hopti was an islander although he never said what island and i never asked. huge guy built like a fortress, always smiling and walked with a waddle like one of those toys that never falls over. i liked his gentle giant quality and his simple take on life. he never said anything complicated so conversation was reasonably undemanding, he would always talk about food and his family. somewhere in the background lurked a big happy family and i guess when you have that you have everything. 
i was single, had lived alone for so long now whenever i heard the sound of my own voice i was surprised, so it was good to have a swimming buddy to talk with even though we never talked about anything much at all. 
hopi swam each morning out to the buoy so i'd see him down the beach while i surfed with my fin. hopi was partly seal or whale, he could swim in any condition and swim fast, he was faster in water than on land. he could hold his breath for an unreasonably long time and sometimes cause me concern. 
it wasn't a particularly good day, no real clouds but no real sun. maybe the conditions read storm in 24 hours, i couldn't read them exactly as well as other surfers but it felt like a looming change in the air. at least the water was tepid. hopti surfaced next to me, i was hovering mind slightly empty waiting for the next wave.
'big feast tonight mission,' he waved his paw at me,'you come?'
'ah that's very kind hop but i don't really eat after dark.'
'come, we bake, cook beasts, bbq sauce, hot potato, you come, meet family.'
jesus i felt kinda trapped in the surf with the giant. i hate bbq's and the idea of meeting a happy family didn't fill me with enthusiasm but my options were limited out there alone with him. i couldn't refuse, it may offend his cultural disposition, not that i was into cultural relativity but hop seemed like a good person to have as an ally.
i walked up the beach to the surf club for a shower, hopi waddled beside me giving me semi-coherent directions to his place. he shook my hand and smiled, big white teeth and bright red gums. hopi never showered after a surf but he washed his feet and clambered into a big beaten up old truck filled with bits of metal, rope and tools and i watched his face in the side mirror as he left me outside the club.
i turned and looked at the footprints we had left in our trail, hopti's big prints and my light ones didn't make sense, it was odd and left me feeling strange, unsettled.
i couldn't shake that feeling all afternoon. i was committed to about three hours work on the computer but i just couldn't focus. some sort of anxiety had taken hold and it was creeping up my spine like a fast moving strangler vine in the jungle. those prints were just wrong, something about them just didn't make sense and it was nagging away in my head and aching at my gut. 
now who can say how accurate memory is, even hours after an event details alter and although i could not be sure the more i thought about those footprints the more i began to see the discrepancy was hopti's prints were nowhere near as deep as mine, which would go against physics itself as he was about three times my size and i am built big.
i paced around mystified and smoked half a joint to numb my thinking. in an hour or so i would have to leave and socialise, so i showered and got ready while my brain came up with hundreds of excuses not to go, none suitable to use. 
on the way over i stopped at the bottle shop to buy some beer. i figured i should take something and was certain beer not wine would be the best contribution to the dinner but as it happened i bought a bottle of red as well. i didn't know if hop drunk, he never mentioned it but i figured beer goes with bbq's and the wine would be a back up just in case it was a slightly more sophisticated event than i imagined.
the drive was short, he lived about 30k's away, and in the oncoming dusk i drove along the beach road up to the highlands into the bush. down below i could see the moon rising over the horizon, dark clouds brewing and moving fast in my direction.
it turned out the house was more of a ranch, it was way off the main roadway and down a dirt track. my xv winding along nicely, i switched the lights on and followed the drive into a tunnel of light. the track became narrower, dense high growth bush on either side seemed to form a tunnel and as i glimpsed up i noticed the stars were blocked out with dense branches and leaves. i slowed down and drove carefully, the last thing i wanted was to kill some endangered nocturnal marsupial.
suddenly the ranch presented itself, federation in design but rustic looking, well worn in and slightly neglected. i could hear the sound of music and see fairy lights wrapped around the balcony, a few cars parked randomly out the front and hop's truck sitting there looking like something from a rejected mad max film. i parked between two big utes. 
i grabbed my bag and wandered up to the front door. i was surprised to see the door covered in graffiti and some strange red and black markings on the floor. they looked like glyphs but were intricate and floral, almost fractal.
i pushed the door open and peered into a large empty interior. noises floated in from the back and i yelled out, 'hop, hop, it's me. mission.' 
i followed the sounds through the lounge, through the kitchen where two women were taking something out from the fridge. they were older ladies, maybe grandmothers, they seemed to stink of cheap perfume and as they acknowledged me with their smiles i saw the rotting teeth of old hags and puffed up skin that had travelled well passed its use by date. they hovered around me, took my bag and as i repeated, 'i'm a friend of hop's,' they nodded and stretched their mouths wider than i thought possible, in grins that seemed exaggerated and slightly surreal. i tried not to appear confronted by their strange distorted faces but was having a hard time already. my body was speaking to me in a loud voice, 'something as not quite right, leave now.'  
