A Jungle Full of White Roses

Scars

I am not sure how long I lay in the forest. My own mind has no recollection of the time passed on the forest floor. I may have lain on the floor for merely a night and have been discovered at daybreak by a search party, or I could have lain there for days since it was not unusual a shaman to be gone for a few days.

My first memory, a dreamlike realization, was just a crack of my eyes and seeing the interior of the cave. That was all, then they morphed into a labyrinth like structure with wriggling walls and fever took me again.

Several waking moments flooded with hazy images of the cave walls, soon it sunk into my mind that I was actually was in the cave, not dreaming about it.

Once again, my mind proved faulty. I was not sure how long I was lying in the cave on the block in the back. During the brief moments of sanity, at least recognition, I saw the brightness of day, then the darkness of night, then the brightness of day, making the time passing at least three days, but between each moment felt like hours or days, it could have been weeks.

My fourth time waking from feverish slumber was quite fortunate. During my time in the cave I was not aware if I was alone. My dreams and hallucinations controlled my mind, and much time was spent batting at stinging flies or fighting off heat waves or wondering through muggy stone caverns, by myself. My wakings were sudden, a completely different world inexplicably opening up in the heated darkness. It was a brief moment of coolness, then door would shut and I would be left to my misery again.

The first thing I was aware of was water. That was what I was dreaming, fighting off muggy water that kept covering my face. My eyes opened in a brief moment of clarity. The first thing I saw was the towel and felt its moisture, then the finger tips, pale and pink, white tipped nails instead of grey brown claws. In my line of vision they were huge, menacing worms. I jumped, not by much, it was more like a shake in the bed if anything. My lungs unintentionally let loose a soft whimper. Amber’s face came into view. She smiled and brushed a few beads of sweat from my brow. I watched her, unable to move my body. My body and mind seemed like two separate entities. Amber returned my hand to my side. I closed my eyes and drifted off again.

For the next few days, my control of my body gradually built up. My moments of sanity were longer and more composed, though most of the time I could not move my body. I could only watch my surroundings, sometimes only aware of vision and sound and the only feeling often was heat.

Shuka was present most of the time. I could see her in the meditation spot, yellow resins burning in the notches, and surrounded by artifacts. Some were ones she just made and were purifying for use in the village, others were older. One I recognized as a beautiful piece of white banded agate smoothed and polished. It was a gift from a suitor of Shuka’s, decades ago. She turned him down flat, but kept the stone, continually praying over it and purifying it from any ill wishes. Allegedly she left it in the freshwater stream for a decade to further purify it, leaving it silky smooth and always cold to the touch. Others were a malachite fern charm, the agate and long neck (Plesiosaur) toothed necklace, and her gourd, most likely filled with herbs and nuts. She prayed in mumbles, the tone that spirits hear best, in a curtain of smoke, snapping sticks and shredding flower petals and scattering them with closed eyes while the spirits moved them about in the smoke curtain. When she would open her eyes, she would read what the spirits said in the shredded flora after the smoke cleared.

I was watching Shuka through quivering eyelids as she performed one such a reading. My hearing was coming back, and I could hear footsteps on the stones outside the cave, too quick and too “clickish” to come from one of my people. I was enthralled by Shuka as she read through the thin tendrils of smoke. Her expression was foreboding, even more pessimistic than what she normally wears on her face. The thin tendrils whipped upwards and the drying petals and leaves were scattered again by Amber’s massive hoop skirt. Shuka grunted in Amber’s direction and turned her attention to the petals, and her eyes suddenly lit up at their new scattering.

Amber plopped down on the stone beside the stone altar, now my hospital bed. Her hands brushed off the new layer of sweat that had formed on my brow. I felt like I was raining sweat, my body was completely saturated in it. I felt cold for once, very cold. It was a sudden awareness, like my body let loose whatever strained grip it had. Now I was just falling, falling again, but landing in ice cold water. I sat up suddenly, bolted would be a better term. My stomached retched.

