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lipstickbisous · 5 years

Text

didn’t know it┃d.j.s.

this is for daniel.

summary: the weight of the world is pushing you down and i don’t know how to help.

warnings? very sad, lots of angst, lots of timeskips

request? no

tags? @splendidseavey @ijustreallylovethem @sfx-bands @tempus-ut-luceant @annabseavey @mellany1997 @faithinwdw @fallingforbesson @poutybrock

the bedroom was pitch black. you had been downstairs for the past hour because you were cleaning up the mess that had been made throughout the day. you stumbled into your shared bedroom with your boyfriend and carefully made your way across the darkness to your bed.

“daniel?” you whispered out to him to see if he was awake. there was no response so you let it go.

he hadn’t been the same lately. he was...off. you didn’t know why and that’s what bothered you the most. you couldn’t help the man you loved with all your heart. that’s what you were there for; you had one job and you couldn’t complete it.

it wasn’t just the getting high and getting drunk more often. that was when you first noticed it. then, he bleached his hair. it was definitely a look and you thought it was cute, but he was never as enthusiastic about anything.

you lied down, flattened your hair on your pillow, and pulled the blanket up to your chest. you wore nothing but a sports bra and a pair of daniel’s sweatpants. you sighed, trying your best to close your eyes and fall asleep.

but you couldn’t.

daniel lied next to your right with his back facing you. he was shirtless, clad in only his boxers. the blanket was up to his waist, but his back moved like he was shivering. you turned to your side and brought your hand up to the nape of his neck, knowing that he liked that spot rubbed. but before your fingertip touched his skin, you heard the silent sob.

you quickly sat up and threw the blanket off your body like it was an instinct. “dani?” you asked out. you flicked the switch on the lamp next to you so the left side of the room was illuminated.

he remained silent.

your hand gently touched his shoulder as you looked over his neck. he had his eyes closed, his lips barely parted, and multiple tears down his cheek. “daniel?” you asked again. he didn’t open his eyes; he just turned around and leaned into your open arms.

“love, what’s wrong?” he shook his head and pushed his head into your chest. you left the topic alone and bit down on your lip, resting your head on top of his and pulling him closer to you. his arms wrapped around your torso as you felt him cry.

»«

you wiped down the granite counter as the faint and gentle music played in the background. it was a fairly nice day; it wasn’t too cloudy, and the temperature would’ve been perfect for swimming. but you never went swimming without daniel, and he said he didn’t feel like it.

he didn’t really feel like doing anything anymore.

his light footsteps could be heard as you finished cleaning up the counter. “hey, babe,” you smiled, turning the music down. he softly smiled and slightly waved.

“hey,” he whispered back. his voice sounded hoarse, and it was then you realized the bags under his eyes. you walked around the island in your kitchen and to your boyfriend, stopping him in his tracks.

your hands reached his shoulders as he looked down at you. he cocked an eyebrow. “everything okay, (y/n)?” he lied.

you shook your head. “...no,” you clenched your teeth and licked your thumb before gently wiping at his cheek. there was a small tear stain painted on his skin. “you’re not okay.”

he furrowed his eyebrows and shook his head, pushing your hand away. “i’m fine, baby,” he chuckled, trying to get past you, but you stood in front of him again.

“no, you’re not,” you shook your head, biting your cheek. “why were you crying?”

daniel sighed and bit his lip. “it’s just stress,” he said. you knew it was a lie - you knew when your boyfriend was lying. “i’m working really hard.”

even though it was a lie, you knew it was all you were going to get out of him at the moment. you sighed and nodded, letting go of him. your fingers brushed against his cheek before laying a kiss on the skin.

»«

“i just don’t know what to do,” you spoke into the phone, continuing your semi-rant. “he’s not okay, it’s obvious. i’m stupid, i know my boyfriend pretty well. he’s been so upset lately, he’s been crying way more. he keeps waking up happy and then when he goes to the studio and comes home, he’s always in this negative mood.”

“well it’s obvious that the studio is where his attitude is changing,” keri sounded so wise as she spoke. she had no idea daniel was this upset. “are you sure you don’t want me to come over and help.”

“no,” you shook your head. “i want to be able to fix this myself.”

you could practically hear her purse her lips in sadness and nod. she sighed, “okay. just please make sure he’s okay. i don’t know what to tell you, daniel has always been a ray of sunshine. he’s always been the person who makes people happy, the person to brighten your day, the person to put a smile on your face.”

you nodded, closing your eyes and leaning back against the back of your couch.

“and i think now he really needs that person instead of being it.”

»«

daniel stumbled into your apartment, and the smell of alcohol was existent. he grunted as he slipped his shoes off and threw his keys on the counter. he scratched the back of his neck and slid his feet across the floor and to the living room, where you were sitting.

your eyes widened at his drunk state. “dani...” you whispered, setting the book that you had been reading down on the couch. the smell of his previous drinks made you cringe but, nevertheless, you stood up and helped him balance.

“heyy,” he dragged out, a lazy smile stuck on his face.

it pained you to know that the only way for your boy to be happy was by getting drunk. “daniel, you can’t keep doing this,” his eyebrows furrowed.

“what do you mean?” he slurred. despite how cute he was being, you stood your guard.

“i mean that you can’t keep getting drunk,” you repeated, brushing some of his bleached hair out of his face. “smoking weed and drinking. this isn’t good for you.”

his face fell. he was acting like a child, but it didn’t annoy you. when he was vulnerable like that, it was the only way to get through to him. “i know,” he whispered, his lips gently parting. your thumb swiped across his bottom lip as he sadly pouted.

“can we go to sleep?” he mumbled, wrapping his arms around your neck and pulling you in for a hug. you closed your eyes and gently nodded, placing your hand on his forearm and gently patted his clothed skin. he let go and followed you into your shared room.

»«

there were small whimpers next to you. they bled into your dream and stained the perfect image of you and daniel dancing in your living room.

you had been wearing a light red floral dress that complimented your well-colored skin tone. daniel wore a baby blue button-down and navy blue trousers. the theme of your dream seemed to take place in the 50′s - the music that played was definitely older and you could’ve sworn you saw a 1950 Jaguar XK120.

but the whimpers and whines were sounds of desperation; of someone who needed help. it painted a deadly filter on your dream, and the vision of you and your love was ruined.

your eyes shot open as you sat up in your bed, quickly panting from brought back to the real world so suddenly.

you wanted that.

that smile on his face. god you missed it. the small chuckles he let out. god you missed it. the light singing that left his lips to you and only you. god you missed it.

you wanted your happy daniel back. all you could do was dream about him anymore, but you didn’t want to dream him. you wanted to hold him.

after a few seconds of viewing the memories of your dream, you looked over to your right at daniel’s side of the bed. his back gently shook as his chest rose quickly up and down.

you noticed that, even in the dark, he had been staring up at the ceiling and letting out far too many tears that you would’ve preferred to wake up to. his pillow was soaked as his hands were slightly wet from rubbing his eyes. his lips were formed into a frown as they gently parted open.

the smell of alcohol was still there but it was faint. your eyebrows furrowed in worry. “daniel?” you said, harshly shaking him.

his eyes moved to yours; they were shiny and lifeless. he gulped, closing his lips before letting out a big sigh. he frowned again before letting out a loud sob, raising his hand to cover his mouth in an attempt to muffle at least some of the sound.