'outside, outside.' one of the women pointed to the back door. i smiled and walked out leaving them behind me.

hop stood above the big fire pit, his massive frame was governing a small crowd of people, and he was chanting in some strange language i assumed was native to him. it sounded like an angry hymn as he spat out the words and occasionally the small crowd would add something, like an affirmation. this went on for an uncomfortable length of time and i stood awkwardly hoping eventually hop would acknowledge my arrival. but he didn't seem to even notice my presence and continued leading this weird ceremony. i watched quietly wondering if i should just sneak away and go home. 
from the pit burning embers rose up in spirals and thermal currents, and through the red spots i could see the trees in the back of the garden and make out the shapes hanging from them. i took a gasp and stepped back, surely i must be imagining this, human bodies hanging in the trees. maybe the smoke was distorting my vision, i strained to look. my eye mechanics under pressure seemed to water up, i rubbed at them but that only seemed to make them worse, my vision blurred and i turned my face away from the macabre vista.
the chanting suddenly stopped and the crowd all moved forwards towards the burning pit. i stayed put, my legs had frozen, heart beating loudly, letting my eyes adjust and trying not to irritate them with the impulse to rub them. 
although i did not wish to see any of the detail my face couldn't help but look upon the scene. it was a car crash i was driving passed. i knew i shouldn't, knew i would regret it but the deep compulsion to observe and experience knowledge, understanding and apply some order of logic to it was stronger. i looked.
what i saw was unfathomable in terms of logic, reason and experience. these concepts suddenly became useless as i saw hop and a few individuals leaning into the pit and pull out what appeared to me a human arm. it was blackened and bent at an incoherent angle. hop passed it to one of the guests and the man, he was a tall figure, lanky and lean put the severed limb to his mouth and took a bite, he chewed and swallowed. he nodded and gave an approval and hop then leaned into the pit and began distributing the cooked body parts to his guests. 
i was in the throws of some sort of feedback loop, disgust crossed with nausea as i tried to throw up but could only splutter choking sounds. 
suddenly the door behind me swung open and the women marched out caring trays of food. they walked past me, like tropical servants or geisha girls at a tea ceremony, dressed in colourful sarongs and sandals. they delivered the food to the guests who by now were all devouring parts of bodies like they were ravenous. some knelt down to eat, some sat cross-legged, others stood. hop and a friend seemed to be pulling one of the bodies hanging from the trees down. when i saw the body twitch it registered that it was still alive. it wriggled but perhaps its hands were tied behind its back, and it shook and shuddered like it was in spasm. 
my eyes began to burn. i shifted my position towards the side. now i had clear access to the scene. there must have been about four bodies hanging by their feet upside down, hands bound, mouth gagged and bodies naked and bloodied. some of them had slices of skin removed, some had emblems cut into their backs and chests, some had industrial looking spikes embedded in them at random points. whatever it was these people had been tortured severely but they were all alive. 
hop suddenly produced a long blade, a sword. he held it to the neck of the kneeling prisoner and keeping that stupid smile swung it with his mighty big fist and the head just fell as gravity took hold, it fell straight into the pit. blood poured down and spurted up, not just a little trickle a waterfall, right into the fire as hot steam rose. the stink was putrid. it was vile. i almost passed out, i could feel the nausea in my body, my knees about to give way as i sunk down. 
i was on my knees, my hands were searching my pockets for the car keys. i would make a run for it. as i stood up, my nerves rattled and my movements awkward i turned to face the house i was met by the women. those faces leered into mine, warped features of ancient hags, dripping with madness as they grinned at me and held their serving tray's out to me. they were filled with blackened ears surrounding what looked like a beetroot dip. and around the ears, a ring of fingers. 
the women stood in front of me offering me their wares as though we were at the sunday markets. i shook my head, hand searching deep in my pockets i found the car keys and managed to compose myself. 
'captain mission brother, i glad you made it to the feast.' the mouth said, big meaty face blacked even further out by night and soot, flickering flames illuminating his massive hulk body those eyes soft and gentle but face glistening with blood. not his.
'hop, i am leaving. this is not my thing man.'
hop smiled again and his big head nodded up and down, his fat lips parted and a huge tongue popped out. he put his paw on my shoulder and pushed me towards the pit. 'eat something. drink with us. you our guest.'
'hop, i'm leaving okay, i don't eat meat and i don't feel comfortable here.'