Amber screeched.

Shuka looked at the mess I succeeded in purging out from the pit of my stomach onto the barkskin sheet.

She returned to meditating.

“At least his fever broke,” she said to the spirits.

I had lain in the bed for the better part of two weeks Shuka said. My voice had left me, I do not know if I had not ability to talk in my condition, or could not find the effort to talk. I could not ask how long had I lain in the forest. She spoke it anyway. Two days, I lay in the forest for two days. My wounds were infected by then, common in the hot weather, and I had lost much blood. I have heard stories of warriors and farmers who came upon unexpected situations in which they were wounded and left to lay in the forest. Maggots form in the wounds and keep them clean, eating away the infection and rotting flesh, saving the wounded. I did not want to even think that the little grubs saved my life, and Shuka did not elaborate for me, thankfully. My stomach could purge no more.

My sanity, for the most part, had returned, though my strength had not. For the first day and a half of my returning consciousness, the only exertion I could give my body was to roll on my side and roll back onto my back. I could not roll over onto my stomach or sit up. My back was too stiff and sore for that. My joints were stiff as well, my hands finally becoming fully mobile two hours after I awoken.

Needless to say, there was a good side to all this. I had Amber at my side for a few goods hours everyday. I do not know if she had an escort or snuck out, and the difficulty of sneaking out if she did. I saw no other people next to her and Shuka, who was my constant companion. Amber came mid to late morning and stayed about two hours till night fall before she would leave. Shuka would occasionally escort her back to the village then return.

Amber spent most of her time with in the cave beside me. She did spend some time with Shuka, though I do not think Shuka appreciated Amber’s presence, not that Amber caused any problems, she did however express a great deal of curiosity is Shuka’s work. Shuka does not enjoy it when people look over her shoulder, which is one reason why she does not enjoy taking students.

By my third day, I was able to sit up in bed and maneuver in it, and sit at the edge of the bed, allowing Amber and Shuka to change my bandages, which were wrapped from just below my navel and worked its way across my pectoral muscles. The bandages then wrapped my left shoulder and numerous other bandages covered my left arm. The man in white made sure to “properly punish” my whiteness. I was unable to communicate to Shuka, not even able to squawk. Surprisingly, Shuka had no explanation for this. She picked herbs and the hips of some flower I have yet to encounter in my schooling, and Amber brewed a tea with the hodgepodge of plants under her directions. Sitting on my chest, Amber poured the lukewarm tea down my throat. The tea was bitter, and the only thing that came out of my mouth was the tea, not words. Shuka said I have to make everything difficult, and should consider becoming a patient, not a shaman.

My bandages had to be changed daily. My back, muscles, and bones ached with pain, and remaining infection. Some of the worse infection, Shuka had to lance with a metal needle. With the bandage shirt removed I could see some of the damage inflicted upon me. Cuts from the whip tips marked my chest. Some bore scabs and bruising. Most were pinkish ruts in my flesh. The damage to my chest was minimal.

The process of changing the bandages was painful if not just tedious. Often both Shuka and Amber would change my bandages. Shuka’s fingertips and claws were rough and sharp, but she was careful and well practiced in bandage removal. Amber tried to be careful, I would give her credit for that, but she pulled would pull to fast, or too slow, and occasionally bump sore spots. After each changing, I felt like the day of the whipping just happened. After the changing, a layer of stringent was added and flushed out, then added again and a thick smell poultice was added and the bandages were wrapped around me again.

As my body healed, my mind, it did not fair quite so well. I was no longer in the feverish hold of infection and blood loss, but the beating that took my voice, took something else, something just a strong and invisible, and indescribable as a voice. My sanity was now with me, it was there, but separate from the world around it. It was merely a watcher to the world, not a contributor. The cave was my world, my bed now my home. Amber and Shuka merely moved me about and pushed me around in a world I felt little attachment to. They lifted my limbs to change my bandages because I could not and sometimes I just separated from the pain I was not aware of what was needed to be done.

