, and like a magicians hand waves a spread of cards we transform from a small cocktail room into the dense canopy of jungle. audrey claps her hands, but i stand and take a good 360 degree look.
the jungle is everywhere, every direction a wall of vines, tree's tower upwards and sunlight filters through, dense bush in lush deep green shade everywhere. the sound suddenly becomes deafening as my ears attempt to calibrate. all around us, everything is alive.
the both of us peer into the deep and watch as it slithers and shifts, it moves, changes constantly, the sound of teeming insects, the choir of monkeys strange bird noises, it's pouring out from the landscape. 
for a moment i loose my bearings, we can't be looking in to it, we are in it, immersed in it. swallowed up by jungle, eaten alive.
the blood pumps through my body, sweat pours out from my pores, i feel so alive as the environment consumes us.
audery takes a step forwards into the bush, she clambers over a thick brown vine, and steps into a hidden ravine, disappearing silently.
i go to follow but a vine has clutched my foot, and now it twirls up around my leg. 
i try to wrench it of with my bare hands but it's contracting like an anaconda. the huge fern above me starts to shake and something darker than i can comprehend lurks behind it, it's yellow eye's burning into me.
somehow i manage to take a few steps forwards, 'audrey, audrey, stay where you are, i'm coming.'
the vine around my leg no longer has any taut, it's just a dead vine, limp and flaccid i pull it away and move forward, brushing branches and vegetation away with my arms until i stand over the ravine. looking down i see audrey splayed out, for a moment i think she is dead, her body limp but pulsating. i edge my way closer. i grab hold of a root and swing down closer, careful not to loose my footing.
her head falls back and her mouth opens, and then i gasp. a massive purple worm emerges from her mouth, it slides out and slips away, big and fat and longer than any worm i've ever seen. it's huge, and there are hundreds of them now, sliding over her pale body, moving around inside her, making her skin pulsate from the inside. i look onwards in horror.
when her eyes open it's slow and calm and she's smiling, 'it's so beautiful, it's so fucking beautiful.'
i don't know whether to scream or smile i reach out for her hand but she just beckons me to her and i'm confused, conflicted, excited and frightened all at the same time. and then i find my fingers letting go of the vine, i feel my body falling downwards onto audrey and being caught in the strange density of worm flesh and they suddenly are upon me, millions of them. yet it's difficult to distinguish any individuals, they all seem part of a greater whole, part machine, part soft flesh devoid of temperature, creatures from another world beyond the known. i feel them penetrate my flesh yet there is no pain, i feel them eating away yet it's sensual and liberating, i open up and they swim deep into me like my body is their ocean, they devour and feast within my blood bone and flesh and i feel much lighter as i surrender to the worms that eat karma.
the jungle gives us everything. it feeds us but will eventually eat us, though every atom is reabsorbed. it nurtures us and guides us, protects and nourishes us. it's medicines are healing and terrifying and beautiful. it's ancient ways are beyond scientific comprehension. there is no language to define it, no mathematics, no symbology, only the guides know the path by intuition and fore-bearers, the map is not the territory as every explorer knows. the jungle, the jungle spills over boundaries, it does not recognise your territory as it creeps inside invading by stealth, one atom at a time or engulfing you whole, it ebbs and flows like a tide, nibbles away or tears at your flesh. you can't fight the jungle, can't escape it's influence. it's inside you, and it grows.    






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