'ah mission, you special guest, my family meet you. here. here my aunties.' he pointed to the two old ladies with the hors d'oeuvres.
i nodded a hello and gritted my teeth, who knew what these women would do. i could tell now they were quite mad, their eyes sparkled with that intense break from reason, the point where responsibility exits the mind and is replaced by the will of exploitation without fear of consequence. we stood there awkwardly, defeat flooded my synaptic pathways and then i was pushed again towards the pit. the stink of burnt flesh hung heavy around the garden. and i could see the body of one of the hanged people bleeding out by the neck. i wanted to throw up, my guts heaving.
in the red coal were a few burnt body parts, i saw three decapitated heads, burnt to a crisp. they lowered the headless body onto the heat and hop plucked out one of the blackened crisp heads. he used a big stick and held it up to my face. the features were unrecognisable, a twisted melted mass of distorted flesh and crisp blood, some muscle around the cheeks and black dead eyes. the mouth was fused as lips melted together and the teeth had fallen out. hopi inspected the head, he took a knife and popped it into the eye socket levering out the eyeball and with some impressive sickly skill he pierced his knife into the ball and held it out to me.
'eat. you guest. you eat.'
there was no way i could eat that burnt offering and i wondered what choice i would be given in this charade. i kicked myself for not understanding hop's culture, where was he from, what are the customs of his peoples. why had he befriended me. why did i assume because he was gentle, always smiling and being friendly he would be sane. this whole family were nuts, but they were also imminently dangerous. and then i came to the terrible conclusion, the inevitable thought. would they even let me leave tonight. how could they.   
i'd been through sticky situations before, i'd confronted death many times and escaped its clutches, i knew death, i accepted it and when it came i would embrace it correctly but this was not my death. i would not die here, now. i knew this, and it gave me a glimmer of hope, but i would have to get away somehow. preferably without eating a dead mans fried eyeball.
the fire was warming my skin, it was a cold night and the clouds were looming above big dark ones contrasting hues as the moonlight cast it's light down through their mass.
i felt a lonely drop upon my face. the beginnings.
hopti's people surrounded me, they all started whispering in their language, and hop stood there with the eye thrust at my face waiting for me to take it. 
i yelled out to them all and commanded their attention, 'silence!'
it was immediately granted, and i think they were taken by surprise. i lowered my voice and directed myself at my friend the cannibal. 
'hopti, i see your gods. they are powerful and very strong. they love you. i know them. but they are only small gods.'
his face seems to change, as he absorbs my words into whatever comprehension he can. his mouth gives it away, a slight twitch. 
'small gods?'
i am uncertain if he is asking a question if it is rhetorical or is it simply a new idea to him. his face shows no sign of anger just puzzlement.
'hopti, your gods have sent me here to show you a truth they conceal from you. that they are not all powerful or mighty and there are other gods that can extinguish them.'
'are you a god?'
it's the most stupid thing he's ever said to me, yet the most complex and intelligent. 
'no, i am no god but i command powerful gods.'
there is murmurs from the small audience.
i look up at the skies, cosmic time laughs but subjective time is ticking. 
'there is a god you may know, he wields a mighty hammer, he is scandinavian, a norse god. he commands thunder and lightening. he is the son of a very powerful god called odin. i have called him to stop your party. to stop you.
the lightening comes right upon cue, it cracks open the darkness, and in that moment do i see the faces of hopi's people loose their confidence? maybe. 
'the barbecue is ended hopi. you must let me leave now.'
the rain falls, it's a deluge that will not let up until dawn at least. i push hop's sword and the eye at it's end away from my face and walk out. no one follows me. 
i start my xv and drive down the dirt track, one eye on what's in front of me, the other on the mirror. i breathe deeply, focus my attention. calm my nerves.
the wipers are working overtime. i hope the track isn't one that flash floods although the xv is capable it would be challenged by a strong current. fear travels down my body and exits my foot which involuntarily applies pressure upon the accelerator and i hear the roar of the overdrive trying to kick in, but something's wrong, i can feel it as my eyes scan the dashboard. as if mocking me the red light flashes on and i realise that hopti's people have covered my escape. they have drained my car of petrol, and as it shudders and stalls i know i have about 5 minites head start, which leaves me no time. 
i open up the glove box, pull out a joint i keep for emergencies and push the cigarette lighter in. a mobile phone would have been more practical but i suck the weed down and put on some music. richard ashcroft's voice echoes out into bushland and the rain falls like e deluge. the headlights illuminate the wilderness and i kill them because i don't really want to see what's coming. 
thunder mocks me in the distance as thor runs away.