Flesh Totem

by Peter Duran


June 11
[...]
In the lowlands of Irkyan Dohya there is a certain village where it is always night. Any native will admit it, whether high- or lowlander, but few will gladly provide more information than this and most indicate that they know nothing of its location, or the reasons for or causes of the alleged anomaly. In the highland villages, particularly, those confronted about "Kiryan-nohi", "the empty place" tend to divert the conversation to the week's taro harvest or a newly pubescent relative, and further inquiry becomes exceedingly difficult. The opaque origin of this myth has eluded me thus far, but here in the lowlands I shall remain, amidst the sweltering murk, until some light is shed on the matter.

It is the sort of place where one is glad of a grub in the sago meal, where mosquito nets are useless and where a chance encounter in the leaves is followed by quick, stammering bursts--names of ancestors!--in the hope of one point of commonality, but one reason to refrain from promptly firing stone-tipped arrows or gouging stone-tipped spears as a point of sheer necessity. The ignorance of those farming a mere few miles upland is complete, a fact not likely to change in the foreseeable generation; were the soil, forever oozing with life and death, remotely tillable for taro, for tapioca, for yam, the nourishment (or, malnourishment) of choice would remain: the sago palm. This tree is both the source of spirits and the purging thereof, just as it is both culprit and cure of physical ailments; its leggy frame is carved into images of demons and protectors, even as its innards are pulverized to produce the gravelly pulp that is the very life of this people.

[...]

I write these things to you, dearest Celeste, not to frighten you but rather to ease your mind about the nature of these--and further, to help to you understand why I continue here, and why I must stay still longer. Nasty cannibals, indeed! Nothing could be farther from the truth, as one look at these poor, tree-fed souls would tell you. The violence is limited to intertribal rows that are so auto-historical, so engrained as to be almost programmatic. Fear not for me, as my reserve tins of dried ham and iron supplements should last the better part of two months. My body of research is pitifully incomplete, and must continue for our own sake. I will send correspondence once every week as time allows, and will remain
Yours affectionately,
Phillipe


June 23
I regret, dear Celeste, not affording you a letter before now, but such are the ways of the jungle and its kind--slow, distractable, unpredictable and yet quite decisive. We set to circumvent the southeastern edge of the island by sea two fridays ago, in bark vessels of notably primitive construction even for these regions. Upon attempting an upstream run at the Irkhuynik delta, the skins of two of the vessels crumbled like paper pinwheels. Mine was among these; the bulk of my provisions was salvaged, however, one satchel and the case containing candles, quills, papers and--alas!--inks, was lost, likely sunken into the sediments or washed to sea. I have had to send for inks and, moreover, spectacles, which slipped away during the confusion, but these have been only the start of my sorry delays. Stranded on the coast, my team was forced to set up camp while one of the two guides took the remaining vessel to send for further assistance, promising to return in two days. He did not, and on the morning of the fourth day the party began a careful plodding upstream in search of a ford, as we had foolishly camped on the side of the river opposite our intended destination. The floodplain seemed impossible to skirt, as the rains were constantly raising the levels of water and sediment; we found dry, if uneven land to rest that evening, but the exposure of our limbs to the muddy waters had been long and sure enough, and the following morning my ankles were bloated and teeming with maggots, visible under the skin but too minute and many in number to merit attempts at removal (though I relieved some of the fluid in my ankle with a scalpel.) Even now as I write, I can feel the growing worms under the skin of my feet and toenails, writhing and feeding on my flesh; soon they will emerge new and changed beings, some of which will be destroyed, some of which will free themselves. But for now, they feed...

[...]