“shh,” you picked him up and held him in your arms. he wrapped his arms lazily around you, not showing as much strength as you did. “it’s okay. you’re okay.”

daniel shook his head as he leaned into your chest. “no,” he croaked out, his voice raspy and dry. “not okay.”

you pushed him away just a little bit so you could look into his eyes. “wh-what do you mean? what’s not okay? are you hurt? are you gonna be sick, a-are-” you stuttered on your words, not really knowing what to say before daniel let out another sob.

“i don’t wanna do this anymore.”

your eyes widened. you were scared. did he mean your relationship? he didn’t want you anymore? “w-what?”

“i can’t do this,” he realized what he said sounded like something else but he made no attempt to fix it.

“w-what’re you saying, dani?” your bottom lip quivered. “y-you’re breaking up with me?”

daniel shook his head and pushed himself off of you. “no, i’m definitely not breaking up with you,” he spoke with his glossy eyes. “but i can’t do this.”

“do what?”

“live.”

that broke you. it broke you into a million tiny little pieces. no - it broke you into two big pieces that were far to heavy to pick up and put back together again. you felt gravity fight against, it being stronger and pushing you down. your hands began to shake, and your heartbeat increased. your breaths became erratic and your thoughts seemed to have flown out your ear.

“daniel,” it was barely a whisper. you seemed to have lost all control and you desperately wanted to cry.

daniel could see how much this was hurting you. he’d been in so much pain and the last thing he wanted to do was put you through it. despite that, he continued.

“i thought i-i should tell you,” he whispered out, playing with a loose string on the blanket that covered him and looking down. “i-i was thinking about it the o-other day. there were s-some pills in the cabinet in the b-bathroom, there w-as a few blades from a broken razor in the trash. i was just thinking about i-it. i p-promise i wasn’t gonna do i-it.”

you nodded and brushed your fingers against his cheek. you shook your head. “i can’t have you leaving me,” you whispered. “especially not like that.”

daniel looked at you with bambi-like eyes. the blue wasn’t so calm and loving anymore; the oceans were raging, the waves were deadly, there were storms clouds hovering the water.

he nodded. “i-i know,” he whispered, leaning into your hand. “i couldn’t do that to you. that’s why i didn’t do it.”

once he said it, you broke out into a sob. you knew you would be notifying keri about this as soon as possible. you knew it could possibly ruin his career for the time being, but daniel needed help.

the boy you loved with all your heart wanted to kill himself.

and you didn’t know it.

a/n i had a rough time writing this but i’m glad i did.

#daniel seavey #why don't we #daniel seavey imagines #why don't we imagines #masterlist #list of imagines #jack avery #corbyn besson #jonah marais #zach herron #angst angst angst #did i say angst?#sorry for this #angst #don't change

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sibillascribbles08 · 6 years

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@shimospookyapple broke into my house and slapped me with this post so I wrote this at 12 hecking AM

Some AU where Cole’s still a performing arts student and Zane’s pretty biker boy who offers him a lift.

Cole couldn’t run fast enough, cursing the damn shoes he was stuck with. Damn this school. Damn the uniforms. Why would they require such formal wear and then send you across town for research material for a project?

Probably the same school that expected nothing but rich kids for students who could afford a private driver.

Hah.

Well, not like his father couldn’t. His quartet was famous in the city after all. But Cole refused to accept that kind of help. He didn’t want to be attending this school in the first place, but his father made it clear there was no other option.

So here he was, sprinting back before curfew passed because boy if his dad caught wind of him being in trouble for that he’d be as dead as a branch chucked in a wood chipper.

But damn these shoes.

He panted as he kept moving, trying his best to avoid anyone on the street. It was a shame there weren’t any good short cuts, or that he didn’t have the guts to ask a stranger for a lift.

This uniform was making him sweat faster too. Damn. Looks like it was going to be two showers in one day.

At least the street was clearer now as he got closer to the outskirts of town. Few people walking on the streets, although there were plenty of parked cars.

He tried to sprint faster with the open space but by now his lungs were burning. In the end, he had no choice but to slow to a stop as he desperately tried to catch his breath, though it sounded more like wheezing.

“Are you late for something?”

He jumped and turned his head to see where the voice came from. A biker was still perched on his bike, a few others in front and behind him. Cole studied his jacket, black, blue, white, and pink in a series of patterns he couldn’t decipher. Where were the sleeves? Not even an undershirt? Cole’s eyes lingered on his bare arms far too long before jerking down to his jeans which had no business being that snug on his thighs.

Christ, what was he doing? He looked back up at the guy’s face, not that he could see it with the helmet on.

“Yeah, you could say that.” Cole sputtered out. “So I better keep going.”

“Need a lift?”

He was about to break back into a sprint but froze.

“Huh?”

“Well you seem pretty worn out. Only seems fair to offer.” The guy swung his leg over his bike as he climbed off. Oh great, he was tall to boot.

“Not my fault the only material for my project is on the other side of town.” Cole said. “And no offense, but I’m not sure how I feel with taking a ride from–”

The words dried up on his tongue the instant the stranger took his helmet off. He already knew he had dark skin from his arms, but it was in stark contrast to his curly white hair. Then the bastard had to open his eyes, bright blue, fixed on him like a cat.

His heart tried to jump right out of his throat. “Uh…”

The stranger smiled at him, still walking closer. “You can call me Snake Jaguar.”

Cole snorted, trying not to laugh in case this guy was just as dangerous as he was gorgeous. “Can’t lie that’s a bit strange for a biker name.”

Snake Jaguar shrugged, helmet resting on his hip. “Chat with me long enough maybe I’ll tell you my real name.”

Was this flirting? Cole didn’t want to believe it, knowing how much of a disaster he looked like right now.

“Besides, you have yet to introduce yourself.”

“It’s C-Cole.” Why did he just say that?

“You’re a music student?” Snake Jaguar was studying his uniform.

“Dance, technically, though I can play the guitar.”

“Sounds nice.” He was suddenly even closer. “Sure you don’t want a ride?”

Cole could hear his heart hammering in his chest, swearing anyone else within a twenty foot radius would be able to as well. His mind was racing, trying to make sense of all this.

He should have thought a bit more, but his mouth started moving without permission. “I’m starting to wonder what kind of ride you’re talking about.”

The guy’s confident smirk dropped as his eyes went wide. Then he started laughing, covering his mouth with his hand.

