fallen1carus

I pull my canoe up to the shore and I get the feeling that I'm someone else. No one has ever been here before. I step from the muddy bank into the jungle. I brush against a plant there without knowing it. But as I keep walking, it's starting to change. I turn around. It's beautiful.

Tiny glistening fibers uncurl from the ground together. The leaves are like feathers made of spiderweb strands--they're so fine. It's happening so quickly I can barely process it. Small soft pink flowers like crabapple blossoms begin to appear and the leaves grow thicker. I have my hand on my pocket to reach for my camera, but by the time I have it out, the plant is already withering away. The frail flowers curl in on themselves and turn brown and decay. Eventually I can't even see it anymore... no one would ever know it had been there. And now it's gone. All within a few seconds.

In shock, I stand up and walk on through the jungle. It occurs to me that if I go any further, I'll lose my way back, and so I reach in my pocket for a small notepad and pen to draw a map. But to my surprise, I'm suddenly on a dirt road. I can see houses behind the trees. I hadn't expected any inhabitants here. The housing is poor, made mostly of mud. Instead of finding my notepad, I have pulled out my camera.

Suddenly I smell something awful. A road to my left gives me the explanation. In a large section of muddy street is a pile of dead human bodies in various states of decomposition. I see legs and torsos, bloated, muddy discolored skin. A child's head with eyes still open. It's awful.

I take a picture. Two men talking near the mass laugh at me. The smell is pervasive and suffocating. It's something I've never experienced before. I wonder how these people just live with it every day.

I am overcome with a wave of grief. These people are nameless, meaningless parts of a muddy junk heap. The dead child's eyes stare forward with no expression. Whose son was this? How could no one care enough to at least give him a proper burial? Something horrible must have happened.

I turn back on the road and come to a place where two women are talking outside. Somehow I know they speak Spanish, and I begin talking to them. "Hola. Puedo mirar a que estas haciendo?" Although it's not how I was taught, I catch myself using a Spanish accent... I make my s's like "th". One of the women is stirring a thick beige liquid in a large wooden bowl. Both of the women stare at me. They wonder where I am from, that I speak Spanish like this. The woman stirring says to me "De donde eres? Eres de Espana?" I laugh and say "No, soy de Wisconsin. En los Unidos Estados. Er... Estados Unidos." The two women start talking to me very quickly with words I don't understand. I interrupt them and say "Lo siento. Pero mi espanol no es muy bueno... pueden usar palabras mas pequenas?" The woman who was not stirring says "Well, if you don't mind, I can speak English." This is a relief, but at the same time I feel incompetent for not being able to understand them. I say to the woman stirring "Que haces?" She is using a knife to cut off discs of something hard, to put in the liquid. I'm fairly sure it's human bone. The other woman says to me "It's chocolate strawberry. She's a good cook. Taste it." I dip my finger in. It looks like pancake batter and tastes pretty bland.

Then I wake up.
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thanks to POLIST8 and a fucking functional ethernet cable *slaps forehead* my DSL is working. please recommend good music! especially something slow and melodic i can sing to... and no ani, please.

*talks on the phone and browses the internet at the SAME TIME*