The dream beckons. Go to the Norte. So many reasons not to go, many more calling out otherwise. They go, column-like, waves smashing up against rocky shores.
Beach life, bleeding caravans, each hour uncertain in hopes of finding economic solace.
No answers come rushing as though an early morning sun lit Caribbean tide might, as it bubbles, seethes up onto the pock-marked volcanic ash beach, the brilliant sun rising just above the western horizon to my sharp right.
Some were frying eggs that those kind people on the road gave us on the side of the hot to touch blacktop.
Straight out there somewhere is Florida, straight out, though perhaps you have to go through Cuba before reaching Florida. Need a map. No, we won’t go through Cuba.
At what point did we lose the compass points? At what point did we stop searching? At what dismal point did we stop tilling the ground, turning the earth, breaking the surface to see what there was or is. When did we cease forward motion, or was that sideways or backward motion, it doesn’t matter. And in the passing small stalls there full of treasures and opportunities now going mostly unseen and forgotten, having never been found. We wonder then what is the point, what do we want to do with it?
They said: ‘Get a job.’ And so we started in that direction.
Staring out over that small surf, bright sunshine, an almost blinding intensity. Smell the brine in the air, in the gentle rollers, crabs, little ones darting here and there as though in musical chairs as each wave recedes, they reposition, and if lucky do not get picked off by the mean, long-legged, sharp-beaked birds harvesting the little guys as fast as they can. Be humorous if it weren’t so deadly, in a flash, you are alive taking part in the free for all mad dash to a new hole several feet away as the water threatens to come again, you hold your luck close to your little crustacean chest that you will not be picked off and off you go!
Madness in a shell! Running like hell, and these monster birds overhead tracking you down, gonna get you, you little bastard, gonna eat you! But why so mean? Crunch, crunch, and you’re gone in a microsecond. My guess is that it’s so quick that the pain level, pain experience must be so little. Of course, the way to take measure of this is put myself out there, this human, on a beach, and create a creature the size of a small house that has the speed almost of lightning and is stalking me!!! Not very good odds for any lengthy survival, but then what is the life span of the tiny crabs? But what’s the point in asking, it’s a life span all the same…
The surf washed out, releasing the water hold over my little escape tunnel. And for some damned reason, I have to move! Shit! I don’t want to move! But I have to, as everybody is moving, like mad hatters, like crazy, death intent beings, run, run like lightning pal. But why? It’s like the behemoths on those beaches of Normandy. Intentionally running into shredding walls of cutting lead. Yes, we know of this.
Why can’t I do things just a little differently from all my fellow species, literally dashing out into their fates of almost certain death? Just stay put, damn it. Ah but then, things wouldn’t be the same now would they? Not long ago a rebellion community hunkered down in mass decision as the wave rushed over, they did not move, all perished.
I think though that our earliest experiences a zillion years ago taught us that if we do not make that crazy dash out of our temporary sanctuary as the water recedes, something causes the whole thing to cave in on top of one. We are looking for sanctuary. Another way of dying, then. No fun. Yes, that’s when we eat! Better to join in the game man, run like hell. Who knows, no doubt there’s something to be gained by what seems an aimless zig zagging all damn day long!
What happens at sunset?
In other words, if you’re one of those little critters that after say three years, our life span, you are still alive but have lived to the ripe old age! Still, dodging the sharp beaks on the beach!?
Is there such a thing as accumulated knowledge then? You know, do you get so that you can almost predict how the predator bird will try to track you down? Kind of like an old baseball player, after years in the Majors! You get so you can almost, almost predict, but never quite, the pitchers’ next toss.
Yeah, what about night time, do you get a night’s rest or at night is the hunt of another kind on? Maybe you’re evading other kinds of ground creatures. Try to imagine, I tell you. Amazing how the mind works!
Then there are the strangest ones of all who tromp off the dry ground to the water, and you are one very unlucky sob if one of those behemoths steps on you, squash city, done. Those are the ones who always leave things behind, like towels, sandals, empty cans. I don’t see anything chasing those big bastards around, do you? The sound they emit has no logic, no rhythm. Just noisy and hurts my ears when they’re too close.
They emit unpredictable smells, sometimes the stench overcoming. How do they come up with so many odors? Worse than the furry, four crawlers with swinging tails, at least these guys make consistent sounds, growl, woof, woof, like that. But beware, the furries are deadly if they take a notice of you!!! They suddenly turn on you and excitedly start snorting through hell and high water to get at you and though they seem incredibly short of any intelligence they can kill you, bad luck and you become a snack that lasts for a second.
