As a frog does before a jump, I recoil my legs like a spring to propel myself forward. Through the water I swim bumping into several angels that’ve floated up above me. In the impact of hitting one and pushing off another I feel death right from behind. I’m not planning on dying again only to be reentered into a gray hall jinxed by insufferable cries.
The angel of death can’t touch me for I’m already dead. My viewpoint changes into a far more traumatic sight where from a vantage point above the deep–blue crater I realize that the angels aren’t swimming at all. Instead, they’re drowning. I’m merely curious as to why it is so. How can something that looks so good and pure be a cause for expulsion into these cold waters? Many place their hands around their neck as the universal sign that they’re choking.
Their death will come either from suffocation or that thing with a purple glow surrounding its body. I’m able to get a clearer look now. On its body lays a black cloak that in the water spreads far out like the chemical liquid petroleum. The same shadows that stole me away resemble the pitch–black color of that cloak. So dark that a human could not discern its shape or form. It’s menacing, drawing in the energy of life from all around it. I know it’s death but death’s not alone.
The angels start warping into demons, sprouting horns from the temples of their heads and growing monstrous lizard tails. They begin revolving around the giant as if it’s the sun and the warped angels—planets. Why do I sense this heliocentric order of things will have the transforming angels turn to slaves beneath death’s black garment?
From within its cowl, its mouth widely opens to where the jawbones crack. A powerful sonar, louder than a jet engine, lams its mouth. The pain it tholes with repose. Its jaw detaches itself from the root of its mouth. Its skin stretches to bind the detached jaw hanging loosely. The beast lolls out a mammoth sea salt white tongue. It could swallow one of the angels whole in a single bite if it wanted to.
Few of the fish around it that survived the lethal sound are quick to dash out of its way as it starts to prowl toward me continually being the center of the morphing angels. Long bony fingers leave the coverings of its cloak as it coasts. An oversized human hand extends out that isn’t glowing purple—it’s burning purple. Flames of God’s wrath.
The giant from the gray hall.
It reaches above the head and around, whipping out scores of iron chains from behind its back. It uncovers the face of a model by delicately removing its cowl with its other hand. I’d expected an exorbitantly disfigured face above the mouth with bloodshot red eyes, but the face is of a man with soft features. Handsome but starved. Its eyes are linked in color to the flames, shifting from the pale blue–purple of a phlox flower to the hazy dark purple scenery of mountains viewed at dusk from afar. Its mid–parted mane is rose gold with scads of volume and a mystifying luminescence.
The chains shake and bullet their way through the water to every single drowning angel. Locking each by wrapping around their forearms, quads, and wings. Only to then tighten as death pulls back on the chains and brings every morphed angel under its robe.
What the hell’s going on here?
The tremendous semblance of disorder hatched from this drug is insanely vivid. I feel as a lamb cornered by the wolf of torment. That thing is a predator and I its prey. Hopeless and still like a rock I ask myself, why the hell did I drive Ramze’s truck off a cliff?
Maybe I’m crazy.
Every angel and demon forsaken by death transforms into a spiked shadow still banded by chains. I’m not about to become one as well. I continue to swim upward, swamped by the hands of angels and demons who’re grabbing onto me, trying to save themselves from being pulled and transformed by the giant. Ramze’s a short distance from me, fading away into the deep. I risk my life to save him anyways seeing as how this was my fault and drugging me was his. Taking a hold of one of Ramze’s wings, I carry him kicking through the water.
The ethereal angels, tethered by chains, further contort into grotesque forms, caught in a glitch–like dance between their half–demon manifestation and their spiky, shadowy silhouette. Twisted and tormented, they reach out with clawed hands, tearing at my flesh. Ramze’s wings bear the burden as feathers are ripped away in my struggle against the relentless undertow of the submerged abyss.