I did not eat much. I never felt hunger, even though I ate little in the past two weeks, mostly in the form of broth and coconut milk forced down my throat in small amounts. As they changed my bandages, I saw my ribs; they protruded, sticking out like the waves in a scallop shell.

My mind was not linked to my body anymore; instead it merely existed with in my body. There was no connection between the two anymore, my mind was not aware of any sensations from my body other than the pain from my back. Perhaps the pain was so intense, other feelings merely faded in its presence. My mind was not plagued with memories or worries. It was completely bare of them. I knew I was De’ban, I knew of my beating, of my affections of Amber, of her affections of me, my teachings of Shuka, the village down by the beach, but they were of no concern. I was concerned with the present, the small things happening then. I could stare at walls and watch them, watch a tree in the distance from the cave mouth for hours, just watch in fascination as a babe for his or her first day in the cradle. Only the sensation of pain would wake me from my stupor, and I would turn in the bed and find something else to watch.

Amber was greatly concerned for me. If Shuka was concerned, she did not show it. Emotions such as anger, sarcasm, pessimism, annoyance and such were easy for her to portray, but the portrayal of compassion and sadness, always shown as apathy on her face. She sat on the floor praying and purifying objects, counting out mediation beads. When the sensations of pain, or the dullness of life was not effecting me, I could feel Amber’s fingertips brushing my face, tracing my strips, my earlobes, my lips, and my jaw line. I think she was trying to wake me from my stupor, but she only encouraged it. I would fall asleep to and awake to her fingertips still on me.

Sometimes Shuka would lean me against the wall to make my blood circulate better. Amber would squat down beside me with a bowl of soup or porridge to offer me. I could not even turn my head to face the food. I do not know if I could smell it. She would keep offering me food until it went cold, and even then, she would keep offering it to me.

At some point, Shuka felt it was appropriate that I get fresh air and sunlight. I was taken outside to the clearing in front of the cave twice a day, for a few hours in morning before the sun rose to its apex, and a few hours before sunset. I as lay out on the packed clay ground, I had Amber’s lap for a pillow. She comforted my head as I slept. Shuka remained in the cave. Occasionally I would hear her mumble; perhaps it was merely just my many dreams, just mumbles about hopelessness.

One morning instead of bringing me out to the clearing, Amber led me to the stream. Shuka had left to village. There was a deep section where shamans before had dammed it to make a swimming/bathing section. Amber undressed me, removing my pants and the layer of bandages, before undressing herself, leaving herself with nothing more than her slip. She walked into the water and helped me down into, gently tugging on my white hand. Carefully she lowered me into the water, onto the sand.

It was just deep enough for me to sit down with the water coming about to my chest, albeit was I was leaning forward, so it was most likely much lower than that. My body shivered. Unlike the water of the waterfall and ocean, the water here was still very cool.

Amber sat on a flat stone behind me. Her toes poked into my lowered back, just below the edges of the scar. With her hands she scooped water up, splashing it onto my shoulders and upper back. Carefully she poured water from a clay pot over my head. After setting the pot aside, she exhaled heavily, but softly. Her hands cupped my shoulders, rubbing into the flesh, her thumbs pressing into my neck, her fingertips in my throat. She began to rub my shoulders, pressing tightly, rubbing until all the water was gone, then she would splash some more onto my shoulders and continue the process of cleaning my shoulders and head.

Her hands drifted down my shoulders into the water. They worked back up and paused on my shoulders. I felt the tip of her nose and lips brush the back of my head. She quickly pulled away when I did not react to her touch. With little enthusiasm in her touch, she began to rub my shoulders again. She paused, distracted. With her forefinger she traced the largest scar on my back, it spread from my left collarbone, down my back and to my right hip, a monster scar, about an inch wide at its apex. She traced to its full length, right down to my hip, where the whip left nothing but a yellowish, purple bruised. She felt the second largest scar, one that stretched from my right shoulder to just above my left hip, not nearly as big as the first scar, but more brutal, twice the width of the first one at its widest point. Her fingers outlined each scar on my back. Sometimes she would just feel each mark with her fingernail, other times, she would press with her fingertip, but each time she would trace the scare in its entirety. Her face would dip against the back of my head, and hot breath and even hotter tears would pour down my neck. Not one mark was ignored. Even those that dotted off in little scabs received a light touch.

