Revision

The climate had first bothered me, but now it was really affecting me. The humidity and instability of the place were an influence too. The ecosystem itself was something amazing, and there was so much green and variety, and it was beautiful. But its niceness was rubbing off, cause I had sat there, looking at it for…what was it? My stupidity amazed me. Okay, maybe it wasn’t that I was stupid. Maybe it was reasonable to start forgetting about your past and time when the present and the near future completely sucked. And I had been stuck in the present long enough to believe my past to be some sort of dream, anyway. And so as I made progress through the jungle—or I hoped to—I tried hard enough to ignore everything that was molesting me, which was much. The humidity made my clothes stick to my body with such pressure as a lost child, and the heat was something like I’ve never felt before.

I was never used to experiencing heat, because I didn’t have to. I used to live in the city, where the weather was everything but balmy and sticky. If it ever annoyed me, was because it was certainly too cold. Not that that worried me too much. If you’re cold, you might as well stick around in your house and drink hot chocolate and sleep like a bear till cold’s over. Now, that’s something you can’t do with the heat. Unless you’re valiant enough to take off your clothes in whichever place you happen to be, when heat strikes. I looked around. Just dense jungle. There wasn’t anyone around that I was aware of, and so I could take my clothes off…just that I didn’t want. It’s not my fault that I’ve been living all my life clad and I’ve gotten used to it. Not my fault either that I didn’t want to feel all Tarzan-like.

All my life. I sat down on a nearby trunk, and tried to feel its texture as if it were a welcoming and comforting first class airplane seat or something. I tried to ignore its roughness, and the fact that trunks are home to more than a thousand bugs each. Relax, Relax. Then, I think that the live that I’m currently living, I really don’t deserve it. Why did I get did? Bad luck, I guess. Cause I wasn’t much of an awful person. I’m still not that bad, I’m trying to relax despite the conditions I find myself with. I went to church on Sundays, before, and I did social work whenever I was asked to. I think I’m pretty average. Compared to the rest of the world, there are billions of people that give a damn of charity or the less fortunate. I cared, and I thought about them, from time to time. Hell, I did. I was never, too, a great consumer. I placed my socks and shirts in the same drawer, and I never brought crackers or gum just because I felt like. I did my own laundry, and people said I smelled funny. Hey, at least there was no water going to waste.

I was never mean to anyone, except to the people that tried to steal my lunch in the Elementary School. I think about them. What’s of their lives? What have they been up to? Robbers, I say. Because all their money, they ate it, somehow. And so, if robbers, why aren’t they punished? Why aren’t they here with me?

Perhaps the women, perhaps they wanted to punish me. Because I never felt like marrying anyone. Perhaps they are loved me, secretly, and so here I am, lonely and ----.But, no. To marry or not, it is more a personal choice, it isn’t bad, much less a reason to punish someone. Truly, they were probably married already to that someone who’s karma hasn’t been as badass as mine.

Suddenly, I remember. 14 years. 14 years ago, I had been able to live within life, the one deserved. And so I depress myself being logical. In 14 years, millions of babies were born, and hectic infants became notorious teenagers. People died. Someone whose determination is infinite might have been able to cure cancer. Maybe there were people living in Mars already. Maybe humanity had discovered some other long lost place, or invented a bug repellent that actually worked. Perhaps carrots and cows had become extinct, and now people had to find other ways in which they could eat calcium. New elements might have been discovered, cannibalism might have been legalized, and maybe gravity had decreased. Maybe California was known as Lake California, and Miami was now Atlantis the Second. Maybe, my sister had found a man that she loved.

