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Hearing the
falls, you forget the sweat streaming into your eyes and over your lips,
forget the larval colony in your armpit, forget the leeches draining your
life, forget the mosquitoes and vines kissing your neck, forget most of
all why you are here.
The expedition strung along a quarter-mile
of path finally rests where it can feel the mist and the steam billowing
hundreds of feet above the riverdrop. In the camp, you can barely hear
yourself think; the rainforest grows through your mind. Retreat to a tent
and calculate by six maps exactly where the cataract should be. Eventually,
under the net, you try to sleep but only hear the water descending and
sense undying isolation.
The watercrush becomes the monotony within
you.
*
A scream dissolves
the trance.
Reports
around the camp that a guide's throat has been slit.
What caused the attack? Blackmail? Superstition?
A grudge leading to an argument? Someone asking why are we here?
The killer, unresisting, is dragged into
the night jungle and roped to a tree. The expedition hopes that the animals
will finish this inauspicious affair.
*
Later, head
against a rough pillow of bark, ants traversing the arcs of the ears,
you are relieved in a way and finally allow the falls to lull you to sleep.
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victoria
falls
bob castle
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