This band was altogether different, though, as might be expected, entirely unhelpful in directing my men to any location they were familiar with. Of some note were their interactions, in a distinct and unintelligible dialect (incomprehensible to all but the two remaining trained guides.) Tolgkunya-ho was clearly distraught by what these hunter-gatherers were telling him and the other man (whose name I have not yet grasped) glanced briefly in my direction with a certain alarm. I speak of this moment to illustrate a fine example of why I am here--the characteristic ease with which these people are disturbed, upset, or frightened. Needless to say, the insights gleaned from these superstitious savages may be invaluable for men of our discipline, and bring us one step closer to an understanding of our condition [...] From this place, as welcoming as could be expected, I write with berry ink from the kyuka shrub--crude, yet, I trust, sufficient--and with the hope that these words of comfort may soon reach the city and be on their path across the ocean to your hands.
Yours,
Phillipe


July 1
[...] and the first evidence of real promise; I expect we are on the right track. If the sciences are not another form of mere belief, as the dogma of spiritists and religious men, I stand as first apostate; if they be, then, pray may I be the first apostle! That my quest for evidence may be a crusade for truth; my data, a veritable eucharist; my life a sacrifice--if these shadows claim me, may I be known as a martyr for progress, a missionary of meaning! [...]

-P.


July 10
[...] and were led astray, remarkably, back to our point of origin, where we laid camp four nights ago. Four days lost! Repugning my compass leads, Tolgkunya-ho led us to an impasse of swamp, requiring us to circle back [...]

[...] snakebite, took the young driver's leg. Naturally I immediately attempted to apply a tourniquet, but this was a struggling affair over the better part of two hours, as the poor devil convulsed like some rabid beast and the other men refused to approach him, much less assist me, and by the time the belt was tightened the man was weary from venom worked to his heart and beyond. He was no older than sixteen, with three children from two wives. That night, he asked me to cut him with my metal blade. He was too weak to use stone and the others would not speak to him, believing him possessed by evil; such poisonings are consequence of making a pact with a wight, earth-demon, tree-demon or sky-demon. Amidst his animalistic howls we moved camp and left him under a sago, to which his soul would rise; but that night the majority of his flesh would be eaten by possums.


July 21
[...] surely lost, and uncertain of our proximity to a village port with communication to the urban center. The season of the rains seems to have arrived early, delaying our progress significantly; the evening insects force us to seek cover, and the midday heat waves flood the eyes with salt sweat, the lungs with water and the vision with dreams and delusions; our energy is low and we gain but a few hesitant miles on some days; some of the men speak of a curse. What I can promise is to continue to record my letters to you, in sincere and cautious hope that they are spared--by the sporadic ruthlessness of the skies, the cancerous mildew, the termites in their haphazard imperialism--and be sent soon. I ration my remaining provisions wisely, eating primarily what my men procure from the mud or decaying snags or occasionally the canopy. There is hardly a large edible beast in this country--though a primitive, slippery fish may be speared in the rivers, if a man can spare several hours and the skin on his feet...of this, then, there is one moment I would--indeed, I must--relate. Some nights ago we trailed what Tolgkunya-ho swore (by sound) to be a boar, separating in a slow attempt to surround the elusive beast. It was likely the third hour of the hunt, when I recognized that fainting was imminent and I would need to find solid ground immediately rather than work my way back to camp in the utter blackness of the deep jungle, that I heard a low vocal huffing, almost certainly belonging to a mammal. [...] and, impossibly, stumbled through my delirium into a clearing in the swamp where something remarkably large was splashing around unafraid...I hollered for backup and aimed my rifle as steadily as I was able, then fired the unresponding trigger, caked with swamp grease, and tripped forward over the writhing mass of flesh...what lay beneath my eyes, squealing and grunting in the mud, was a human girl, in appearance of eleven or twelve years of age, and two impossibly wrinkled old men, one above her, one beneath. All glistened with the oily essence of the swamp with which they were covered, and the girl stared up at me, her wide eyes scattering what little light there was, as though I had arrived at the promised land. They continued copulating as though utterly undisturbed; the cries of my men drew closer and, bewildered, I reeled over to find them, stammering in horror that it was not a boar in the clearing, but a girl and two men, but they were gone, with no trace of their thrashing and no scent trail, and my stinging eyes and my swimming senses made the forest seem to float upside down and my stomach released itself by every available pathway and I saw nothing for hours, nothing but those big white eyes in the swamp, as though the eyes belonged to the swamp, as though the swamp itself had eyes, and these were they, and I recuperated quickly and feel quite strong now, yes, in fact I feel stronger than ever [...]


