Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot
By Erik John Bertel
Copyright 2005, 2009








Publisher
Millennium Writing
PO Box 7
Centereach, NY 11720

Published 2008
ISBN: 0-9822576-0-0, 78-0-9822576-0-9

No part of this novel shall be copied, broadcast, or used in any manner without the express written permission of the author Erik John Bertel or Millennium Publishing

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. This is purely a work for entertainment, and any similarity to any real or fictional person or event is purely coincidental.




Version 1a

Dedication





To My Nancy,

You gave me the opportunity, and that is all anyone could ask.

Your Loving Erik




Prologue

On October 28th, 2004 scientists made an announcement regarding a startling fossil hominid find they had recently made. Their discovery, called Homo floresiensis, was seemingly a dwarf variation of an early human ancestor called Homo erectus, who inhabited the Indonesian Island of Flores some 18,000 years ago. The adults stood three feet tall and they lived on the island with modern humans for thousands of years. Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, the islanders also have a local folk legend regarding a dwarf race of people that they called the Ebu Gogo.

Since the announcement scientist have been in a fervent debate as to whether or not the hobbits, as they were called by the press, were a new species or were, in fact, a group of diseased human beings. Anthropologists are now scouring the island trying to find where Homo floresiensis made their last stand when faced with the continuous onslaught from humanity. This is one account of their rediscovery, and the repercussions of introducing such innocents to our less than brave new world.







The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal after another of previous convictions about our centrality in the cosmos.

Stephen Jay Gould (1941 - 2002)












Sarah's Island


"Why am I here?" Sarah cried aloud to herself while shaking her head against the spiraling winds. To her embarrassment, she observed the two native guides watching her, and she wondered if they had overheard her lamentable outburst. Damn it, she didn't want to create a scene, not now and definitely not during this furious storm. As the dark clouds encircled the boat, Sarah could only look up and silently exclaim, "Just my freaking luck!"
As the guides looked back, they could see that their passenger was uncomfortable, and was doing all she could do to hang onto the side of the small boat. The storm chop was worsening, and the spray washed over the open boat in a continuous, unrelenting shower over the boat's occupants. The small American brunette, dressed in her customary khaki long sleeve shirt with shorts, was soaked from head to toe. When the first spray soaked her shirt, Sarah was initially concerned about giving the guides an unintentional show as the wet shirt clung to her breasts. Now, her only concern was to survive this ordeal. Goose bumps covered her exposed, tanned legs due to exposure from the cold ocean spray, and she fought hard to avoid shivering.
She could hear the boat struggling against the swells, and a dark, pungent diesel smoke poured from the ancient motor. Supar looked back at Sarah, and he observed how sad and lonely she appeared. Sarah, in turn, caught Supar watching her and she managed a small, brave smile for him that said everything was going to be all right.
As the vessel bounced from swell to swell, Sarah refused to relinquish her grip on one of the old rusty cleats. The grey, violent storm was rapidly closing in about the small boat, and Sarah was seriously questioning her sanity for agreeing to go on this research trip in the first place. What sane primatologist would travel in a boat that wasn't large enough for safe passage in a second rate theme park, let alone a vast ocean? For Sarah, all of the scientific research and good intentions meant little to her in the middle of this tempest. It was then that she realized the whole boat trip had become a metaphor for her sad and rather lonely life.
Their journey began earlier that morning with little fanfare as just another routine island-hopping trip. They were traveling from Maumere to one of the many local islands that littered the Flores Sea, and the trip would take a half-day, at most. It was just Sarah and the two guides aboard a small wooden boat that totaled less than thirty feet in length. As they got underway, the two guides were preoccupied with the operation of the boat so Sarah sat alone and busied herself with the updating of her journal. The weather began as a beautiful tropical day, but as they made their way into the open ocean, the clouds rapidly moved in, and the water started to get choppy. She could hear the small motor straining against the waves, and more smoke than usual was filling the pristine ocean air.