ESCAPE

Homer dreamed of his shop on the other side of the jungle. He had gone to another land of love in the sky, where Kam reigned supreme.

“I love you,” he said in his dreams.

“Mmmm,” he heard her answering somewhere in the night.
Waking up later, he found Kam by the hammock, her silhouette visible in the twilight world of the hut. She muttered words in her language, as the taste of herbs penetrated his brain, and the hammock moved in empty space forever. He waited for some time, his eyes studying the darkness around them while she slept.
He had to act fast, and before dawn came to the outside world. After lowering his legs to the floor, his fingers felt the bumps and cracks on the wall but he couldn’t find a door. He went around the place in a circle looking for that opening to the outside world, while thinking what might happen if she found him amidst the shadows.

They could sell his head for a few bags of coca in the nearest town, or they would eat his entrails with potatoes and soup. Shutting his eyes, he wished Jose could solve his problems, but nothing happened. Then he heard Kam whispering in the darkness, looking like a beautiful ghost somewhere in time.

“I want to go home,” Homer said.

“Home,” she said.

“You have to understand.”

Holding her hands, he took her around the hut, while getting entangled in the cobwebs adorning the place. Then he felt something running down his chest. It had to be one of those spiders living amidst the vegetation, but Kam made everything better with her hands.

“Where is the door?” he asked.

“Door,” she said.

“Where is it?”

Leading him towards the wall, she pressed something and a panel lifted up, the sky full of stars greeting his senses. He had to find his way home as he stepped in the grass.

“Will you come with me?” he asked.

“Home,” she said.

Kam defied the wishes of her tribe, while moving along the path under the light of the moon.

They could kill her for helping him back to the wild, where no one would find them. She gave him a tunic similar to hers, against the wind and some of the mosquitoes infecting the place lost in time.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Kam.”

“I’m grateful to you, Kam.”

He saw her smiling in the twilight, her breasts bouncing under her gown. She could live amidst the coca bags in his shop, while boiling her herbs and talking nonsense forever. Her witchcraft would help the insomniacs of the world.

On arriving at the shores of a river, they saw an enchanted forest under the full moon.

Homer tasted the goodness of the jungle in its molecules of hydrogen and oxygen, as the sound of the drums echoed around them. The Indians had to be looking for his head at that moment in time.

“We have to hurry,” he said.

“Kam,” she said.

“I know.”

Muttering something else, she followed him along the river shore, as the drums chased them for eternity. Homer wanted to take Kam back to the city, even if he couldn’t have the heads.

“They’ll be jealous at home,” Homer said.

“Mmmm.”

“Women will hate you, while men will love you.”

“Door,” she said.

“You are improving,” he said.

On arriving at a clearing, Homer heard footsteps following them amidst the darkness. He had to keep his head in place.

“I’m frightened,” he said.

“Kam,” she said.

He kissed her lips. “You are beautiful.”

They ran through a path in the jungle, the branches of the trees getting entangled in their hair. The Indians wanted to send his head to rich entrepreneurs in New York or other places in the world. Holding her hands, he led her amidst the vegetation around them before the drums stole his mind.

“Where are they?” Homer asked.

Kam looked around the forest, the light of early dawn filling their world with long shadows, while the sun struggled to appear behind the clouds.

“No,” Kam said.

“What is it?”

Gesturing at the sun, she escaped along the field as her hair flew in the wind like a mantle.

“Kam,” Homer said.

He followed her through the foliage, stepping on the puddles left by the rains and scratching his legs with the thorns. Homer expected the girl to come back, muttering some more words in her language.

“Kam,” he said. “Stop playing games.”

The drums went on but Kam stayed away, abandoning him to his fate. Homer examined a few rags she had left on the floor, her scent assaulting his senses.

Kam had taught him to make love in the hammock in the middle of nowhere, while giving him her potions. After moving through the jungle for some time, he saw the mules munching the grass by the shores of the river.

On galloping along the path he had followed with the Indian, Homer found a town with white houses, a big church and a statue of Simon Bolivar. People appeared out of the doors to welcome the stranger on a mule.

“It isn’t palm Sunday yet,” they said.

“I escaped from the Indians,” he told a policeman. “They wanted to shrink my head.”

“The sun has made you crazy,” the man said.

“It’s true,” Homer said.

He led him to the health centre, where one of the nurses took his pulse, while the patients moved away from him. He scared them with his gown and dirty face.

“He must be crazy,” they said.

“Where can I take the bus to the nearest city?” Homer asked.

“It leaves tomorrow morning,” she said. “You won’t need the mules anymore.”

Homer kept Kam’s possessions in his bag, a reminder of his journey to the jungle. He had to forget about the heads for the moment.


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