Elysium

Chapter 4: Fireflies

The next time I remembered waking up, I was lying on a cot, which seemed man-made. It consisted of a hammock between wooden legs. In the room around me, there were strange funnel-like objects hanging around from the ceiling, and only after a long study I realized they were traps for insects. The air would have felt still if there wasn't an occasional breeze from a window somewhere behind my head.

My leg was again bandaged, but I no longer felt the earlier pain. Maybe the mahi medicine man had, after all, known his business. But why everything around me now seemed something built by humans, rather than mahis?

The first to come and see me in the room was Vixen – the girl I had met earlier, when we'd been brought to the village. She looked stunningly beautiful, especially now, in the aftermath of my unconsciousness.

"How's it going?" she asked.

"I'm alive", I said.

"That's great", said Vixen. She studied me with gentle eyes, which had a hint of restrained passion. I preferred looking at her rather than the room, so I noticed her shirt was different from last time when I had seen her. This told me time had passed.

"Where are my companions?" I asked.

"They're here", said Vixen. They weren't in the room, so 'here' probably meant the village. "You slept long."

"How long?" I asked.

"A couple of days", she said vaguely. "No problem. One of your friends was here with you for most of the time."

"Who?" I asked.

"The boy with black hair on his forehead", said Vixen, and lightly moved her own black hair from her forehead.

"Roland", I said.

"Yes, he", said the girl.

Vixen sat down on a stool next to my cot and lifted one of her legs on her thigh. "You want tea or something?" she asked.

"Sure I want", I said. "I guess I was quite sick."

She stood up and got a wooden mug, which she pushed to me. I drank greedily, and immediately finished another cup.

"Drink a lot of water", the girl said. "Over there, on the back shelf, there are filled bottles. I will go and tell your friends that you're back with us."

*   *   *

Having drunk both tea and water, I felt much better. I stood up from the cot and tried walking. My leg hurt, but it was not useless. I would just need to be careful not to open the wound again.

I carefully stepped to the doorway of the hut, closed from sunshine only by a curtain made of something like bamboo. Beyond it there was a sandy yard, a couple of reed huts and clay mounds, and behind them the edge of the forest. A big black bird was treading with dignity and some gloom on the no man's land left between us and the forest. What was it called, again, urubu?

As I screwed my eyes in the dazzling sun, a strange procession appeared from the direction of the forest edge. The most significant member of it was a white man dressed in dirty white gown, with grey yet curly hair spreading as an untamed jungle around his reddened face. Sharp blue eyes sparkled behind rounded spectacles. In his hands, the man carried many boxes and funnels hanging on some kind of strings, and in his back, a backpack with a butterfly net attached to its side.

On the man's tail, a troop of half a dozen mahi children gambolled and pranced around, all naked with their copper-brown bodies, jumping and laughing at every movement of the funny white-gowned giant.