August 17
When Oryan-koh created the forest, they say, it was night. The world was immersed in foreboding dark that seemed never to end. But dark is a stage; a world, a process, just as death transforms itself into blood and breath. The sun, a trickster character of the name Dakyan-oran (or something similar) lay dormant for many ages, sleeping in the bowels of the night, plotting his inevitable birth.

Death, you see, is a trick. Do these men dream of death? Do you, my sweet Celeste, pray tell? When I dream of death, you see, it is not a frightening affair nor the stuff of nightmares, but rather soft, inevitable, resigned, triumphant. It lurks not, nor follows in chase but rather happens upon, surprised, or taps on the shoulder--not to ask permission but to give fair warning! It has nothing at all to do with punishment, vindication, or revenge. It has nothing at all to do with things done or left undone. When feeling the gravy that some men have called "soul" leaking painlessly from the head, from the spilled innards, when seeing the pool forming on the earth around these, it is not as they say: there is no rush of panic or peace, no fear or courage, no white light, no flashing sequence of moments chosen or unchosen, no flooding of dramatic or sentimental emotion, no thoughtful last words. There is bleeding flesh and a soft, inevitable release.

[...]

We feel the decay and transformation all around us, falling from the heavens, and by torch light we can see it: grubs dropping upon us from the canopy, clawed limbs hanging, dripping from the heights. We are in a graveyard of sloths, come away to perish, hanging on yet to branches and vines, flesh decomposing and raining down upon us, giving new life to the substrate, rotting entrails suspended from unrecognizable and ephemeral masses of hair, meat, bone, and writhing larvae. We have arrived.


Undated
Only in the complete dark do visions take on their intended clarity, becoming indistinguishable from reality, if indeed there be such an ontological distinction, or if indeed such a distinction be relevant. It is here, you see, the empty place, village of phantoms, purgatory of pupal men; we have overtaken it or, perhaps more accurately, it has overtaken us in its glorious silence, and there is no way of knowing how long we have lived in this manner, of knowing in certainty which man is which, and which be still of flesh and blood, but here: a man. Which man I know not, but appearing ageless, colorless, and without blemish-- the form, perhaps, of all men! -- speaking, singing, working. He wanted to carve himself into a living totem pole. Not merely by scarification or markings, but by the reshaping of the flesh to resemble, to embody, the new form, the archetype, the perfectly alive, as though he were of soft sago wood. Wisdom is lost on deaf and befuddled ears and still we continued walking, leaving him behind to become what he may, and the world-- the world continued to change before our blind eyes [...]


Undated
[...]
Do you recall the day we found the cat--surely you do. Its abdomen had been flattened by a passing carriage and yet it lived, impossibly dragging its weight along the roadside with the strength of one remaining paw, uncrushed. The other children began tossing pebbles at it in delight, poking it with sticks, dangling it from its hind legs on a branch. Buzzing flies covered its frame, outside, inside. Why did it struggle? Why resist? Finally the children doused the creature in stolen lamp oil and lit it, screaming with pure joy at its writhing and silent vocalizations and we watched from a distance, you and I, the dancing flames from the tree and the dancing shadows of the children around it [...]

There is a force at work here more fantastic than I could imagine. I can feel it, my dear, coursing through my very bones and filling me with life and bright desire. It is the sun, preparing for his imminent glory, his new birth from night's cocoon.


Undated
[...] the others are lost in their darkness and will not understand--but I! How could I not have seen! Surely by now you are convinced, with me, of the truth that can only be known as a living talisman [...] What more evidence could I need? As the man has done, so must I--an end, a beginning! A conscious evolution, and at the same time a fulfillment of purpose, of the precise reason, unknown at the time, that I arrived in this dark jungle, that I might pass through this very stage. Fear not, dearest Celeste! Only by a release of the entrails may the inner pulp of the spirit be released, only by leaving behind the exuvium can the final instar emerge with strength and flight and soon [...] I will descend upon you! I will not forget you and will come, in my new and changed form, to where you await by your bedside and you too will join me -- yes -- we will be joined in the immortal bliss of the complete man...!