“My apologies.” He kept laughing. “Killow has told me I sometimes come on too strong. I truly only intend to give you a lift to the school, however.” That smirk returned as he winked. “If you would like my number and perhaps a lunch invitation I wouldn’t object.”

Cole knew he wouldn’t either, despite logic screaming at him. God how much trouble would he be in with the school, with his dad?

He forced himself to look away from the guy’s eyes only to realize how much lower the sun was.

“Fuck!” He shouted. “Uh, look, if you’re cool with it a ride would be appreciated. I do not need my ass busted because I’m late.”

Snake Jaguar didn’t seem too phased. He shrugged again as he put his helmet back on and jumped on his bike, tapping the rear of the seat.

Cole hesitated but hopped on, wrapping his arms around the guy’s middle. He wasn’t as warm as Cole expected, but that was fine. It was just a quick ride.

Snake Jaguar revved up his bike, and Cole couldn’t help but admire how the rumble of the engine felt. He’d always dreamed of driving one of these, not that he ever got the chance.

“Hold on.” Snake Jaguar said before turning out of his parking spot and speeding down the road. Cole clung as tight as he could, praying none of the books flew out of his bag in the process, but he’d already strapped them in tight.

Bit by bit he relaxed, leaning back a bit. The wind felt nice in his hair, and his eyes fixed on the sky with the shifting colors.

For a brief moment he completely forgot he was even late.

All too soon, sadly, they reached the school. Only students and visitors were allowed on campus, so Snake Jaguar pulled up close to the iron gates. Cole wasn’t sure why the brick walls were necessary, but whatever.

He hopped off the bike, wanting to bolt for the gates but knew he should at least say thanks. He turned, Snake Jaguar already looming over him again.

He took his helmet off. “Shame it was such a short ride.”

“Right.” Cole said. “Thanks, by the way.” He wondered if he should say something else but turned to head inside.

He only got three steps in before Snake Jaguar followed. “Wait.”

Cole turned. “What–”

A hand on his shoulder gently pushed him against the brick wall before another pressed against it right next to his face. His breath caught in his throat. Those eyes were so close all of a sudden, looking right through him.

“You forgot my number.” Snake Jaguar’s posture relaxed as he snatched a pen out of Cole’s bag. He gently took his arm, moving up the sleeve of his jacket to write the numbers on his wrist. He just had to pray no one noticed on his way in.

“And you forgot the cab fare.”

He blinked and looked away from Snake Jaguar’s writing. “Huh?”

The guy didn’t respond at first as he capped the pen and put it back where he found it. Was he really expecting money for that? Cole only brought so much with him. Maybe it was just some strange elaborate mugging and Cole fell right for it. Damn it. He wasn’t rich. Mug some other kid.

The thoughts were spinning through his head so quick he almost didn’t notice the guy’s gentle grip on his face. Cole only got the chance to blink before he was tugged into a kiss.

What?

It was firm but short. Snake Jaguar let go of him, giving him a wink and a wave as he turned.

“Bye, Cole.” He chimed out as he headed for his bike and picked up his helmet. “Make sure to call me, I look forward to it.”

Cole couldn’t respond. His tongue almost felt numb. His heart was beating so fast he swore he was going to pass out.

If Snake Jaguar was laughing it was hard to hear over the engine of the bike as it came back to life. He gave one more wave before driving off down the street.

Did that actually happen?

Cole looked at his arm to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating. There it was, all ten digits, with something else written below it.

Zane.

Was that his name? His real name? Cole whispered it to himself. It sounded nice.

His thoughts were interrupted by the five minute warning bell. His soft whispering turned to noisy cursing once more as he opened the gate and ran inside.

Cole should at least text him right? Zane saved his butt from three different lectures after all. The least he could do was treat him to lunch.

Yeah, that was it. Some lunch.

The sensation of Zane kissing him drifted back into his head and he picked up the pace.

He was so screwed.

#ninjago #scribbly fics #glaciershipping #snakeglaciershipping #HAH #instead of running away to be a ninja Cole runs off to join a biker gang #or something #is Zane still an android?#mmmmmaybe

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kierst · 2 years

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@ dream bags jaguar shoes w/ symbol soup and lilo 01/27/23

photos by hannah mason

#kierst #tour #dream bags jaguar shoes #hannah mason

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theradioghost · 6 years

Text

A Dream

There was a moment of panic that I went through when I finally got to the gate, where I dug into the deep pocket of my jacket and discovered that the key wasn’t there. For a minute, I scrabbled through my pockets desperately, my breath catching in my throat, terrified that this had all been for nothing, that I would lose my resolve, before I remembered that I had strung it on a chain around my neck for safekeeping.

I took a moment to berate myself for forgetting, and then another moment to turn back and make sure that my car was properly hidden, pulled off to the side of the ragged dirt road and a little ways into the bushes. If I didn’t come back this way, if the green of vines and creepers and long grass eventually grew up to tangle around it, no one would notice.

I was procrastinating, I knew that, but that didn’t exactly make it easier to turn again, to face the gates. They were high, wrought-iron so intricate that it looked like a living thing until you touched it and felt cold metal. Black branches and vines and leaves and even flowers twined together, asymmetrically, in their center a deceptively small lock. On either side, the fence stretched out and promptly vanished into the thick undergrowth, with no sign of where it might or might not have ended.

There was nothing else to do except turn around and run away, and despite everything, I wasn’t going to do that. I pulled at the chain around my neck, freeing the key, and with a deep breath, I fit it into place. Years of disuse hadn’t filled the lock with rust and dirt, or at least not so much that the key didn’t slide in with a self-satisfied click.

I didn’t even touch the gates. Some combination of wind and weight and gravity yanked the key out of my hand as they slid open with a shriek like a dying animal. With a muttered expletive I retrieved the key, and after a moment’s consideration, I pushed the wailing gates back into their original position and locked them again from the other side.

Beyond the gate, the path wound its way into the thick forest. It was unpaved, and my feet crunched on dirt and small stones as I walked deeper, further away from the gate and my car. On either side of me, the wall of greenery was nearly impenetrable, and after only a minute or two of walking it was knitted together into a solid ceiling not far above the narrow path. Somehow, a small amount of golden light filtered down through the stories of foliage overhead, and gave me just enough light to see by.

It was impossible to say how long I walked — five minutes, an hour. What matters is that at the end of that time the tunnel of green suddenly fell away, and I was standing at the bottom of a sloping hill.

What was in front of me had clearly once been a garden. I could see the faint echoes of the shapes of flowerbeds and vegetable plots whose former inhabitants had long ago either died away or broken free of their intended rows. Gentle terraces had been cut into the hill to create flat beds, now crumbling back into a natural slope as roots and weather tugged at them.

At the end of the broad stone steps that wound their way through the garden, there was a set of wooden steps, and then a porch. The porch was the front of what you could only call a house, although that wasn’t quite right. It was house-shaped, for sure, with proud dark Victorian angles and filigree, deep-shadowed windows and its front porch with the remnants of a swing rotting off to one side. But appearances can be deceiving. A house is lived in, and this building clearly hadn’t been lived in for a long time.