Every moment her hand touched my skin, during the length of time her fingertips were on me, an image would burst in my head, only to die when she pulled away. Explosions of bright colors, of still images, materialized in my mind—the green-blue necks of long necks (plesiosaurs) silhouetted by an orange yellow sky, ducking into a black ocean for silver scaled fish, a red orange corpse flower tucked among the emerald green fronds of a fern, hummingbirds at the bright purple vine flowers, speckled corn colored sand, green spiral shells, white flowers hanging from spider webs, red rains with fat tear shaped drops…

Amber placed her head on my shoulder, allowing her full weight against my back. Her hands no longer roamed on my torn back, instead they rubbed my chest, sliding down to my caved in belly, lingering on the loose skin. Amber sighed into my ear. Her hands drifted lower, now hidden in the murkiness of the water.

It took little soothing to make my body release my manhood into the waters. Amber sucked in her breath, much like she does when she is nervous or prepared to step into trouble. I felt her body convulse on my shoulder like when she is such a mood or predicament. Her hand gripped my organ, while her other lightly cupped my testicles. She rolled her head into the nook between my jawbone and shoulder. Her locks rubbed against the skin underneath my jaw. This skin was the softest and one of the most sensitive areas on my body. The curls of her hair felt like a thousand sensual pinpricks. My nostrils flared, and once sluggish blood ran to my stripes and cheeks. My flaring nostrils were aware to the smell of the stream, an earthy, ferny smell, the scent of dying flowers, and the wispy smell of Amber’s sweat, a mixture of sea salt and dried flower petals, those of the wild rose family. I jerked in my seat, by found my body unwilling to move. My mind was more than willing to comply.

The one hand that gripped my testicles wormed between my armpit and side and gripped my chest. Amber’s hand gripped me and began work up and down my shaft aggressively. I felt the throbs work up my spine, exiting my nostrils in short bursts like hiccups. My chest seized and released rapidly. Amber bit the ridge of my ear, catching the tip of it, and refusing to let go. She tugged on it, gently calling to me in murmurs.

“Debaun,” she whispered. “Debaun?”

She pumped faster, her thumb pressing on the thick vein of my organ as she ascended my organ. “Debaun?’

She paused at the tip, and ran her finger along the slit and glands. “Debaun?”

She descended her hand again. “Debaun?”

I felt my body expanding, on the verge of explosion. The small, beige colored world in my mind, that hellish sanctuary began to shatter, piece by piece, it broke way, revealing a brighter colored, albeit more dangerous world through the fissures. Amber’s hand gripped my left side, her fingers pushing into the flesh, the flesh above my heart, throbbing, and beating erratically, threatening to burst out of my chest. Amber licked my neck, before take some skin into her mouth and began to suck, sucking the pale skin into a round, rash colored bruise.

My heart did not explode out of its chest when I felt it was going to do so. I exploded into the water, so forcefully, I could see the jets of my seed in the murky water.

“AMBER!” I cried into the jungle.

When Shuka returned to cave, she was more than startled to see me and Amber sitting around a small fire heating up a stew of coconut milk and oysters. She dropped her gourds, staffs, tools, and coconuts, then proceeded to call me a lazy bastard, and then checked me over and finally allowed me to eat for the first time in weeks. I ate the entire pot of stew, as well as two sea bass Shuka brought for herself to roast over the fire, and three mangoes. Shuka finally jumped in and told me to slow down before I ruptured my stomach, which mainly her slapping the fourth mango and the first papaya out of my hands and thumping me on the nose. My starving stomach (and myself) growled in response.

