My Absentee Mind

Maria stepped off of the airport curb to hail a cab, and jumped into the first one that stopped. “Lower East Side, Saint Mark’s and Avenue A,” she ordered. She slunk into the seat and sighed, watching the traffic go by.

“Rough trip?” the driver asked.

“Sure,” Maria responded. Just my luck, she said to herself, of all the cabs to hail, I had to get the talkative cabbie. She hoped he got the hint, and as he did not respond, it was apparent he had.

 

A few minutes into the slow cab ride, Maria found she was bored. She was annoyed before, but stuck in traffic maybe some conversation would be good. She decided to try and hoped the driver did not take offense she blew him off earlier.

“It was an interesting trip,” she started, and hoped he would bite.

“Oh yeah?” the cabbie had responded, with only a slight hint of interest. Maria could not tell if he was truly interested, but went on anyway.

“I spent a few weeks in the rain forest in South America,” and she started her story.

 

Maria stepped off of the small powerboat onto the beach at the side of the Amazon. She looked at the forest ahead of her, realizing this was going to be a long trip indeed. No roads meant no vehicles; from here to her destination, it was all on foot. Maria felt a prick on her arm, and smacked her arm to kill a rather large mosquito.

She wasn’t even sure why she was here.

As part of her anthropology course, she had agreed to join her professor on this expedition that took her to the heart of no where. Now looking at what lay ahead of her, she regretted ever doing it. In fact she was reconsidering her choice of study. She had some idea that she’d be visiting some remote regions of the planet, but the humidity and the singular pest she had encountered in her first five minutes here were a bit of a turn off.

The boat took off in a hurry. There was no turning back now.

She looked to her left where her professor stood, to discover that while in her daydream he had started walking the path. She hurried after him not wanting to be left behind.

 

It seemed as if they had been walking for days. The scenery never changed: the forest presented a never ending pattern of green against browns and yellows, the ambient sound that of insects buzzing. Maria and her professor came across no other signs of life.

 

This had all started as the result of a map found folded inside an old text. The map was clearly of Brazil, with a crude red mark in a region between two marked villages, a few miles inland from the river. Written below the mark was simply the word “them.” No other information was written on the map, and the source was unknown. This did not deter her professor, and he announced an expedition to the Amazon regardless. None of the other students had taken up the offer, dismissing the trip as fantastical and stupid. Right now Maria was wishing she had listened to them.

 

They walked in silence, although Maria wasn’t quite sure why. She could only guess it was not to attract the attention of any native wildlife, although it was likely such wildlife would avoid contact anyway.

 

A few hours later, they arrived on what they believe was the area marked on the map. With the dense forest around, Maria was surprised to emerge in a wide open field with grass of approximately two feet tall, with several rows of poorly built hovels, of the kind she had not seen built by humans in at least a century. Maria stood, looking on in amazement. On the other side of the hovels were some fields, in which men were working. Or, at least she thought they were men.

The men stood no taller than four feet when erect, but otherwise looked like any modern human, for the most part. Some stood stooped over. Their clothing was primitive, nothing more than an animal skin for both men and women. Women sat by hovel entrances nursing their young out in the open. The children ran around, playing games with sticks: mock fighting and something that looked like croquet, only with rounded rocks instead of round croquet balls.

Maria took a step forward, and stepped on a branch, breaking it with a loud snapping noise. Professor Johnson turned to her and whispered a harsh “quiet!” but it was already too late. The children stopped playing, and searched for the source of the sound. The women yelled, beckoning for the children to return to the hovels, they themselves heading for the doors. Johnson gave Maria a disapproving glance, and attempted to duck low as to not be seen, tugging at her arm violently for her to get to the ground.

She heard the males yelling, a high pitched kind of shriek, followed by a deep rumble. She was afraid she already knew what that rumble was. She took a risk of looking above the grass to find that the primitive looking men had grabbed improvised weapons, most nothing more than large tree branches, and were charging toward Professor Johnson and Maria. “Oh shit!” Maria yelled as she yanked upward on Professor Johnson’s collar to bring his head up to witness the scene. His face turned white as he saw the red men charging, and grabbing Maria’s arm, began to run as well, back toward the river bank. He was unsure if they would succeed, but he and Maria likely had an advantage of modern fitness and dieting that would allow them to keep ahead of the primitive men, but for how long he was unsure.

Even as they were running, the professor had no reservation in showing his disgust with his student. “Did I really need to tell you to be careful?” he yelled at her as they ran. “A most magnificent find, and we are running from it, and likely to be killed!”

After some time, the professor looked over his shoulder to find they were no longer being followed. “I guess we’ll head back,” he said to Maria with great consternation, “This was a waste.”

Maria and Professor Johnson arrived back at the boat, at which point Johnson said something to the boatman in Spanish and they were off. They arrived at the airport a few hours later, and bought their tickets back home to New York. Maria decided she would withdraw from this particular course, while the Professor said nothing to her the entire plane ride.

 

“I’m happy to be back,” she told the cabbie, and had not realized her tale had taken the whole taxi ride to her apartment. “Huh,” was the cabbie’s monosyllabic response, obviously disinterested in her story. She paid him, got out of the cab and retrieved her bags from the trunk.

 

Maria unlocked the door to her first floor apartment. With the hustle and bustle of the Lower East Side, and the noise that came with it, this was one time she was glad to have a first floor apartment. She entered and threw her bags on the floor. Her roommate, Elizabeth was waiting for her. “How was your visit to your parents’ house?” Elizabeth asked.

“Boring as usual, and at least that’s over with for the next few months. They are such a pain in the ass. Fuck, I hate Florida so many old people where they are,” Maria said as she slumped down on the couch.

At least now she was home, and could relax.