I hadn’t expected to be so struck by its sudden emergence from the woods, and so I stood there for a long moment, staring up at the ruin that loomed above me like a dragon. I had the distinct feeling that if I went any closer, it would swallow me whole.

But I had come this far.

There was no key to open the front door. The gate and the endless pathway would have been sufficient to deter just about any intruder, at least until me. So when I reached the front porch, I simply placed my hand on the cold, pitted brass of the handle, released my breath, and opened the door.

The moment I stepped inside, I found myself in another forest. Even expecting it, it took a second for the illusion to resolve into its reality - an entrance hall, with hooks and stands for coats and hats that had been cunningly and delicately worked in the shapes of tree-trunks, sprouting from the floor and spreading out over the ceiling in a mural of leaves that were difficult now to make out, under a layer of dust and shadows. Carved branches interlaced over my head, and the space seemed so real that I thought I caught the trill of birdsong just at the edge of my hearing.

Under closer inspection, these trees didn’t match the ones I’d walked under outside. They were tropical, alien. When I peered up at the ceiling, I could just make out the shapes that hid amongst the painted foliage - a crouching jaguar, a flock of bright parrots, a bright-eyed monkey. Beneath my feet, a thick carpet had once been a deep blue.

It was magnificent. A beautiful and inexplicable work of art. But it wasn’t what I’d come all this way for, so once I had looked, I gently removed my boots, placed them into one of the shoe racks, and continued on my way.

The entrance opened out into a dining room that was just as much a work of art as the first. One side was lined with tall, pointed stained-glass windows, through which rode knights in pursuit of dragons and maidens astride fleet unicorns. The table was thick, dark-stained oak, and a perfect circle, although there was only one chair pulled up to it. Bare, gray brick walls had been hung with rugs. Exiting the jungle, I had entered a castle.

I found my throat closing with grief as I stepped past the table, drawing one finger through the thick layer of dust that topped it, exposing the shine of the wood beneath. But I kept walking.

It would be impossible to describe the rooms beyond that. Tiled rectangular courtyards with reflecting pools filled with geometric designs under stagnant water. A blue-walled room with furniture in the shapes of coral reefs, their edges unexpectedly soft to the touch instead of rough stone. A room with no windows where every surface, not just the ceiling as in so many childrens’ bedrooms across the world, was covered in tiny glow-in-the-dark stars.

After four or five rooms, it was obvious enough that the house as I had seen it from the outside couldn’t have held all of these wonders. I passed through a lot more than four or five rooms.

It only took me a couple of hours to reach the library — which felt wrong, I thought, but then again, I’d started doing a few sports in college and had always kept in good shape since then. At any rate, I found it — a massive, open room, with glass panes in the ceiling above, two floors of shelving, the kind of great rolling ladders that every little kid dreams of riding down the shelf. A heartbreaking faint smell of mildew hung in the air.

I entered through a door on the second floor and walked slowly down a spiraling staircase at one far end, watching dust flicker in and out of sight in the beams of golden light that drifted down from the ceiling. You could have fit the entire outside of the house in this room; instead the floor was filled with tables and lecterns and large overstuffed chairs, all of them covered in loose sheets of paper and books still left open. Unable to hold my curiosity, I picked one up, scanning the abandoned page —

One, two! One, two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back.

I immediately set the book down again, a sick coil of shame filling my gut. After that I didn’t want to stay in the library, but as I reached the giant, cold fireplace at the far end, I realized there was no further to go, no door to take; I had entered by the only door.

But that wasn’t right. A house like this, there are always secrets. Things only the family would know.

It took me a while to find it, hidden in the massive stones of the fireplace, and all the while I felt like every book in that library was a pair of eyes fixed on my back. But finally my questing hand found a spot that gave way, and I pushed, and heard a thud. When I looked up again, the back of the fireplace had vanished, revealing another spiral staircase. This one I could not see the end to. I squared my shoulders and started to climb.

About four hours into my ascent, I took a break, grateful for my foresight in having hauled a bag of water and snacks all this way. My legs ached so much that I couldn’t stop them quivering, but I couldn’t rest. Not yet. Although it had been fairly early morning when I left my car by the road, I could see through the occasional windows that the light was going thin and gold; I had at most another hour or two before I’d have to make serious camp for the night and do some sleeping.

So, once I’d massaged my calves a bit and finished off my second granola bar, I resumed my climb up the tower. It was obvious that this was a tower, at this point; the windows were too thin and too high to see into, but they were on all sides of the narrow cylinder as I ascended. But I was high, impossibly high, having walked for so many hours. Much too high for an old house in the woods. Then, the door.

The gratitude that flooded me at the sight of an end to stairs dissipated as soon as I pushed it open and saw what was on the other side. It was the top of the tower, alright. Glass walls like the top room of a lighthouse surrounded me, looking out on an endless expanse of green forest. At this impossible height, I should have been able to see the road I’d come in on, the little town with the motel where I’d stayed overnight and the diner with the awful cheesecake, the highway beyond that led off to bigger towns and then cities where there were schools and jobs and lives.

All of these things had vanished from this panorama. It made sense, somehow. They all felt so impossibly far away.

Around me, on the floor, lay the remnants of a child’s fort. A collection of pillows with a blanket collapsed on top of them, a spray of books, a portable battery-powered camping lantern. And in the middle —

I bent down and picked it up, turning it over it my hands. It was a little wooden recorder, hand-carved. Of course it was; I hadn’t passed a single thing on my way here that had the look of having been purchased. The toys at my feet, the furniture and the paintings and the stairs — all had been clearly handmade, made in impossible detail and with boundless imagination. Even the books were all bound in matching covers

That was an act of love, I thought. An act of such profound, shattering love that terror gripped my heart like a brutal hand when I thought about it. This entire house, dead and abandoned as it was, was still undeniably full of someone’s world-swallowing love for the child who had once played this recorder.

That night I slept there, far above the forest. I made use of the blankets and pillows that had been left there so long ago, but I didn’t touch the toys, or the scattered crayons and their box, or the drawings splayed out across the floor. My sleep was deep and dreamless, and in the morning, when the rising sun woke me up, I picked up my bag, and turned my focus to the other door.

The exit from the tower garret was a trapdoor, hidden in the floor. I pulled hard on the dirty iron ring handle, expecting it to be heavy, and fell over backwards when it turned out to be easy enough to lift. Muttering a few curses, I got up, and peered down.

Blackness. No stairs in sight.

So without hesitation, I jumped.

I’d been to a water park once with some friends, and they’d talked me into waiting in the excruciating line to use one of the gigantic waterslides there. It was a behemoth, stories tall, with a massive mouth like the end of an upside-down tuba. I’d gotten to the top, they’d hosed me down and handed me an inner tube, and then sent me on my way down. Inside of the closed tube of the slide, rushing uncontrollably down in a stream of water, with the bright summer sun illuminating the translucent red of the tunnel walls from behind, it had felt like being swallowed and then eventually regurgitated by some gigantic creature.