Their pursuit unwavering, I briefly let go of Ramze. I swiftly seize the opportunity to use the chains that bind them against them, twisting and maneuvering the chains with a dancer’s grace. With a flick of the wrist, I weave an intricate pattern, transforming their own binds into a trap, momentarily ensnaring their glitched forms. I scoop up my unconscious, winged friend, and carve a path to the surface. The chains, turned allies, coil protectively around the dissonant entities. They hurtle towards the giant with unimaginable speed, disappearing in its vivid purple flames.
I pull myself and Ramze onto the ledge of some low rocks that together make up a narrow strip of land. They lead a path to some odd hole—a trapezoid opening exhaling cool blasts—pressed far ahead along a tower of boulders. A cave I expect has an exit at its end.
I need an explanation out of this guy as soon as he wakes up.
The cave is surrounded by flying seagulls and strange wriggling clouds. I sit down on a sub–rounded rock closest to the ledge I climbed after struggling to get Ramze on my back and dropping him off at the cave’s entrance. I place my hands on my face and continue telling myself, “I have to come back from this.”
Looking out to the clouds there’s nothing but mist in the atmosphere and out by the ocean. Those purple flames. What was their significance to me if any at all? I feel as if that thing, that angel of death was more than I perceived in that state of fear. The second board I received from my father, carved and ready to ride before it was even known of my conception was truly for Kosta. It was only till I was born that Kosta’s first ever two boards were repainted in my persona.
The first was the golden octopus surfboard from when I gripped my dad’s chain as a newborn. To compensate for my father’s taking of Kosta’s first ever two boards, that’d yet to be used, he’d given Kosta that gold octopus necklace. Daniel was having money troubles and was superstitious about gifting his offspring a surfboard in their first two years of life. The deed would make the recipient a great surfer. He’d done it with Jade, he’d done it with Kosta, and then it was my turn to receive the gift of two boards.
The second board was repainted to portray a purple sun in which I remember my dad elaborating on the meaning once I was old enough to understand. A poetic symbolism that’s aided in the color of royalty or spiritual fulfillment that’s purple. The sun was a supposed male side of my nature in being driven without direction. Daniel recognized the sun as the great male principle. The ultimate yang as ancient Chinese culture did.
As a two–year–old I was told I showed superiority over my then four–year–old brother Kosta and curiosity followed me as I’d invest it into every little item I’d come across. The purple sun may be a melodramatic representation of who I was when I was two, but Daniel never overlooked anything about who I was growing up. Even as a child, character is a sign of progression through the years that mustn’t be taken lightly. Especially if you see that same light that you had in yourself as a kid in your son.
What may’ve driven that thing to try and kill me must have a cause. If not, why did it and its iron chains chase me? A fire, somehow purple, burning over it. From a religious or spiritual perspective, it might’ve had a position of royalty in the kingdom of heaven and maybe it was looking to be fulfilled through a certain means of searching in its curiosity; not unlike my own. Curiosity then solicited its payment with punishment. That’s what the fire represents.
I might be looking too deep into this, but I believe I’m right in the subject matter. Ramze must have delved into that vitality. If I can just get a word from him, I know I’d understand some of what I saw. It’s not every day you see what I believe was a fallen angel garnished in a riveting purple fire. In any case, I should be worrying about how I’m supposed to get out of here and back on the road. I walk back up to the cave on the path of rocks with crevices in each.
“Wake up!” I lean over and shake Ramze with both my hands pressed rigidly against the sides of his shoulders. I kneel next to him and start tapping him on the cheek ruggedly till his eyes shoot open. He rolls onto his side, avoiding having to face me. His sweeping eagle wings are still intact, drooping from his back.
“I can’t believe you! You know I’m deathly afraid of blood. How’re we supposed to find Lucas now and get back on the road? What’s gotten into you?” he asks broodingly.
“I don’t know,” I answer hesitantly. I really don’t know what came over me other than defending myself in what I felt was a bad situation. But I can’t tell him that. This isn’t my friend Ramze I’m speaking to. It’s a complete stranger who’s never met my brother. Otherwise, why would he have tried so hard denying I’ve a brother when the cost of his lie would be his life on the line? I’ve omitted all possibilities that this newfound version of Ramze is a liar. All the sudden I’m second guessing my actions and my state of mind is in a dark place.