No, she wouldn’t. And I could spend twice the time here, and she’d be getting better at finding men’s flaws. Supposedly, we had many. I’m glad I remember my sister. I admit she was the one, her face, who encouraged all this. The escape, the force, energy and determination I had needed. She had guided until now. But, for the instant present, I was seating on the comfy trunk, trying to find warmth and happiness within my messed head and melancholic thoughts. The last time I saw her, she as 19. She was totally reckless, and didn’t even try to play hard to get, because she was. Studies were 3rd on the list, just beneath party and list-making. Cause she was very organized. I remember once that I was mad at her because I was studying and the odor of a burned surprise birthday cake had filled in the house, my room uncomfortably. It was my birthday, but I had to study. Mom was out, and dad was somewhere working. She got even angrier, and said that she was trying so hard, and that I was being mean to her. She wasn’t the best cook, and everything she did was too just-had-an-awesome-idea improvised. She had the mind, but lacked a bit of talent, as I mention cooking. It was the first goddamn salty cake I’ve ever had.

Now, amid the jungle, I’m too old and wretched to cry in despair. But I think. How I would like for my life and death and resurrection and marriage and graduation to smell of that cake, rather than be filled with never-ending solitude—and goddamn pureness. Heat was surprisingly good when we were at the beach, in vacations, and she would chase me around with some hideous creature at hand, holding it gingerly, as if it were a soft puppy. Somehow, she grew up to be much manlier that me, because I never dared to touch one of those. I would’ve liked to touch them, though, before my death someday. She seldom cried and felt sad, but when she did, it was something similar to like the end of the world. She would bang her head—against her pillow, thank god, but tears flushed down her face for a long time, like an uncontrollable damaged squeaking shower. So unlike me, because I felt sad to commonly, and yet I never cried as much as she did.

This might sound corny. The day, the day it happened, we were walking towards campus, and she accelerated, and caught up with a group of people. I lit a cigarette, and kept going at my own pace, looking nowhere interesting. She’d always been socially capable, but not me. In the park, when the big boys of the time came and menaced us off the swings, I turned around, and walked humbly towards the slide or something. I loved swings. She didn’t, but she wasn’t about to let some obese kid remove her from where she wanted to be.

It was the only time she’d ever injured someone in the physical sense, but the kid was coward enough to run away weeping, and yet good enough to not tell his mom about it. From under the trees, sort of, I crept, and she rolled her eyes and smiled foolishly. I felt gay and incapable, but then again, we have our strengths and talents. We stayed in the swings for the rest of the afternoon.

I was soon distracted by my busy mind, and the nicotine, and sometimes heard shrieking and laughter. I smiled sort of, feeling happy for my sister. I hadn’t notice this car going so slowly, so close to me, right behind me, till it finally stopped and I was somehow obliged to stop too. First, I didn’t feel fear at all. Thinking for the passenger to be some sort of lost tourist (inside a huge black Volvo, right), I peeked inside expecting the dark window to lower down, but the door opened, and I was hit in the leg. Had I complained about this pain louder, she and her friends would’ve heard. But I didn’t.

Taking advantage of my leg, the back door opened and two huge guys lowered from the car, cause it was actually pretty tall. I recalled the bullies in the Elementary, or the wannabe Jocks at college, as if those people were playing some sort of prank on me. Not that I’ve ever seen them worrying completely black outfits, with scar and gloves included. These guys, they growled too. It was weird, but I was dumbfounded. The guys approached me and each grabbed me by the arm, and my muscles tensed as if I was a kid again, stalking the girl I used to like, the blonde one who made me get all tensed. One of the guys, the smaller one, neared his head right next to mine, and said softly; get in the car. So they were like forcing me, believing they looked like nice people to talk to and reason, or something. I shook my head, as if the nice ones would let me free if I didn’t. The inside of the car was darker, and it was creepier too, and there was this other guy seating by the window. He looked at me demandingly, as if about to grab a gun and shoot me or something.

The bullies, one of them kicked my leg, and now both were weak. Thanks, I think of saying, hoping these guys were stupid enough to not know about sarcasm. I am mounted in the car whatsoever, and surprisingly I am not shaking aggressively, like a hungry beast being chained or something.

Seating between two huge guys, and as if there wasn’t enough blackness, one of them placed this scarf-like things surrounding my eyes. Not much trembling or violence neither. I just sat there, my thin body being really squished.