The slide in the tower was not quite like that. There was no water and no inner tube, obviously, and significantly less light. It was much twistier, and far, far longer. But by far the biggest difference was that even in the darkness, the only sound the rushing of my clothes against the smooth tunnel floor, I didn’t feel swallowed. I felt embraced.

In the end, I was deposited unceremoniously into a heap of pillows at the bottom of the chute. Once I had disentangled myself and caught my breath, I surveyed my surroundings. This room was made in the image of a crystal cave, the walls covered with strange protuberances from which spikes and globes of gemstones shone. After a moment’s reflection, I dug the flashlight out of my bag, and then continued on my way.

I found the rhythm of it, my second day in the house; the ways through rooms shaped like mazes, the way to jump from beam to beam underneath the arched ceilings of flooded vaults. My eyes grew used to picking out the signs of puzzles, of secret passageways that led me further. It was a specific logic - the work of a parent, devising games for their child. I had to force myself back into old ways of thinking, remember secrets and paths I’d long ago forgotten.

As the day grew late, it became obvious that the house was beginning to move underground this time, which was good. It meant I was getting close. Down here, this far in, the rooms grew more natural, more abstract; there was little rococo architecture, no halls of funhouse mirrors, no cabinets of wonders. Instead there were kitchens hewn from a single piece of stone, giant fungi that glowed like lamps and smelled softly of lemon, furniture of tree roots and pure gold. I slept in a secret nook of a bedroom, hidden high up the ceiling of a giant mural-painted wall, accessible only by rope ladder. On the third day I delved deeper yet, swapping out the batteries in my flashlight, wondering how much time I had left, whether this was all too late anyway.

And then, as though there had been no warning, the door.

I looked up at it. It was a big door, very big. There may have been designs on it, but they were not on a scale that my vision could encompass.

There was a much, much smaller door set into the bottom of it.

I’m ashamed to say that even then I hesitated. It had brought things back, this odyssey through the house. Guilt and fear and even long-buried anger that I was shocked to find still smoldered inside of me, deep beneath the leaf litter of my heart, when I’d thought time and distance had extinguished it.

But I thought of the little recorder, and what I owed, and I opened the door.

Big would not describe the room beyond. Cavernous would come closer, if not for the fact that this room was a marked departure from the cave-like section of the house just behind me. Instead I seemed to have stepped into some impossible Gothic cathedral, a vaulted ceiling vanishing into the dusk above, hewn stone pillars like redwood trunks reaching down to the floor below. The walls were lined with stained glass, much like the dining room far above, but behind these there was no illuminating sun - only soil and roots and worms and darkness beyond the dulled colors. Two massive staircases swept out from either side of where I stood, arching delicately down to the floor.

I couldn’t see the floor. Not because it was as distant as the ceiling, but because it was covered with the sleeping form of an indescribable leviathan. It wound through and around the pillars, in places up the walls, too huge even for this massive space, and its breath moved like the heaving of an ocean. The beast was the size of a house — was the size of this house, was this house, I knew that, or at least its architect, but what difference was there?

When the echo of the door opening rang out across the room, down below a single eye slid open, locked directly onto mine.

I felt my breath catch in my throat.

I had come this far.

“It’s me,” I said, at last. “I’m so sorry. It’s me. I’ve come home."

#my posts #my writing

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thetravellingvagrant · 5 years

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Day(s) 5/6 - Iquitos-San Rafael- Iquitos again - In Which I Live Out My Genuine Nightmares

This is going to be a very special (and very long) double entry, because a) the following two days were largely spent doing the same thing b) I am so far behind with this blog that cramming two entries into one seems like perhaps the only way I will ever be able to catch up and c) I didn't really sleep enough to properly separate the two days, anyway, so functionally, they really do count as one for me.

I remember being in no more than primary six or seven, when a man came to speak to our class about the Amazon rainforest. I don't remember who he was or why having a guest speaker tell us about the jungle was particularly necessary, but I do remember in vivid detail the things he told me. More specifically, I remember the things he told me about all the things that could - and most likely would - kill, maim or otherwise damage me, should I ever be fool enough go. Poison tree frogs that can kill you with a single touch, spiders as big as dinner plates that'll snatch your toes right off you, jaguars, scorpions, snakes, wasps, venomous ants, millipedes and even trees; the list went on seemingly forever and I distinctly remember, even at that young age thinking, very firmly to myself “fuuuuuck that.” - except probably a bit higher pitched. More recently, I remember being in Budapest zoo (an excursion featured in this very blog) and there being a very big sign at the entrance to their Amazonia exhibit, describing the area as simply “the green hell”, for much the same reasons. Both of these things have stuck with me for more than twenty and more than five years respectively and, to be honest, did combine mentally to rather put me off ever going to such a horrible, godless locale. It seemed almost unreal, almost like a fever dream, then (Not least of all, because I actually was running a fever, still being fucked into a paste as I was, by my jungle flu.), as I loaded my bags into the back of a tiny little tuktuk motor-taxi, to be whisked away to this nightmarish place, which I swore I would never visit, for actuals and reals.

Before that though, I had a tuktuk to ride. These little things are basically the only way to get around Iquitos, other than a truly abysmal bus service, or just owning a bike; cars are essentially a non-entity here, being very difficult to actually transport over from other citites as they are, as Iquitos is entirely inaccessible by road. They're also quite fun – the tuktuk taxis, that is- I have to be honest, however not-in-keeping with the tone of this blog that statement is. Riding one is sort of like being the terrified non-player-character passenger in a Grand Theft Auto taxi driving side-mission, as your driver weaves carelessly through a sea of other motorcabs, paying no heed whatsoever to the rules of the road or the safety of pedestrians, hoping against hope that they don't lose interest in the task at hand and drive you off the edge of a cliff, or into a deserted field at night, to shoot you in the head with an AR-15 and take all your money.

All too soon though, we were ejected from our mental little death-wagon and ushered into a sort of garage, that appeared to be serving as the headquarters of Maniti Expeditions; the company that was due to take us jungle-side.

We took a seat and waited while the other members of our tour filed in. As it turned out, we were rather a small group. We were joined by a family of Pakistani-Americans from New Jersey, a Portuguese man, who I think was called Pedro, who was nice, though verging dangerously on the pretentious, and, of course – because apparently there is a God, but unfortunately he's just a bastard – the Indian couple from the night before. Of course they were there. Of course they were. Also, it turned out they were actually American, so that made my accidental racism one degree worse than it had even been before. Whizzer.