“I need someone to confine in. I need your help. Can I trust you?”
“What do you mean can—” he began to say.
“Can I trust you!?” I interrupt him.
“Yes,” he asserts in a crude tone.
“I saw something in the water. Something evil. It was trying to get me.”
“You’re on drugs,” he remarks.
“No! You don’t understand. It was with us in the water, and I think it could find us if we stay here.”
“For your own sanity calm down. I mean for fuck’s sake you stabbed me in the leg. The jaguar’s spit is in your blood and it’s not leaving your body for another couple of hours so relax.” He continues harshly after taking a deep breath. “You forced me to do it. Now you’ll have to endure its effects.”
Ramze’s head’s facing away from me but his body’s facing the sky. His leg’s bleeding, bent into his chest with his two hands covering the wound. Blood trickles down in between each finger.
“I’m sorry I did that to you.”
“Cut the bullshit. Don’t ever say sorry out of pity for something you’ve willingly done. It won’t heal the wound,” he says with resentment, then throwing up about two liters’ worth of ocean water.
I feel a tension between us, but I proceed in telling him of the creature I saw. “It was a shrouded giant, youthful in the face with fulsome rose gold hair, a colossal mouth, and most, if not all of it, was burning in dark purple fires underwater. It carried chains with slaves that were once angels but as I saw them before my very eyes, became shadows of the deep.”
“It’s not an it,” he speaks coughing out the rest of the salt water in his stomach and then turning fully to one side in order to face me. “It’s a he and his name is Samael. You had a near death experience. What you saw down there wasn’t real for people often see things that aren’t necessarily there in a moment of fear. Not to mention you were injected with jaguar’s spit. An extremely powerful hallucinogen. If what you’re describing is true, then what you saw may very well be the angel of death but that was only your baked mind playing hooky with you because you assumed you were about to die. I can’t say I haven’t heard outlandish incarnations of Samael like the one you’ve just described. Usually from people on drugs who’ve a conviction they’re going to die.”
“Where does he come from?” I quiz him.
“It’s a character from Talmudic folklore also known by other names such as the grim reaper. I’m sure you’ve heard of him.”
Ramze is still the same visionary. His studies into a broad range of beliefs have come in handy. I’m at ease now that I know if I’m ever confronted by the image of Samael again, I’ll know what I’m dealing with or at least what I’m hallucinating.
I feel a part of my head alleviated and maybe it’s the drug releasing me from its clasp. I press the front of my hand over the side of my neck where the drug was injected and then bring it to my face to view my fingers. There’s no blood. The ocean cleared what was an insignificant wound equated to Ramze’s stabbed leg.
Ramze’s wings become a soaked baby blue long–sleeved t–shirt pressed tightly against his skin. Each burnt umber feather turned blue, thinned into a single thread, and with exceptional sewing, all became one in the form of a shirt. He grabs the collar of his shirt and stretches it from the neck, getting it loose enough for deeper inhalations. Something falls out of the opening of his damp baby blue shirt.
A lambent gold is clamant to my eyes. I close them and dither in opening them again because of what I might see. Kosta’s gold octopus chain encompasses Ramze’s neck.
“My father’s necklace!” I blurt out into the open.
Ramze quickly grabs it and pressures it against his chest. “It’s mine!” he outcries. “Mine!” His eyes light up in a buttercup yellow fire as they had when he first grew wings.
It’s weird how his reaction immediately put him on the offensive. It looks familiar, I say standing up and walking into the cave as if thinking nothing of it. Honest–to–god I’ll find some way to get it back. I’m not sure how he has it in the first place but to whom I ask, is this crippled guy whose mind comes from another Ramze? It’s unbeknownst to me who he is or where he came from. For all I know I was dropped off in the ocean yesterday by what could’ve been an alien spacecraft. That’d make a good story to tell my creator who’s putting me through this.