The furries seem to associate with the behemoths, they tend to hang together, no doubt, as they will stage under large, portable umbrellas, one of the many accoutrements they drag about with them, and the two kinds settle near one another. Yes, there is a sort of sickening association betwixt the two, the behemoths will stroke the furries, it’s a bit hilarious because for us it’s easy to see that all the furries have on their feeble brains is food, see it in their eyes and goofy smiles, something to eat. Not like us who running from hole to hole is a game, a wildly exhilarating and yet gut churningly deadly game, which is what makes it entertaining. I think our running has something to do with our ability to breathe.
The old ones do not care to explain.
The other day a youngster asked why we run from hole to hole and die when we might be able to sit still, do immediate repairs, and carry on. No one had a chance to respond. A long beak plucked the youngster away, dumb ass.
The other light, an elder, rare indeed as she was so old, was run over unceremoniously by a rolling round fruit. As far as anyone could see it had nothing to do with a behemoth, I say this because of course most unusual happenstances can be ascribed to something utterly unexplainable that one of them does.
Amazing, and seemingly so, so, smart. I mean, sure, other forms do unexplainable things, say for example the dead-meat eaters, big black ugly flyers with hilariously grotesque heads who only and I mean only eat dead, stinky forms, the older the better will all of a sudden and in an instant gobble up a mover, absolutely, I’ve seen it myself. Even the poor and pathetic little sal bugs are not safe from them. A sudden, downward plucking and the big bird has the sal bug as it shakes its big, black, and fleshy head, its dewlap wiggling back and forth with energetic chewing and swallowing. Chomp, chomp, gone.
Then there was the young woman; Maria Elena, part of the fee the coyotes said. After that, she stayed behind. Eyes once joyous, hopeful, now vacant, staring at nothing. Didn’t bother to erase the wrinkles from her once pretty, baby blue sundress. Live in the story the old one told me.
But yeah, a rolling green came bounding out of the dry area, from near the massive structure where the behemoths seem to hole up for the night time. I still haven’t figured out just what they hole up against, I think from their own kind; certainly they do not fear the huge, four legged grass feeders. It could be that’s when they multiply, as at night we hear all manner of noises and celebration coming from within. A constant, rhythmic sound to which they seem to respond.
A rolling green came out and caught the old matron unawares, squashed her complete, the little black ants found her almost immediately, they thought they could eat her before a flyer came upon them, they were wrong, none of us have seen them since the big white flyer picked her up along with a passel of ants, god knows to where careless.
Thought: they must have had the chance to test the ancient theory and proven several times, the oft stated fact that an ant can free dive from white fluffies, and land virtually unharmed!!!
Hard to believe, yes, just like it’s so hard to believe that the sky fire streaks during rain storms often come up out of the ground!! Yes, I’ve seen it. My brother Arkm refuses to believe this, a bit challenged. Anyway, they say that after the ants hit the ground that there is dizziness and a head ache and perhaps some air sickness of course but they land, breath and soon are looking for family and friends; maddeningly returning to work, ass holes… Some ants tell of having flown amongst live fish!
Then so many stories abound of those ants who found themselves aloft, up there with the white, massive rain holders, hanging on for dear life to the belly feathers of flyers of one kind or another. Only to lose grip, and a wind takes them further away and the chain of communication has reached us of known ants who went lost many lights ago only to resurface on the shores of the Big Waters on the other side of the landmass!! These messages are brought by the long-winged pirate flyers that can out glide and outsoar even the big eagles.
There was the case of the pirate bird who brought a piece of coconut husk safely holding several ants!! Here on the beach, their families confirmed their identities. They had disappeared many nights before. Nothing like solid proof.
Not so with one of us heavier crabs though the theories haven’t been tested sufficiently, something about our weight compared to say an ant, which almost floats, where for us it’s a heavy fall, ouch. Also for the behemoths, the countless incidents over time periods, ever since they arrived on large wooden ships! Yes! Some of our ancestors arrived on those damn vessels, staying hidden from the terrible, whiskered, toothy, dark dwellers and once arriving vanquished the lesser creatures on the beach!!
Yes! So where ever a behemoth can reach tall heights in search of say food, in this case maybe, round green ones, they will invariably fall and create quite a scandalous and raucous stir. Other behemoths come rushing out of their structures and assist the broken one. One story was of that old behemoth who drank something and climbed and fell and when he hit he moaned and groaned. His inner structure showed through the ugly covering they have. Some die. The behemoths build big structures and will eventually fall from them!!! Amazing. How in the world can that happen? Why in the world build a tall thing when one can fall from it? Compounded stupidity.
‘Vamonos muchacho’. Someone speaks gently, a hand touches my shoulder. The police patrol has passed us. Quickly dismissing secret tears with the back of my hand. My home, a hut on the Caribbean beach at Tela Bay, Honduras, now a distant dream, disappears as well, the mind, my refuge; as we begin our next mad dash towards the Norte and uncertain future.