After a brief interlude wherein a man, whom I did not realise had just wandered in off the street, handed me a torch - which I assumed was just an extra they gave you as part of the tour, but after some time and a lot of him refusing to let me hand it back to him, realised he was trying to sell me, for a frankly ludicrous price, resulting in me having to physically force the thing back into his hands while shouting “no gracias” as politely, yet firmly as I could - we were loaded on to a shitty, rickety old bus and sent towards Bellavista Naney port with our new guide. His name was Alfredo.

Alfredo was, as you might expect a jungle tour guide to be, an interesting chap. He was a short, sturdy, sixty-five year old man, sporting a Peruvian national football shirt, a pair of quite small shorts with sailboats printed on them, a camouflage backpack with a Cannibal Corpse patch poorly sewed onto it and one hell of a coke-nail. He told us, also, not long after we had met that he had been doing Ayahuasca, that traditional Peruvian mind-fuck broth for the last fifty years or so of his life. This was our expert. This was the only barrier between ourselves and definitely dying at the hands of a cruel and dangerous jungle. A junkie death-metal-head. Great. (though, to be totally fair to Alfredo, he was only about 20% as fucking weird and unreliable as this description makes him out to be. In reality, he was very knowledgeable, friendly and really, clearly cared a lot about making sure we were all safe and happy. He was both a top lad and a ruddy good bloke)

We were rushed through Bellavista port by Alfredo, stopping only briefly to marvel at the culinary delights the small port had to offer

Like these buckets full of fucking grubs, for some reason. Apparently they taste just like butter

and before we knew it, we were boarding a small, rickety boat bound for jungletown in the least official looking dock I had ever been to.

Pictured: Not a dock

Just as I was going to take my seat, something pale darted across the corner of my eye. I quickly spun to face the movement and there it was, sitting, bold as brass, right next to where I was about to park my – frankly 10/10 – arse was a massive, white spider, about the size of the palm of my hand, staring up at me, human blood dripping from its fangs, hissing threats in some esoteric spider-language. Fortunately, I was too fucked with the flu to have any energy left to make a fool of myself by panicking and so, instead, quietly just moved down the boat, screaming myself hoarse inside. Alfredo, then noticing the spider himself, then scooped the horrible thing into his hands and very softly deposited it off the side of the boat as if it was nothing, thereby tacitly making a total bitch of me for being so scared of it. Thanks Alfredo. Prick. Fortunately, though that seemed to be the only spider that had snuck on board, as I remained unbothered by any of its kin for the duration of our (very long) boat-ride up the Amazon river.

The boat ride was, despite my malady and my intrinsic fear of ever being submerged in the Amazon river, for any amount of time and for any purpose, fairly incredible. The river is bizarrely fascinating to be on, even when nothing of any interest is happening, and once I had gotten over my terrible, terrible fear of the boat capsizing, or a piranha flying out of the water and biting my face, I settled in to really quite enjoying myself. Alfredo's talk about the river, much like the thing itself, remained interesting, even at points when he was pretty much just babbling a load of shit about nothing, and a conversation with the father of the Pakistani-American family (who was every inch the spitting image of a brown Todd, from The Last Man On Earth) revealed that he, too, was something of an absolute delight. Perhaps this wouldn't be so bad, after all.

We eventually pulled in to San Rafael, the little community adjacent to our lodge and, after veeeeery fucking carefully removing myself from the boat, we walked for about ten minutes through very nearly actual proper jungle

Aaaaaah!

seeing some wild tamarins on the way and everything (which are apparently very rare to spot in the wild, so that was neat). By this point though, the heat was almost unbearable and lugging around my heavy backpack with a swirling vortex of fluey malaise sucking me ever deeper into its terrible maw was really starting to wipe me out. Before long, though, we arrived at the lodge, which was really quite nice, though perhaps a little too similar to the Others' village in Lost, for me to be totally comfortable in.

Delightful, yet sinister, like if Ted Bundy could make balloon animals

I quickly scooted off to dump my bag in our... fairly modest room

Hey, cool, I’m definitely going to die here.

before, with little to no chance for me to rest, being dragged straight back out for a short taster walk, into the actual and for reals jungle.

The walk was definitely an interesting, if very tiring excursion, especially for a gross, snotty flu-man, which I very much was. I think, though that it was largely the novelty of being in a new biome that really did the bulk of holding my attention, as, presumably due to the lovely, but very loud and panicky American family's constant hoots of fear, we didn't see a huge amount in the way of wildlife. Especially not anything that might bite, poison or constrict you. Still, though, it was quietly quite comforting to not be the most scared person there. Grow up, Americans. God.

Around half an hour later and fifteen pounds heavier in mud caked to the bottom of my shoe and trousers, we returned to the lodge for a surprisingly nice lunch of mashed potato and beef. I couldn't really enjoy it, however, as my sinuses were full beyond bursting and the room was spinning horribly around me, as I ate. We were given, mercifully, around an hour to relax before the next part of our tour, which I spent soundly asleep, not even caring that spiders could and probably would be crawling over my exhausted, broken body as I did.

The nap turned out to be a good choice. I awoke feeling slightly more human, albeit by the scantiest margin possible. It wouldn't have mattered if I was literally dying though- I'd still have gone on the next bit of the tour; was I fuck missing a trip to Monkey Island, under any circumstances.

We boarded the boat once more; one tour member lighter - in the form of Pedro who had decided to go off with another, different guide to camp in the jungle for a night, though with the new addition of Karl, another American man and weird lookalike of his namesake Karl Pilkington, arriving late - and were away to Monkey Island. Fuck yes we were away to Monkey Island.

Monkey Island, as its name suggests is a rehabilitation centre for monkeys who were rescued from the black market's pet trade, and that's all brilliant and everything, but jesus christ, it was just a little patch of jungle with all friendly woolly monkeys running around and, jumping through trees and tumbling around and playing and coming up to you to hold your hand or climb onto your shoulders and it was everything I have ever wanted and I don't expect I will feel joy like I did while being there, ever again. Or any sort of joy at all, to be honest.

L O O K A T T H E M

It was so good that for around the hour and a half we were there, I basically forgot I had the flu. That's how good it was; it was good enough to override my body slowly shutting down through fatigue and illness, like a lemsip for the soul. It was genuinely fantastic; the only thing that marred the experience, even slightly was the American family being a bit too loud and overbearing, pushing to the front of every experience, and so taking all of the monkeys' precious attentions for themselves, for the vast majority of the time. I suppose it can be forgiven of people for being a little over-excited about a god damned island full of monkeys though, so for once, I will bare no grudge against them. But let it me known, if anyone physically comes between me and a monkey, ever again, I will cut a bitch.

Way, way too fucking soon, though, we were pulled away from Monkey Island, in much the way its inhabitants were pulled away from the still-warm corpses of their mothers by poachers (...too dark?) and loaded back onto the boat.