“Ha–ha, you got me this time heavens! This is just how I planned to spend the afterlife. Reliving my actual life! In a weirder, detrimental way.”
“What’d you say?” Ramze calls out from outside the cave.
“I’ll be right back dude! I’ma go find us some help!”
At least I know he can’t go anywhere now that his other leg is injured. I’m not sure I believe his story in how he fractured the right one. He was perfectly fine up to the plane landing. At arrivals he became distant. Then he took a taxi to what he said was a humble property he owned in Costa Rica. In the meantime, we went to go eat at a native restaurant a couple blocks from the airport. The best empanadas and tamales I’ve ever had.
After waiting at the restaurant for nearly two hours he came back in a yellow pickup truck and told us he fell running down the stairs in his house. In realizing that he’d passed out on his bed, he rushed to come get us resulting in the irrepressible fall down the stairs, leading to the probable breaking of a bone in his right leg.
He’d rejected any suggestion to be taken to a hospital. Lucas had to drive the pickup truck from the airport thereafter because he worried Ramze was unfit to drive. On top of that, he and Lucas spawned the most random argument once we got to Playa Hermosa.
As soon as the pickup truck stopped, Kosta and I left for the sand while they stayed behind. I came back to get our surfboards. They’re on the other side of the large pickup truck; tall enough that they didn’t even notice me arrive. I saw there was rope on the ground and Lucas’ orange hiking backpack aside it. The screwdriver I stabbed Ramze with was creeping out of it.
A couple of unlikely tools I’d assume no one would bring on a surf trip were also falling out of his backpack. There was a jack knife, two seven–inch bayonet knives, and a disassembled AR–7 rifle. More so items people would bring on a hunting trip. Odd but fairly unsuspecting as I’m used to these two boneheads being enigmatic.
I’d heard the name Lucy and innocently enough I walked to the front of the pickup truck and hopped aboard the rim of the hood startling both of them.
“Who’s Lucy? Huh?”
Lucas flat–out answered by saying it’s the name Ramze has for his truck. Ramze was infuriated and he stormed off, limping with water droplets at the peak of falling from his eyes.
“Don’t worry,” Lucas said, nonchalantly. “He’s just mad he can’t surf. The dumbass probably just sprained his leg.”
I started to snigger as Lucas grabbed his surfboard from the open cargo bed and we headed to the ocean. His arm tight around the back of my neck and his hand over my chest. I looked back once but Ramze had vanished and so had the backpack. The memory is fresh in my mind as if only yesterday it’d occurred. Although it isn’t as if it’d happened last year.
As a matter of fact, it was yesterday. I’m currently living in the past. A moment which was just last Friday before I got shot. Today is Friday. Today was spent at Jacobi beach surfing. The only major nuance now is that Lucas took a divergent path on our way to Jacobi from Fundy’s where he got the jaguar’s spit. Everything after Lucas and Ramze didn’t know Kosta, and Lucas drove us into the fog, is rewritten history.
The end of the cave is an opening to a rock wall shielded with moist moss and jungle vines that fall as basil green brush strokes on a vitric black canvas. I start climbing the slippery wall. Up I go with a prudent approach to get a hold onto every possible grip. A steady thirty-foot climb shouldn’t be too much of a delay. Halfway up, I bury my head inside a hole to take a breather.
I pull myself the rest of the way up by taking several of the vines around me and using them as rope to drag myself along the rocks. I’ve bloody calluses on my hands and a scraped knee once I reach the top, though I’ve seen worse on Ramze’s palms from regular lifting sessions.
Out of the cave, into the light, and nearing a jungle. Alas, I feel free. I begin breathing in all the tropics and dance my head around a couple of times with my eyes closed to make sure I can actually breathe. A great deal of plant life arises from out of the ground making it my problem now to pick which trail I should take. Rather, make.
