Estuary

I took a boat ride upriver through the jungles of Borneo. Pinches of allspice were sprinkled on the sky, and the water was the color of curry paste. Earlier that morning from my comfortable high-rise hotel in Kuala Lampur I imagined the day's journey full of calm introspection, a chance to meditate in the dugout canoe for myself and my men, our only interruptions from howler monkeys or the afternoon calls to prayer echoing in the Muslim hillsides. To my dismay I found the river crowded with fishing boats, shipping boats, water taxis. There were no roads here, indeed, the river was like any dreary interstate.

My cover was as an anthropologist but in truth I was an office temp, off looking for the exotic on seven years of savings. The papers I'd made in Illustrator got me an invitation to a fertility festival, the money got me guides and a boat. It was to be twelve nights in the bush. I supposed I should take the notepad from my pack, make a show of it for my men, but I was irritable from distraction. I closed my eyes and tried to conjure the natives, dancing, drinking rice liquor, their tribal tattoos the only curtains over bare skin.

At dusk I awoke as the boat was jostled onto the river bank. I was seized by panic. This place was unknown to me, unknown to anyone who knew me. The horrors in the darkening canopy were upon me already, coiling on the small of my back. I gripped the sides of the canoe so that I might not thrash myself into the water. My men, leadened with supplies, were following a path toward flickering firelight. A man approached the other way. Before my heart arrested he made the sign for food. The spell broke, and I was assuaged. He put his hand in mine. In the other he placed a can of warm beer.

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