We returned to San Rafael and, by this point, a combination of the heat, the flu and not being allowed to spend literally forever on Monkey Island in a perpetual state of utter bliss had ruined me. I badly needed a nap, again, for fear that if I did not take one, I might actually die, but alas, I was not to be afforded such a simple pleasure. Alfredo informed us, once we were back on land, that we'd be heading out into the jungle again, for an hour long night-walk to look for spiders and shit. I couldn't think of a more terrifying sentence for him to say, to be honest, but I decided that was probably actually quite unlikely that I was actually going to die and it would be quite an experience to miss out on if I just spent the time asleep in the relative comfort of my room, and so, like the solider I am, I nutted up and just did it.

I've genuinely had nightmares about being stuck in the jungle at night. If you'd have asked me a week ago to describe my top most terrifying real-world scenarios I'd never want to be in, that probably would have ranked in the top three. Actually experiencing it, however, really wasn't all that bad. I don't know if my mind and body were just too mangled to process exactly what was happening to me (I do remember spending a lot of the time, almost asleep on my feet, not fully knowing where I was, but being quite convinced that I was in a forest in Scotland), or if the lovely, but loud American family had just spooked all the dangerous animals in a fifty mile radius away with their unforgivably loud hollers and yelps, but I didn't find myself feeling at all anxious, or frightened, or...anything, really. It was just something that was happening to me before I could sleep.

youtube

Although in retrospect, it looks fucking terrifying

The walk progressed slowly, with little of interest being spotted, other than a couple of (admittedly pretty sick) stick insects and apparently an opossum (although I didn't see it, myself) and seemed to be winding down without incident. Then, ten minutes or so from camp, Sam's left leg stated burning. Panicking, she told Alfredo what was happening, who traipsed back to her, lifted her trouser-leg and saw, to Sam's horror, but his own light amusement that a not insignificant amount of fire-ants were swarming around her calf. Apparently she had stomped her little stompy feet through their nest and was now paying the price for her murderous hubris. Alfredo swatted the ants away as best he could and we continued walking (or in Sam's case, badly limping) back to the camp.

Once back, we ducked back into our bungalow to make sure neither of us had any more of the nasty little fuckers on us, which thankfully, we did not, and everything was great,forever. The End.

Nah, just kidding; we had an entire fucking colony milling around our socks and lower trousers. We very quickly and with very very little dignity, stripped our khakis off in a bit more of a girlish panic than I'd honestly like to admit, shook the ants free from the trousers, outside and just straight up binned the socks like the unwearable garbage they now were. When we were absolutely sure that we now ant-free (which took so much more time and energy than my body could realistically spare), we headed to dinner; another fairly nice affair full of chicken legs and mashed potato, so I'm told, at least. Genuinely, I don't know, I was so far beyond physically okay that the entire thing really was a bit of a blur for me. I do remember being given a pill by the Indian couple, which they claimed was a combination of painkillers and muscle relaxant and which knocked me out almost as soon as I returned to our room. At least I was too sick to care about spending a night in the jungle- the part of the trip I was most worried about, previously – so uh. Every cloud and all that, I guess. Also, the muscle relaxant didn't even one, as I had worried it might, make me piss the bed. So that's two silver linings, which honestly, is pretty good going, as far as silver linings are concerned.

I was up several times in the night. The jungle is (shockingly) pitch black during the evening and, much like the night before, I found myself awaking with a jolt every two hours or so, to empty my bladder and perform a full and thorough inspection of my bed, using the torch on my phone, to make sure no errant tarantulas had decided to become my erstwhile bedfellows. They hadn't, to be fair, but that doesn't make me hate them any less. Furry, spindly little pricks.

Despite this, I did sleep better than I had the previous night (albeit again, only by the slimmest of margins) and actually found myself, for once, being woken up by my alarm, rather than just being awake several hours before it was due to go off, anyway. Take that, alarm.

Our morning plan was to take the boat out once more, to watch the sun rise over the Amazon and then around to go river-dolphin spotting, which, to be fair, did sound appallingly lovely. The sunrise was mostly obscured by clouds, so wasn't perhaps as impressive as it could have been, though still managed to remain fairly bloody impressive

Neat, I guess.

and what the clouds took away from the gravity of the experience, Alfredo more than added back in by uttering the cryptic, slightly frightening and just very, very metal line of “...His eye opens” as the sun just began to peek over the horizon

BEHOLD!

By the time we had begun dolphin spotting, I had once again grown weary and while I was definitely thoroughly enjoying the experience, and managed, at points, to get incredibly close and take some pretty okayish videos of the ugly, pink little jerks

youtube

I have no way of editing videos out here, but if you wait until around the 30 second mark, you should see a big splashy boy

I was definitely not enjoying my nostrils turning into a snot-faucet and my head being slowly crushed into a singularity from the inside, so by the time we packed it all in and returned home, I was super glad to be doing so, despite feeling a little guilty for thinking like this. To be honest though, as amazing as this experience was (and indeed all the experiences the rainforest had to offer thus far – save for fire-ants, which can go fuck themselves), it was hard for me to really, properly enjoy them, as each time I got close to feeling like I was, the realisation that I am a comparatively rich, white tourist who paid for this experience set in, hard, and, in what has to be the most first-world-problemy way possible, did rather make the entire thing seem a bit...plastic. Not the monkeys though; they were legit.

Once home, we took a quick break; not long enough for a recovery nap, but just about long enough to relax in a hammock for a while

So relaxed...

before being ushered out onto the river by Alfredo once more. This time to go and meet some members of a local tribe. I wasn't particularly thrilled about this part of the tour, feeling that it was perhaps a little ...colonial and exploitative; parading us around this relatively primative tribe, oohing and ahhing at their grass skirts and shitty little home-made crafts and rudimentary hunting techniques and all that, but I did pay...quite a lot for this tour and didn't really want miss any part of it; especially a bit so awkward and unwanted that it was almost guaranteed to generate some dynamite blog-content, so I bundled myself back into the boat and headed off to tribesville.

We arrived at the small village and were directed to sit down inside, what I assumed was the main hut. We had been joined by another, different tour-group for what was about to ensue, which I was uncharacteristically thankful for, as it, at the very least, would dilute some of the attention that our group would get. After a brief talk on the tribe from Alfredo, which didn't exactly blow me away with any fascinating insight into their way of life (they're farmers who grow rice and bananas, they hunt for their food and use blowdarts), we then got another small talk in the tribe's native tongue from the chieftain; short, stern and stocky man, wearing a grass skirt and a large ornamental headdress, who was, hilariously, just called Richard, who essentially just went over the same things as Alfredo, but in a language that seemed to only consist of three independent syllables.

The tribe then demonstrated two of their traditional songs, both of which were accompanied by a dance, with which we were invited to join in (an offer which every single member of our group declined)

Not this guy, though. He was fucking loving it.

and both of which, with the best will in the world, were a bit shit. After a gruelling and genuinely awkward few minutes, the music abated and we were led to a different area to try our hand at blow-gunning, which, I'll be honest, I did rather enjoy, despite myself.