Green. Nothing but greenery for my eyes to soak in. So much so that I feel sick in spite of the healthy rainforest laughing at my defrayal. Karma for hamming it up when Lucas told me I’ve no brother. I can’t manage to lose myself here. The risk of substantial blood loss Ramze faces every second I’m gone while in exposure to green would be one of my greatest regrets. It wouldn’t be enough for him to depart but leaving him behind in that state as he writhes in pain, his aversion to blood intensifying, will haunt me. Especially since I’m to blame. Next, I find myself running like an idiot across the unbalanced terrain with sweat failing to cool.
Birds evaporate into the sun, peaking in on me through the cracks of widespread tree palms. With that, the escape to an open road gets darker as I glide deeper into the rainforest. I’m being exposed to something I fear and that’s life taking away my chance at survival as night creeps in on day.
“Dreary minded specimen is I. No. I is maika`i.”
Maika’i means good in Hawaiian. Fish speaks it aloud whenever she’s stressed. I repeat the Hawaiian phrase out loud for several measures. One, to keep calm. Two, to stay positive. And three, to remember the friend who’d tell my sister we’d come here in the first place. As soon as Malia finds out my brother and I are missing she’ll rat us out to my sister. They’ll have a search party sent out to find us. Jade and Fish will be waiting to greet us back at Sebastian Municipal Airport, ecstatic at our arrival and relieved that we’re chipper and able–bodied. Right? Everything goes back to normal and I continue to live my life.
Wrong.
Boy am I wrong. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I almost killed my two friends in an outburst. I hope Lucas found settled land and is safe so that he may lead the locals to come and get us. Then it rang in my head. What Ramze had stated the second he saw the jaguar’s spit. Locals use the drug to guide unsuspecting tourists into the deliverance of the wild where they’ll remain lost. If I do find someone and fast, I must be careful with my choice of words and manage to communicate with a language I don’t speak in a friendly fashion.
There’s partial light available where most of the plants ahead are smudged images seen through my doped–up eyes. I generally have crystalline eyesight. I see a definite boundary between the wholly illuminated part of the rainforest and its true shadow where things aren’t meant to be discovered. The sun is out of sight but it’s daytime. I realize this when I think back to when we drove up the mountain. It was only seven in the morning.
It can’t be that many hours that’ve passed from then to now. I may’ve lost track of time but I’m certain night is beyond approach. I still have hours till dusk. It’s this place I’m in that’s making me believe in the day’s end. The rainforest is quite fixed in who it allows in this intimate depth. Only night crawlers could fend where I’m walking now.
I stop, nodding my head down and positioning my left wrist with the attached wristwatch towards my chest. It’s too dark to see the exact time but as I lift the watch to my left ear, I can’t hear it emitting the fine–grained click beetle sound of its regular two second ticking. The polychromatic watch changes colors at different temperatures and has an atmospheric pressure rating of 40 ATM so it can be submerged as far as 400 meters underwater. I’m not sure how the currently yellow watch broke.
A rumbling of magnolia leaves become a boy incarnate as I stand there with a kid rising out from a bush. “You’re the kid from the mountain,” I say gobsmacked, stumbling back and staring avidly at the boy. “The boy who saw me fall off the cliff. Here you stand before me but how exactly did you get here?”
The boy begins to gravitate further into the rainforest by shifting his direction opposite me and sprinting away. His flowing dark olive green greatcoat and Spanish bistre dress shirt ensemble with baggy Spanish bistre pants and beige over–the–knee boots are unmarked by the woodlands. The clothes start to camouflage themselves with the nature around them. His greatcoat mirroring a cape as he runs.
“Hey! Come back!” I shout.
I start chasing after this itinerant boy questioning why he’s in such an overcast, somber part of the area. Is it that I’m currently hooked on the drug and it still needs to leave my system? If so, why go after something that’s not even there? In coming to my senses, I am cognizant that this boy appeared flying in front of the pickup truck before I was ever even stabbed with the jaguar’s spit. Meaning one and one thing only…that boy’s real.