As Shuka cooked for herself, protesting much over the loss of her sea bass, Amber and I lay on my bed in the back of the cave. Amber lay on my stomach, still dressed in the slip, her head resting on my chest. I combed through her hair with my claw tips. It did not take much for me to lull her off into sleep. She needed it.

“You’ve been fooling around with that human girl,” Shuka stated, sipping fish stock. “Messing around like young lovers.”

“It’s what we are,” I answered matter-of-factly.

“That’s what has the man in white’s robe in a bundle,” she said. “It was him after all who did this to you.”

“He’s still around, isn’t he?” I asked.

“As big a bastard as ever,” Shuka said. “They can’t do anything about him; we all know he has something to with your disappearance. Most of the villagers still think you are missing and dead. Only a few people know you’re still alive. If we would have brought you back to the village, all hell would have broken loose. We fight the humans; more humans come to take over our village. The best revenge when dealing with humans is to trick them. They think they are such a wily, smart, powerful race.”

“He tried to force himself upon Amber,” I said softly. “I stopped him.”

Shuka spat into the fire. “Bleeding bastard.”

“So, was it worth it?” Shuka asked me.

I looked down at Amber’s sleeping form. “Yes.”

“Every scar.”

The problem with living on the mountain was fresh food. There was all matter of vegetables and fruits for me to eat, of course, but my body (as all my people do) craved blood and flesh. Though I did not have a bow (nor could I use a bow) to shoot some of the birds and large lizards that lived the canopy, I did have a length of string and home made hooks (courtesy of the hat pins from Amber’s bonnet, which she never wore now, instead her dress and bonnet hung in the cave and she wondered through the jungles with me in the slip). Using an empty nutshell as a bobber, and fat wood grubs as bait, I spent my rehabilitation fishing in the stream. Amber curled up along side me in the shade as I attempted to catch the day’s meal.

I caught one large freshwater fish and promptly beheaded, skinned, and gutted it before Amber, who turned white in the face. I tossed the viscera into the water to draw the other fish near and sliced the fillets of the fish into thin slices to eat raw as we waited for other fish. Amber turned the meat initially, wrinkling her nose like a small child. After eating nearly half the fish myself, she showed enough interest to try a sliver. She turned down my next offering with the same scrunched up face.

I caught a second fish later and pulled it in. Amber squealed and nearly fell into the water as the fish flopped around on the beach. I put a branch through its gills and placed it in the water. I impaled a fat wood grub on the hook and cast it out into the water. Amber swallowed her fear, and took the string from me and attempted to fish for what I assumed was her first time. The string suddenly grew taut and Amber pulled as hard as she could, but the string would not give. The next thing I saw was a pair of human feet and heard a loud splash as Amber fell into the water. I went after her, just missing grasping her feet. I tumbled into the water as well, first sliding onto the muddy back, the hitting the water in a tremendous splash. I broke the surface in a frothing, brown wave. I could see Amber splashing ridiculously out the corner of my eye, and scooped her up in one arm. Amber coughed up a similar brown colored froth. With Amber tucked under my one arm, I fished for the line, following it from the bobber. Quickly I stabbed my fingers into the gills of the fish and pulled it out the water, a good sized catfish, most likely lost as it swam for deeper waters at the beginning of the dry season. I waded towards shore and tossed both my catches onto the grassy beach, now quite torn up and soaked with water. The catfish, a good three foot long fish, flopped helplessly on the shore. I brushed Amber’s sodden bangs out of her face with hearty chuckles, finally cupping her face and pulling it towards mine. I pressed my snout tip against her forehead.

“I love you,” I said softly.

I pulled away, taking my hand away. Amber grabbed hold of my wrist and pulled my hand back to herself, pressing the palm, now scarred from the dagger of the man in white. She rubbed her cheek into my hand and repeated what I said in my own tongue.

“I love you,” she stated in human tongue. I repeated her words to her.

Only the fish flopped in disagreement.