P-tew!

with no time to enjoy my definitely 10/10 blowgun prowess, we were directed immediately to the tribe's market stall, in which we were expected to spend our money on various bits of, to be totally honest, absolute garbage, which the tribe had made. Sam had brought very little money with her and I hadn't thought to bring any, at all, so we had a quick look around to see what we could buy with fifteen soles that was something either one of us would actually like and we weren't just buying because it felt awkward not to. It was then that li'l chief Richard approached us, his hand outstretched, rubbing his thumb against his middle and fore-finger – the international symbol for “give me money”

“Para la musica” he told us. For the music.

Great. Now apparently we had to pay for enduring their shit music which wasn't good and which I didn't enjoy listening to. Perfect. We (Sam) handed him five of our soles and he looked disgusted with us. We (Sam) apologised for not giving more and Richard walked away, unspeaking. I don't care if you are in some jungle tribe with all different culture and everything, rudeness is rudeness. Fuck you, Richard. Prick.

Now feeling a little like what little shine the experience had possessed, previously had very much worn out, we continued being made to browse the tribe's wares, until we finally succumbed to pressure and bought ourselves some tat.

Glad I spend money on this sweet little number

With everyone's pockets now entirely emptied and the lines on who was exploiting who blurred beyond all recognition, we loaded ourselves back onto the boat. Also, a little side-note here, but it was at this point that I watched a portly lady who was on the other tour, lean out of the window of her boat to take one final picture of the tribe, though instead managed to let her phone slip out of her hands and straight to the bottom of the river; an act which I singularly enjoyed infinitely more than I had the last hour or so of tribal interaction and having my money guilted off me. They should genuinely employ someone to do that on every tour, because, honestly, I nearly enjoyed it as much as Monkey Island.

Our next stop was one I could be fucked with almost as much as the previous; piranha fishing. I'm not a huge fan of fishing, to be honest, because I don't really like killing things (although, being in the Amazon does generally make you a little kill-happier. There was no way in hell I was going to scoop up each individual fire-ant on a bit of cardboard and pop them outside on the bungalow's windowsill. It was the boot for them), but we were told by Alfredo that the lodge's chefs would cook up what we caught and we could have them for lunch, which did remove some of the grey morality which which I was struggling.

Turns out I needn't have worried about any of that, though, because I was fucking terrible at Piranha fishing and didn't land a single catch. I couldn't get them to stay on the hook, no matter what I tried and more than likely emptied our group's reserves of spare bait, single-handedly in the process, like the saint I am. Sam, however, being a salty Geordie fish woman, was great at it and caught, as she kept boastfully reminding me of, as if ending the lives of innocent little snappy-boys was something to be proud of, no fewer than four fish. Five, actually, but one wasn't a piranha and was therefore too small to bother cooking (it was, however, too badly damaged to go back in the water and so had to be stomped to death, anyway. What a monster she is.)

After a while, even Sam's bloodlust was sated and we unanimously decided to pack in this whole fishing lark and go back for lunch. I got back on board the boat, over the piranha infested waters as carefully as I have ever done anything in my life and we returned to the lodge for what would be the final time.

We were afforded enough time, once back, for me to have another nap, which, at this point were the only things making me feel even vaguely alive or human, in any sense, before being served our last lodge supper. More mashed potatoes, jungle-beans, the piranhas Sam caught and a big chunky fillet of another, different (and anyone with tastebuds would say) better fish called Pacu and which looks like this

...yummy

I am told that this all tasted quite nice, but by this point, the flu had cruelly taken away my senses of both smell and taste, so I had no idea. I could just about make out that it was very salty, though, so that was something. Small victories.

With that, our jungle experience came to a close and after a strangely intimate hug goodbye with Alfredo, we and the Indian couple (who were the only other guests not booked to stay any longer than a single night) were plopped back on our boat and ferried upstream back to Belavista. A trip which I spent nearly the entirety of asleep, which I like to think was because I had grown so comfortable with being in the jungle, at that point, that I could relax fully in it, but more likely was because I had just been crumpled into a ball of misery and fatigue by my flu over the previous three days. Overall though, being in the jungle was a surprisingly good experience and one that I might even consider doing again at some point, should the opportunity arise. A solid 9/10, except for, as I've said, the fire-ants which can go fuck themselves.

Back on terra firma, we were wizzed via tuktuk first back to the company's headquarters, where we finally parted ways with the Indian couple – hopefully actually to never see them again this time, and then to our new AirBnb, in which we would spend out final few days in Iquitos.

Our new AirBnb, as it happens, was actually a collection of luxury riverfront apartments, in which, we had unknowingly booked the nicest room. We were checked in by the receptionist, Diego, who looked the spitting image of a brown Zach Woods and who was incredibly welcoming and helpful to an almost snivelling degree (not entirely unlike every character Zach Woods plays, now I think of it.) Diego explained everything there was to explain about the apartment in frankly laborious detail and, after dropping this info-dump on us and bidding us welcome, asked us point blanc

“what's my name?”

I suppose this was as some kind of test to see if we had retained the information he had just said, rather than a test of politeness, or some weird ego-trip. Regardless, I did not remember what it was. I was hard-humped with flu and generally disregard someone's name the first three times they tell me it, even when it is someone I know I'll actually see again.

“...What's. My. Name?” he repeated.

I laughed and told him I'd just be in the jungle for two days, so I'd forgotten. This seemed to be an acceptable enough answer for him and he immediately flicked back to his friendly, helpful self, creepily seamlessly. The entire interlude was really quite odd, totally out of keeping what the rest of what I'd seen of his personality and I'm almost certain, a preamble to my own murder.

Doing our best to put whatever psychosis we had just witnessed behind us, we settled in to our new digs. This apartment, a penthouse suite overlooking the Naney river, was about as different from living in the jungle as it was possible to get, and let me tell you, the change was one hundred percent welcomed by me.

The view is spectacular

...I mean if you’re into things like that.

The bed was comfy, the fridge loaded with pre-cooled water bottles, the kitchen fully stocked and the entire apartment almost entirely bug-free, due in no small part to its remarkably effective AC system, which really did turn the flat into a little icy paradise of excess, amidst a sea of poverty and sweat.

We couldn't quite settle in fully just yet, though. Sam insisted that we make a quick outing to the supermarket, because apparently she needed shampoo and apparently wasn't willing to go alone, for fear of being “mugged” or “abducted and killed” by a “crime man”, which to be honest, I felt was very selfish of her.

For the final time that day, then, I dragged what was left of my body out through the streets of Iquitos, to the supermarket and back, before finally being able to collapse onto our exceptionally soft airbnb couch, to eat a modest dinner of a single sausage and a couple of minty biscuits, while watching the Peru episode of an Idiot Abroad - because watching someone else suffer through what I just had was really the only thing that had the capability of making me feel any better at that point – and then heading directly to our comfy, comfy bed, which I believe I must have fallen asleep in, before my head had even touched the pillow. I have never been more done.

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