The Cuckoo Colloquium

40 - Puso

Black flowers everywhere.

Puso didn't know nature made black flowers, yet they strained like vigilant sentries from the mossy-thick branches and tree trunks that curled up through the canopy in their tussle for sunlight.

He was in the land that time forgot, so why shouldn't there be black flowers?

"Saber-toothed Tigers?" he asked. If caveman-eating predators still lived, this would be the place, no doubt about that.

But the tribesmen, with boar tusks in their noses, and penis sheaths that drew down to their knees, answered him with another series of merry hoots and tongue clicks. Puso no longer thought they were going to eat him, and this was comforting.

When they got to the village, the first thing to greet him were the charred corpses hanging from the nearby cliff face-eerie, smoked mummies overlooking the village. But they didn't scare him. Instead, he took the charred bodies as signs of respect for the dead, perfectly normal in caveman land.

They ushered him into one of the many oval huts, and several giggling young woman, all topless, began to undress him...

What was going on? He'd never seen such bodacious tatas-full, dark, perfect, and so many of them, tantalizing him ... His for the taking? He wanted to nuzzle them like little cushions, kiss them...

When they removed his boxer shorts with the pink hearts, he obliged them with a mighty salute, his blue gem sparkling softly on his Coney Island Dog. The women were impressed, tittering and cackling their primal language as they bathed him with water and sponges.

They strapped on a dried-out gourd, which was long and thin-his very own penis sheath! Then they led him out barefoot to a clearing in the middle of the village, which was semi-ringed by the curious tribesmen, with the children butting and jostling into the front for the best view...

But view of what?

Puso got antsy when the crowd stepped back to reveal one lone teenage boy, standing opposite. He was barefooted, too, and bare-chested, with the flaming red headdress of a bird, and a spotted animal skin around his shoulders. But below, the teen sported Western-style slacks that looked like gold Khakis, with a brown belt.

Then there was a hushed quiet, and Puso watched the boy in wide-eyed dread that he would suddenly whip out a knife, and some perverted gladiatorial savagery, like carve-up-the-tourist, would begin...

Instead, an old man gently drew the two boys together, back-to-back: It was a measurement of height, and Puso won by about an inch, drawing ooohs and ahhhs from the crowd.

This was a big deal, because the men backslapped Puso in felicitations of some great victory over the other boy, who seemed dejected, especially when an old woman removed the boy's red headdress and then placed it on top of Puso!

The rapid events stunned him into a slaphappy ebullience-The land that time forgot had a thing for boy-chiefs, and Puso, at five-foot-three inches tall, had become the chiefest one around!

The women led him back to the hut, and their attitudes had changed-no more sniggering; the boy-chief commanded respect. And they fed him something like jackfruit chips, and he savored the crunchy fruit as if tasting the cuisine of a God, while they applied zebra-like markings to his chest and arms, courtesy of some white paint-like substance, with the result looking authentically chief-like.

He raised his arm to touch the pretty, young woman attending him, and she jumped back in surprise, prattling to the other women in confusion over the boy-chief's intentions-which were, of course, to touch some bodacious tatas ...

Now they were all jabbering, telling the girl that if the boy-chief wanted to sample bodacious tatas, then he got just that ...

Her eyes widened in understanding, and she smiled shyly, stepping closer again, and Puso readied his hand to receive the dark, exotic tata gelatin ball...

More jabbering from outside, and the woman stepped back as two old guys walked in, his senators, maybe. They exchanged more babbling and tongue clicks, and then everyone chortled-the new chief was a randy one!

They led him outside again, but in a different direction. This time they were headed for the largest hut, two-storied, maybe, Puso's new Chief's residence. He walked along the muddy path through the village with a sense of pride and anxiety: Yes, he was their leader-a leader of men, women and children. But did he have the wisdom, the vision, to lead well?

Then he saw it outside the large hut, in the middle of a copse of low-lying trees-an ornate bamboo chair with intricate carvings ... His throne-from which to make decisions that would reverberate throughout his realm ... What was his realm, anyway? He had so much to learn!

The sound made him stop, and the old men on both sides of him jabbered, then pointed for him to take his rightful place on that radiant chair.

But that sound... When they emerged from the trees, the buzzing got louder, and the first few bees flew past him, the giant honeybees, the badass aggressive ones, too...

His throne was close now. Other tribesmen were fiddling with the honeycombs from the hives-which were wood boxes, jumbled about the giant throne like some stone-age monument. Puso could see this, but just barely, because a white cloud had enveloped him.

This was their livelihood, their economy-They were beekeepers. Perfectly natural ...

He took another step, more of a lurch, really, because it had suddenly become very hot, and the two old guys looked at him with surprise.

'I'm a leader of the sting-ey things, and I can do this!' went his mental declaration. 'My status is numero uno! - I will lead wisely, and when I die, like JFK and Churchill, the people will remember me as a good leader, though they'll express this admiration by making me a charred up mummy corpse hanging from the cliff, and I'm okay with that.'

His face began to sweat, though he nodded at his senators with a stern demeanor: They could trust him; he was their champion, the tallest teen of the rain forest, who would rule tough, but fair.

He tried to smile, to reassure, because he had a positive new attitude (the colloquium had taught him that, all right!), he could do anything, and the throne beckoned its new owner like Nini Read's green brassiere -though, for some reason, he was thinking of that guy who flew too close to the sun.

He raised his bare foot for another step ...

... Then collapsed, crumpling at the foot of the bamboo chair, and ending the extremely short reign of the new boy-chief.