Cycles: The Enamel Decay

Chapter 18 Lancaster

I did not know how to feel as I walked through an Amazonian village. Should I feel out of place (like that creepy man who enjoyed sneaking into all women support groups just for attention) or should I feel scared that they might tear me apart just for being male.

"Don't be scared," the lady said as if she was aware of my aura, "my girls won't harm you." Most of them were about 50 while the others were probably in their early 40s. They weren't old but they weren't girls either.

They sat in groups of about four either washing clothes, drinking beer while sitting against half built wooden houses, or farming. All of them were busy either happily socialising or working except for one woman who sat against a short tree in a somewhat exasperated manner. She wore pants and looked around at the other women angrily. She stuck her middle finger up to everyone who looked at her.

"Who is she?" I asked the elderly woman.

"No one," she responded passively then stopped walking. "Wait here, I need to go get something important. Don't bother the girls," she spat as if I were an untrained dog whose endocrine system was far more developed than his neurological system.

"What girls?" I sassed. She gave me a sharp look then staggered off. I looked at the lady sitting in the corner and she looked back at me in what seemed to be her relaxed face- anger and distrust. I walked over to her but she didn't bother to look at me. "You're pretty brave to be disobeying that old bag," she said. "What's your name?"

"Lancaster. What's yours."

"If you're okay with having a name like that, I guess I'm okay with having a name like Jennifer," she responded.

"I actually believe that Jennifer is a pretty name," I responded.

"A pretty name for a pretty girl? Is that what you're going to say?" Why did women naturally assume that guys wanted to sweet talk them all the way to their rooms? That was not how the male brain worked. Correction: that was not how the male brain always worked. I happened to enjoy casual conversation now and again.

"I was more interested in asking a useful question than attempting to woo you," I told her.

"A useful question? Alright. I have nothing else to do than to wait here for the end of my life so you might as well question me," she responded monotonously.

Well aren't you the optimist, I thought. I paused before I begun talking again. I had to assess whether that was her dark humour or the blatant truth.

Her words did not seem English. It was not that her accent was not understandable- it was just strange. I initially noticed that she did not pronounce her 'r's. She called herself 'Jennifa' as opposed to 'Jennifer' which reminded me of Izle. She did that sometimes as well. Maybe she was Spanish.

"What is this place?" I asked what seemed to be a dumb question when I vocalized it. I was surprised that she even answered.

"It's a safe haven. What else does it look like? An Amazonian tribe?"

"No no, of course not but what do you mean by safe haven?"

"What language do you speak?"

"...English?"

"You're bad at it," she notified me. I was not sarcastic in nature enough to thank her for her constructive criticism. Instead, I nodded politely as a mark of my appreciation. "A safe haven is a..."

"Of course, I know what it means. I'm just not sure what it is that you need to be safe from."

"I'm not allowed to tell you anything but I'm going to die anyway so who cares," she responded. I would have asked about her constant reference to the inevitable but I wanted to know the answer to my initial question before I begun focusing on her potentially gruesome fate. "This island, where the University is set up, is our island. We were all born here therefore we did not work well with the programming; so..."